Postal Service | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

November 21, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Post Office

“Almost coincident with the issuance by the United States Post Office Department of postage stamps for use on letters and parcels sent through the US mails, in 1847, the Government of the Kingdom of Hawaii, in the reign of Kamehameha III, had under consideration the establishment of an interisland mail service, with a post office department in charge of mails.”

“Up to the actual establishment of the Hawaiian Post Office, which was accomplished through a decree of the Privy Council, December 22, 1850, with Henry M. Whitney as Postmaster, mails arriving at Honolulu from the American States, largely from Atlantic seaboard ports, and of course, coming on sailing vessels, were distributed helter-skelter.”

“Charles R. Bishop, when Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1873, when asked for reminiscences concerning the early handling of mails, wrote on May 23, 1873:”

“‘Your letter of March 6 was duly received and in accordance with your request, which I passed over to Em. Fenard, Esq., first clerk in the post office, he has been kind enough to prepare an historical sketch of, and to copy out the laws relating to the Hawaiian postal system, to which he has attached all the postage stamps now in use here, and all the old ones which are procurable.’”

“‘In 1846-7, when a merchant ship from Boston or New York arrived via Cape Horn, the mail matter was usually poured out from the bags, etc., onto the floor of the counting room of the consignees of the vessel, or of the harbormaster’s office …’”

“‘… and those expecting letters gathered around the pile to assist in overhauling or ‘sorting’, picking out their own, and passing over their shoulders the letters, etc., of those standing in the outer circle.’”

“‘Letters for captains and crew of ships on cruise, addressed to care of ship chandlers, went to their offices; the seamen’s chaplain took those sent in his care, and the remainder for sailors went into the old tea-chest at the Consulate.’”

“‘When the whalers came into port to recruit, their crews made the rounds of the ship chandlers, the Chaplaincy, and the Consulate, in search of news from home, and the old tea-chest was upset and overhauled many times daily while the fleet was in port.’”

“‘Soon after steam communication was established between New York and San Francisco, via Panama, postal regulations were put in force here, which have from time to time been improved, until we now have a well-conducted and convenient post office.’”

“Singularly enough, the efforts of the United States Post Office Department to establish, through contracts, regular mail service between New York and San Francisco by way of Panama, were closely tied up with the system soon to be established in Hawaii.”

“The United States planned to use about $200,000 a year to establish the New York-San Francisco-Oregon mail service. The story is well known.”

“Contracts were let to sub-contractors, among the latter being a Mr. Aspinwall, who had the contract between Panama and San Francisco and Oregon. The overland mail-carrying service on Panama was a separate contract. The attempts to use Nicaragua and Mexico for mail service failed.”

“The steamer California was the first to be put into the service. She was especially built, and sailed from New York for San Francisco, via Cape Horn. Meantime, the news of the gold discovery reached the Eastern states, and a wild rush was made for California, via the American desert and via Panama.”

“When the California called at the Pacific side of Panama, a wild mob of prospective passengers, also mail, awaited her. The ship was crowded, many paying a thousand dollars for a ticket. At San Francisco every member of the crew, except the engineer, deserted to go to the mines.”

“When the next steamer entered San Francisco, she was anchored in the shadow of the guns of a warship and forcible measures were taken to prevent desertions, and. the pay of the crew was raised from $12 to $112.”

“But, while steam was used to convey letters from the eastern states to California and Oregon, sailing vessels were relied upon to carry mails from San Francisco to Honolulu.”

“Likewise mails originated in Atlantic seaboard ports for Honolulu direct. Oftentimes, sailing vessels with mail and passengers, as well as cargo, bound for San Francisco or Oregon, put into Honolulu for refreshments, leaving mail, and also taking mail.”

“It may not be generally known, but the first American troops for Oregon, first saw the Hawaiian Islands, as the steamer Massachusetts, a transport, called at Honolulu and the troops rested before proceeding north.”

“Prior to the use of postage stamps by the United States and by Hawaii, letters were usually handled in this manner: ‘The letter was written on one side of the paper.’”

“‘This was folded from bottom half way to the top, and the top was folded down toward the middle. Then the ends were folded over, say about one-third, so that one end overlapped the other, and sealing wax was then dropped on the junctions and a signet ring made the seal impression.’”

