The old fashioned tinman’s trade which flourished in Mr. Goodwin’s day when all the tinware in use was made in the local shops, has practically disappeared, leaving only the manufacture of hot air furnace pipes to remind us of the resonant clatter of a tinshop once so familiar to the ear. Mr. Goodwin was born in 1779, and was the son of Timothy Goodwin, who came from Charlestown and married Lucy, daughter of Abiel Shurtleff of Plymouth. His father, who was associated with the earliest postal system of Plymouth, deserves a passing notice. Up to 1775 no post office had ever been established in Plymouth, and at that time there were only seventy-five post offices in the colonies, and eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles of post routes. In the above year Benjamin Franklin was appointed Postmaster General, and on the 12th of May William Watson was appointed postmaster of Plymouth, and in 1790 was commissioned by Washington. On the appointment of Mr. Watson in 1775, a horseback mail route was established from Cambridge to Falmouth, through Plymouth, and Timothy Goodwin and Joseph Howland were appointed post riders, making the trip down and back once in each week. They left Cambridge Monday noon, and arrived at Plymouth at four o’clock, Tuesday afternoon; and leaving Plymouth at nine o’clock Wednesday morning, reached Sandwich at four o’clock on that day, and Falmouth at eight o’clock Thursday morning. Goodwin and Howland divided the route, making the exchange at Plymouth. Until 1816 the rate of postage remained unchanged as follows: for a single letter under forty miles, eight cents; under ninety miles, ten cents; under one hundred and fifty miles, twelve and a half cents; under three hundred miles, seventeen cents; under five hundred miles, twenty cents; over five hundred miles, twenty-five cents. In 1816 the rate was fixed for a single letter not over thirty miles, six and a quarter cents, over thirty miles and under eighty, ten cents; over eighty and under one hundred and fifty, twelve and a half cents; over one hundred and fifty, and under four hundred, eighteen and three quarters cents; over four hundred, twenty-five cents, with an added rate for every additional piece of paper, and if the letter weighed an ounce, the rate was four times the above. The newspaper rate fixed at the same time was one cent under one hundred miles, or within the state; over one hundred miles, and out of the state, one and a half cents, magazines and pamphlets one and a half cent a sheet under one hundred miles, if periodicals, two and a half cents a sheet over one hundred miles, but if not prepaid, four and five cents.