CHAPTER XX MAIL SERVICE IN PROVINCIAL TIMES IN OUR modern methods of quick delivery of mail which have kept pace with the whizzing trolley car, the extension telephone, the electric button and all the laborsaving and up-to-date inventions necessary to the strenuous life of the twentieth century, it is difficult to realize the patience which must have been the chief virtue of our Colonial forebears in the early days of the postal service. Prior to 1661 all letters in the province were sent by private individuals or by special messengers when official ones were forwarded from the government. At the Assembly held at St. Johns in May, 1661, "an act for the conveyance of letters concerning the State and public affairs" was passed and gives an interesting glimpse of the primitive delivery of mail in those far-off days, when, as Richard Carvel says, "there was more of good will than haste in the world." We shall see that by this act every man was a public messenger if occasion required, and while many circumstances might have arisen to prevent his performing the service in the time specified, there were only two which exempted him from a large fine should he fail to respond. The bill as passed reads: "Be it enacted by the authority of this present General Assembly That all letters whatsoever to or sent from the Governor and Council, or any of his lordships, councel lors or justices of the peace, touching the publik affairs of this Province, shall without delay be sent from house to house the direct way till they be safely delivered as directed, and every person after receipt of such letter, delaying to carry the said letter to the next house above the term of half an hour shall pay for a fine to the Lord Proprietary one hundred pounds of tobacco unless it were delivered so late in the day as that it could not before night be delivered at the next house, or that through violence of wind or tempest it could by no means be sent over the creek or river if any chance to bee between the house where such letter shall be delivered and the house to which it ought to be conveyed; and be it further enacted, that all the Public letters shall be superscribed by the person directing or sending the said letter upon the outside of the said letter thus, viz., to be sent from house to house, and then subscribe his name. This act to endure for three years, or to the end of the next General Assembly." In the year 1678 we find that James Smallwood is appointed "post" to convey all public intelligence in Charles county "from thence to his Lordship and his Council upon such reasonable salary as at the Discretion of his Lordship and Council shall be allowed of during his Lordship's pleasure." The fact that at the same meeting of the Council of Maryland it was ordered that "a fferry be settled at Ashcomb's Plantation, on Point Patience, in Pottuxen River, for wafteing over all publick messages or other persons whatsoever that shall have occasion over the said River," leads us to conclude that a special post for each county had been previously appointed to bear the official mail. Aside from the inconvenience to private individuals under |