“‘On the opposite side, the address was written, and usually in a corner was added “via Ship Amazon.” This letter was handed in at the office of the ship company in New York, or Boston, or San Francisco, together with the amount of postage required, sometimes for a voyage beyond a certain number of miles amounting to 25 or 40 cents.’ …”

“In the 4th article of the Second Act, April 27, 1846, entitled ‘An Act to Organize the Executive Departments of the Hawaiian Islands,’ is the first mention ever made of the Post Office …”

“… and the regulations adopted in relation to the inter-island mails read that the Collector-General of Customs, and the Collectors of the respective ports of entry, shall be ex-officio, postmasters, and entitled to receive, and open, at their respective ports, the mail bags hereinafter specified.”

“‘The Minister of the Interior shall appoint some trustworthy and discreet person, residing conveniently on each of the islands, where no port of entry and departure is established, to be the postmaster thereof.’”

“The minister was to furnish each postmaster with leathern bags, capable of being securely locked. Then there were instructions about closing mails an hour previous to departures of vessels …”

“… and he was compelled to list each letter and package and retain it, that is, a copy, enclosing in each bag a copy of the list. Then the receiving postmaster was to post the list in a conspicuous place, where the public could view it.”

“When the commander of a foreign ship arrived at a port, he took whatever mail he had to the post office and was entitled to receive from the postmaster for each letter, two cents, and for each newspaper delivered, one cent.”

“Gradually, out of this primitive sort of post office, grew the Hawaiian Post Office, which had its treaty relations, in postal conferences and conventions, with other nations, and the system was made as good as possible. …”

“The above was altered by the postal convention in force between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom, of the 4^th of May, 1870. Two cents was required as postage on each newspaper; pamphlets were 4 cents.”

“In 1865 an amendment was made that no letters should be carried or delivered without postage having been previously affixed, and individuals were prohibited from carrying such unstamped letters for delivery.”

“Ship captains, also, could place a box, properly lettered with the name of his ship and his own name, in which box letters, properly stamped, could be dropped, the captain acting as sub-route-agent.”

“The post office was required to pay all its own expenses. Apparently, a deficit was not permissible. But, if a deficiency did arise, then the Postmaster-General could draw upon the Treasury for the amount.”

“The safe transmission of mails between the Hawaiian Government and the United States of America, previous to the Postal Convention between these two countries, and approved by the President on the 5th day of May, 1870, was provided for in Article 15 of the American Treaty, ratified on the 9th of August, 1850.”

“The first postmaster appointed in Honolulu was H. M. Whitney, who retained that situation from 1850 to 1856, when he established the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, which is now styled the Honolulu Advertiser.”

“During the time of his incumbency, stamps were issued of the denominations of 5 and 13 cents for foreign letters, and 2 cents for papers, all of which were mere digits, and by 1876, could not be found, except in rare instances.”

“Under the administration of Postmaster Jackson, from 1856 to 1859, a large number of stamps of varied denominations were issued, and during his term inter-island postage originated, of 2 cents per 1/2 ounce on letters, and 1 cent on papers.” (JF Woolley, Postmaster; Thrum 1930)

During the fifty years of Hawaii’s independent postal system from 1850 to 1900, the post office occupied three premises: a room in The Polynesian Office (1850-1854;) rooms in Honolulu Hale, situated next door to The Polynesian Office (1854-1871;) and about half of the ground floor in the “New Post Office” (Kamehameha V Post Office, 1871-1922,) situated on the former site of The Polynesian Office.

On June 14, 1900, the Kamehameha V Post Office officially became a unit of the United States Post Office (the year that Hawaii became a Territory of the US.)

June 14, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

1850

“When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1822, she was named Araminta by her enslaved parents, Ben and Rit Ross. Nearly killed at the age of 13 by a blow to her head, “Minty” recovered and grew strong and determined to be free.

Changing her name to Harriet upon her marriage to freeman John Tubman in 1844, she escaped five years later when her enslaver died and she was to be sold. One hundred dollars was offered for her capture.

