“That system in time came to be regarded as unsatisfactory, and in
1692, when New York, as it had then come to be called, was still
a quiet village of about five thousand inhabitants, the village
authorities passed an act or ordinance establishing a post office.
This was followed by the founding here, in 1710, of a “Chief
Letter Office” by the Postmaster-General of Great Britain, shortly
afterwards, arrangements were made for the delivery of mail from
Boston twice a month, and propositions were advertised for the
establishment of a post to Albany. The interesting feature of that
advertisement, to us who are accustomed to the speedy locomotion
of to-day, was that the mail was not to be carried by coach, or
boat, or even on horseback, but on foot. The records are hazy as to
the location of the first official post office in New York City,
but according to an advertisement that appeared in a paper of the
period, it was removed in 1732 from the quarters it then occupied
to “the uppermost of the two houses on Broadway, opposite Beaver
Street.” The year 1753 found it still in the same location. It was
closed on Sundays, and at other times it was open for business from
8 A. M. until noon, excepting on post nights, when business was
transacted until 10 P. M.
Annual Postal Receipt Less Than $3,000.
“In 1786, during the administration of Sebastian Bauman, the
second postmaster after the close of the War of the Revolution,
there was a regular schedule for the arrival and dispatch of mails
between New York and Albany and New England, and also between New
York and the South. Mail from New England and Albany arrived on
Wednesday and Saturday in winter, and on Tuesday, Thursday and
Saturday in summer. The income of the office at that time was
$2,789.84. Compare that sum and the income for the twelve months
ended September 30, 1911, when, for the first time in the history
of the New York office, the receipts for any twelve consecutive
months passed the twenty million dollar mark, being exactly
$20,451,172.53.”
Franklin First Postmaster General.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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