In 1849 Harriet Tubman learned that she and her brothers Ben and Henry were to be sold. Financial difficulties of slave owners frequently precipitated sale of slaves and other property.

The family had been broken before; three of Tubman’s older sisters, Mariah Ritty, Linah, and Soph, were sold to the Deep South and lost forever to the family and to history.

Despite additional dangers resulting from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Tubman risked her life and ventured back to the community where she was born to rescue family, friends, and others.

The act required the reporting and arrest of anyone suspected of being a runaway slave, eliminated protections for suspected runaways, and provided economic incentives to kidnap people of African descent.

In September of 1850, Harriet was made an official “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. This meant that she knew all the routes to free territory and she had to take an oath of silence so the secret of the Underground Railroad would be kept secret.

Vowing to return to bring her family and friends to freedom, she spent the next ten years making about 13 trips into Maryland to rescue them. She also gave instructions to about 70 more who found their way to freedom independently.

Through the Underground Railroad, Tubman learned the towns and transportation routes characterizing the South—information that made her important to Union military commanders during the Civil War.

As a Union spy and scout, Tubman often transformed herself into an aging woman. She would wander the streets under Confederate control and learn from the enslaved population about Confederate troop placements and supply lines.

Tubman helped many of these individuals find food, shelter, and even jobs in the North. She also became a respected guerrilla operative. As a nurse, Tubman dispensed herbal remedies to black and white soldiers dying from infection and disease.

A lifelong humanitarian and civil rights activist, she formed friendships with abolitionists, politicians, writers and intellectuals. She knew Frederick Douglass and was close to John Brown and William Henry Seward.

She was particularly close with suffragists Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, and Susan B. Anthony. Intellectuals in New England’s progressive circles, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Bronson Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Franklin B. Sanborn, and Mrs. Horace Mann, befriended her, and her work was heralded beyond the United States.

Tubman showed the same zeal and passion for the campaign to attain women’s suffrage after the American Civil War as she had shown for the abolition of slavery.

Harriet Tubman died in 1913 in Auburn, New York at the home she purchased from Secretary of State William Seward in 1859, where she established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery. (NPS)

In the Islands …

In 1848, King Kamehameha III fundamentally changed the land tenure system to a westernized paper title system through the Māhele. The lands were formally divided among the king and the chiefs, and the fee titles were recorded in the Māhele book.

In 1850, a law was passed allowing these “native tenants” to claim fee simple title to the lands they worked. Those who claimed their parcel(s) successfully acquired what is known as a kuleana.

Deeds executed during the Māhele conveying land contained the phrase “ua koe ke kuleana o na kānaka,” or “reserving the rights of all native tenants,” in continuation of the reserved tenancies which characterized the traditional Hawaiian land tenure system. (Garavoy)

Contemporary sources of law, including the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes, the Hawai‘i State Constitution, and case law interpreting these laws protect six distinct rights attached to the kuleana and/or native Hawaiians with ancestral connections to the kuleana.

These rights are:

reasonable access to the land-locked kuleana from major thoroughfares;
agricultural uses, such as taro cultivation;
traditional gathering rights in and around the ahupua‘a;
a house lot not larger than 1/4 acre;
sufficient water for drinking and irrigation from nearby streams, including traditionally established waterways such as ‘auwai; and
fishing rights in the kunalu (the coastal region extending from beach to reef).

The 1850 Kuleana Act also protected the rights of tenants to gain access to the mountains and the sea and to gather certain materials.

The Kuleana Act did not allow the maka‘āinana to exercise other traditional rights, such as the right to grow crops and pasture animals on unoccupied portions of the ahupua’a. The court’s interpretation of the act prevented tenants from making traditional use of commonly cultivated land. (MacKenzie)

Kawaiaha‘o Church Clock

Kawaiahaʻo Church (Stone Church) generally marked the eastern edge of town; it was constructed between 1836 and 1842. The “Kauikeaouli clock,” donated by King Kamehameha III in 1850, still tolls the time to this day.

Honolulu Streets Named

It wasn’t until 1850 that streets received official names. On August 30, 1850, the Privy Council first officially named Honolulu’s streets; there were 35‐streets that received official names that day (29 were in Downtown Honolulu, the others nearby.)

At the time, the water’s edge was in the vicinity of what we now call Queen Street. Back in those days, that road was generally called ‘Makai,’ ‘Water’ or Ali‘i Wahine.’ (Gilman)

Beginning of the Mormon Mission

“The Mormons are said to have commenced their mission in 1850. Their converts are scattered over all the islands. They number about nine per cent of all those who in the census returns have reported their religious affiliations. This mission owns a small sugar plantation at Laie, on the island of Oʻahu.” (The Friend, December 1902)

The Church traces its beginnings to Joseph Smith, Jr. On April 6, 1830 in Western New York, Smith and five others incorporated The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York.

In the summer of 1850, in California, elder Charles C Rich called together more elders to establish a mission in the Sandwich Islands. They arrived December 12, 1850. Later, more came.

Honolulu Fire Department

Alexander “Alick” Cartwright worked as a clerk for a broker and later for a bank, and, weather permitting, played variations of cricket and rounders in the vacant lots of New York City after the bank closed each day.

Rounders, like baseball, is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a ball with a bat; players score by running around the four bases on the field (the earliest reference to the game was in 1744.)

Cartwright played a key role in formalizing the first published rules of the game of baseball, including the concept of foul territory, the distance between bases, three-out innings and the elimination of retiring base runners by throwing batted baseballs at them.

The man who really invented baseball spent the last forty-four years of his long life in Hawai‘i and laid out Hawai‘i’s first baseball diamond, now called Cartwright Field, in Makiki. Cartwright went on to teach people in Hawai‘i how to play the game; and, he did a lot more when he was here.

In Hawaiʻi, he continued the volunteer fire fighting activities he had learned as a member of the Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 12 in New York City – and, he was part of Honolulu’s first Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Shortly thereafter, the Honolulu Fire Department was established on December 27, 1850, by signature of King Kamehameha III, and was the first of its kind in the Hawaiian Islands, and the only Fire Department in the United States established by a ruling monarch. Cartwright was appointed Chief Engineer of the Department and shortly thereafter, he became Fire Chief.

“The ordinance by Kamehameha III, December 27, 1850, establishing the Honolulu Fire Department, required each householder

to keep at least two buckets hanging handy, for fire use exclusively, and further ordered that they be brought to every fire.”

“The bucket part was probably the most effective, as the only other equipment at that time was a hand engine and 150 feet of homemade canvas hose through which, by constant relays on the pump handles, water could be thrown some sixty feet.” (Thrum)

Aside from his duties at the Honolulu Fire Department, Cartwright also served as advisor to the Queen. Cartwright was the executor of Queen Emma’s Last Will & Testament, in which she left the bulk of her estate to the Queen’s Hospital when she died in 1885. Cartwright also served as the executor of the estate of King Kalākaua.

Post Office Established in Honolulu

The first mention of a postal system in Hawaii was an enactment of the Legislature on April 27, 1846, relating to the handling of inter-island mails. It was entitled “An Act to Organize the Executive Departments of the Hawaiian Islands,”

With the US Post Office initiating a regular mail service by steamship between the east coast and California and Oregon, and a subsequent treaty between the US and Hawaii (ratified August 9, 1850) in which an article provided for the safe transmission of the mails between the two countries, the Hawaiian government decided that the 1846 statute governing internal correspondence was insufficient to handle foreign mails.

The Privy Council, therefore, passed a decree on December 20, 1850, and the 1851 Legislature enacted a law that established a Post Office in Honolulu (temporarily in the Polynesian Office). The Council appointed a Postmaster, Henry M. Whitney, and set up rates for renumeration to ships’ captains for carrying the mails. (DAGS)

January 24, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

American Postal Service

Benjamin Franklin and others in his era get lots of credit for the development of the American Postal Service; but, the early colonists should also be credited for the initial framework and early infrastructure for the system.

Early on, American colonists did not view an intercolonial mail system as a pressing need. The sparsely populated settlements along the Atlantic Coast corresponded more with England than with each other, and the few overland trails that existed did not encourage travel between the colonies. (Schurr)

That changed when England’s King Charles II wished his “American subjects to enter into a close correspondency with each other.” (Schurr)

A letter written in 1652, by Samuel Symonds of Ipswich, to John Winthrop, Jr., at Pequot, says: “I cannot say but its besides my intentions that I write not more frequently unto you; I can onely plead this for my excuse (soe farr as it will goe) … and the uncertainty when and how to convey letters.” (Woolley)

Until 1639 there is no trace of a postal system, but under the Massachusetts General Court Records, of that year (Nov. 5th), is the following entry:

“For preventing the miscarriage of letters, … It is ordered that notice bee given, that Richard Fairbanks, his house in Boston, is the place appointed for all letters, which are brought from beyond the Seas, or are to be sent thither;”

“ … are to be brought unto him and he is to take care, that they bee delivered, or sent according to their directions and hee is alowed for every such letter 1d. and must answer all miscarriages through his owne neglect in this kind; provided that no man shall bee compelled to bring his letters thither except hee please.” (Woolley)

The Routing of the Boston Post Road – “Ouer land to Connectecott”

In the earliest days of the New England colonies, towns were surrounded by wilderness. The only roads emanated from the meetinghouse. To the extent the towns were connected, they were connected by Indian trails – a foot-and-a-half wide in some places, across surging rivers in others. (New England Historical Society)

It became apparent that a road was desperately needed between New York and Boston.

Francis Lovelace, is credited with developing what would later be called the Boston Post Road – that led to the first formal postal service. Francis was appointed Royal Governor of New York by the Duke of York. (Chris Stevenson)

Each November Native Americans would “pave” the paths by a process the Dutch termed “bush-burning.” Setting fire to bramble, twigs, and underbrush ensured the paths would not be unpassable.

In choosing his route, he relied on Indian trails: the so-called Connecticut Path running west from Boston and the Bay Path heading into Springfield.

The Colony also grew along these lines: Watertown residents followed the Connecticut Path to establish Sudbury (now Wayland), and Worcester emerged from a request for a town “in the roade way to Springfeild.”

Three decades after his trip, when Winthrop Jr. was governor of Connecticut, he was asked to chart the Colonial mail route between Boston and Manhattan. He used those Indian paths as his blueprint for what would become the Post Road. (The King’s Best Highway, Eric Jaffe)

There are actually three Boston Post Roads, all of which merge in New Haven.

The Upper Road, or the Old Boston Post Road, runs from Boston through Worcester, Springfield and Hartford.

The Lower Road heads south from Boston through Dedham and Providence, then runs along the coast of the Long Island Sound.

The Middle Road, less used than the others, leaves Boston through Dedham, Medway, Uxbridge, Douglas, Pomfret and Coventry to Hartford, then to New Haven through Wethersfield, Berlin, Meriden, Wallingford and North Haven.

Much of the Post Road is now U.S. Route 1, U.S. Route 5, and U.S. Route 20. (New England Historical Society)

First Formal Mail Delivery System

Then, Winthrop’s son, John Winthrop the Younger (then Governor of Connecticut), and Francis Lovelace, Governor of New York formalized the first intercolonial postal system.

In December of 1672, they initiated a monthly post between New York and Boston, which Lovelace describes in a December 27, 1672 letter to Winthrop Jr,

“I herewith present you with 2 rarities, a pacquett of the latest intelligence I could meet withal, and a post … by the latter you will meet with a monthly fresh supply;”

“so that if it receive but the same ardent inclinations as first it hath from myself, by our monthly advisers all publique occurences may be transmitted between us, together with severall other great conveniencys of publique importance, consonant to the commands laid upon us by his sacred majestie, who strictly enjoins all his American subjects to enter into a close correspondency with each other …”

“this person that has undertaken the employment I conceaved most proper, being voted active, stout and indefatigable…. I have affixt an annuall sallery on him, which, together with the advantage of his letters and other small portable packes, may afford him a handsome livelyhood….”

“The maile has divers baggs, according to the towns the letters are designed to, which are all sealed up ’till their arrivement, with the seal of the secretarie’s office, whose care it is on Saturday night to seale them up.”

“Only by-letters are in an open bag, to dispense by the wayes….”

“I shall only beg of you your furtherance to so universall a good work; that is, to afford him directions where, and to whom to make his application to upon his arrival at Boston; as likewise to afford him what letters you can to establish him in that employment there.”

“It would be much advantageous to our designe, if in the intervall you discoursed with some of the most able woodmen, to make out the best and most facile way for a post, which in processe of tyme would be the king’s best highway; as likewise passages and accommodation at rivers, fords, or other necessary places.” (Woolley)

The First Mail Deliveries

The first postal run took approximately two to three weeks, as the rider – traveling 250 miles altogether along mostly desolate trails in the wilderness – made mail deliveries in such communities as New Haven, Hartford, Brookfield, Worcester, and Cambridge before finally reaching Boston. He and subsequent postal riders used axes to mark-up trees enroute to help guide others likewise delivering mail

The Boston Post Road was pivotal in more closely linking what had generally been isolated settlements in the northeastern region of the British colonies and paving the way for similar routes elsewhere along the eastern seaboard.

In the longer term, the segments that constituted the Boston Post Road evolved into several of the first major highways in the United States. (TransportationHistory-org)

Governor Lovelace found his “stout fellow, active and indefatigable” in Mathias Nicolls, whose departure from New York City on January 22, 1673 marked the first official post ride. Nicolls departed from the southern tip of Manhattan with explicit orders to stop at the home of John Winthrop Jr in Hartford en route to Boston for further instruction and to switch horses. (Jaffee and HistoryBandits)

Along the way, the post rider would mark trees to aid others using the path for their own travels. He would also scout good locations for inns and taverns along the way. Nicolls stored letters marked “post-paid” in separate saddlebags organized by destination.

At each stop, he would find the ideal place to deliver the mail while also informing locals of his estimated time of return. Nicolls arrived in Boston on February 11, 1673 before returning south to complete the second half of his journey. (HistoryBandits)

On the first Monday of every month, the postrider was to leave New York and return from Boston within the month.

The first mail was to leave New York on January 1, 1673. Lovelace waited, though, to send Winthrop the latest rumors about a convoy of Dutch warships. The postrider left on January 22, 1673. (New England Historical Society)

Boston Postal Road Mileage Markers

The New England Historical Society clarified that it is a myth that Benjamin Franklin either set out or ordered the Boston Post Road milestones.

Franklin is said to have measured the road himself with an odometer strapped onto his carriage wheel. One of Franklin’s granite milestones still survives on East Main Street – 33 miles from Boston.

The Historical Society says, “It never happened.”

In 1971, Leonard Labaree, editor of the Benjamin Franklin papers at Yale, set the record straight. Labaree wrote that after detailed study of the Franklin papers,

“Not one document in this very substantial mass of contemporary documents has been found to contain so much as a single reference to roadside milestones, erected by Franklin or by any other persons.”

Further, he wrote, Post Office officials had neither responsibility nor budget for building and maintaining roads, bridges, ferries and milestones. The editors of the Franklin papers concluded,

“Milestones were of no particular use to the postal service, for the postriders were thoroughly familiar with the roads they traveled.”

“The convenience of other travelers, on the other hand, was not the Post Office’s responsibility or concern. There seems to have been no good reason why Franklin should have spent time, energy, or Post Office money in erecting milestones, and…there is no documentary evidence that he ever did.”

It is not clear who put them there and when they did it. But many of them along the route continue to incorrectly reference Franklin.

Postal Service “Motto”

Oh, one more thing … the reputed Postal Service ‘Motto’ …

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Again, it is not so. The U.S. Postal Service has no official motto. (USPS)

Those words are engraved on the front of the James A. Farley Post Office in NYC, set in stone by the architectural firm that built it.

William Mitchell Kendall was one of the architects. Kendall, who frequently read classic Greek literature for pleasure. He selected a passage (translated by Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University) from book 8, paragraph 98, of The Persian Wars by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (c 484–c 425 BCE). The Post Office Department agreed that Kendall’s slight modification of the original translation was suitable for the building, and approved it.

During the wars between the Greeks and Persians (500-449 B.C.), the Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers who served with great fidelity. Herodotus wrote (of the Persians),

“While Xerxes did thus, he sent a messenger to Persia with news of his present misfortune.”

“Now there is nothing mortal that accomplishes a course more swiftly than do these messengers, by the Persians’ skillful contrivance. It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey.”

“These are stopped neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed. “

“The first rider delivers his charge to the second, the second to the third, and thence it passes on from hand to hand, even as in the Greek torch-bearers’ race in honor of Hephaestus. This riding-post is called in Persia, angareion.” (Herodotus)

March 4, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mailable Matter

In early colonial times, correspondents depended on friends, merchants, and Native Americans to carry messages among the colonies. In 1639, Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston was designated the first official repository of mail brought from or sent overseas (consistent with the European practice of using coffee houses and taverns as mail stations.)

On July 26, 1775 (shortly after the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775,) the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War,) members of the Second Continental Congress agreed that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United Colonies. That year, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General of the Postal Service.

A couple years later (January 20, 1778,) Captain James Cook, made ‘contact’ with the Islands and anchored his ships near the mouth of the Waimea River on Kauai’s southwestern shore. After a couple of weeks, there, they headed to the west coast of North America.

Like early mail exchange in the American Colonies, following Cook’s contact, mail in Hawaiʻi was handled privately by employing forwarders or by making arrangements directly with a ship captain; most letters were folded inward and sealed so the address could be written on the blank outer side. (HawaiianStamps)

Hawaiʻi and the United States agreed on a ‘Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation and Extradition, December 20, 1849;’ among other things, Article 15 of the Treaty created an arrangement for delivery of mail. (State Department)

“Whereas a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation, between the United States of America and his Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, was concluded and signed at Washington, on the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine”.

“Mail arrangements – So soon as steam or other mail packets under the flag of either of the contracting parties shall have commenced running between their respective ports of entry, the contracting parties agree to receive at the post-offices of those ports all mailable matter, and to forward it as directed …”

“All mailable matter destined for the Hawaiian Islands shall be received at the several post-offices in the United States, and forwarded to San Francisco, or other ports on the Pacific coast of the United States, whence the postmasters shall despatch it by the regular mail packets to Honolulu …”

“It shall be optional to prepay the postage on letters in either country, but postage on printed sheets and newspapers shall in all cases be prepaid. The respective post-office departments of the contracting parties shall in their accounts, which are to be adjusted annually, be credited with all dead letters returned.” (US Statutes at Large and Treaties, 1845-1851)

On November 2, 1850, The Polynesian, “Official Journal of the Hawaiian Government,” announced it was keeping a letter bag open to receive letters and promised to place on board reliable vessels any letters deposited in its letter bag.

By 1850, almost all mail was being sent to/from Hawaiʻi via San Francisco to enter the mail stream there and be carried in the US mail via Panama to New York. (HawaiianStamps)

Hawaiʻi opened a post office at Honolulu and Henry Martyn Whitney (who worked at the Polynesian) was appointed Postmaster of Honolulu (December 22, 1850.) The location of the new post office was at the office of The Polynesian. (Whitney later left the Polynesian and started his own newspaper, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (forerunner of Honolulu Advertiser.))

On June 14, 1900, the Kamehameha V Post Office officially became a unit of the United States Post Office (the year that Hawaii became a Territory of the US.)

In 1922, the United States Post Office was moved to the Federal building and control of the old building was returned to the Territory of Hawaii. It was remodeled as a postal substation and for use as the Territorial Tax office. (NPS)

When Whitney was postmaster, he conceived and produced Hawaiʻi’s first stamps, issued in 1851 (the stamps are now called ‘Hawaiian Missionaries,’ all printed locally by letterpress at the Government Printing Office.

The stamps were in three denominations: a 2-cent stamp paid the newspaper rate, a 5-cent stamp paid the rate for regular mail to the United States, and a 13-cent stamp paid the rate to the US East Coast.

The first three stamps in the issue were announced for sale on October 1, 1851, at the Honolulu and Lahaina post offices. By early April, 1852, the fourth stamp was printed to correct confusion and state clearly the 13¢ value was to pay both Hawaiian and United States postage through to any East Coast United States destination.

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