The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Postal Service of the United States in
Connection with the Local History of Buffalo, by Nathan Kelsey Hall and Thomas Blossom

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Title: The Postal Service of the United States in Connection with the Local History of Buffalo

Author: Nathan Kelsey Hall
Thomas Blossom

Release Date: September 30, 2007 [EBook #22812]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE POSTAL SERVICE

OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONNECTION WITH THE LOCAL
HISTORY OF BUFFALO.

* * * * *

READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY, JANUARY 6, 1865.

* * * * *

BY HON. N. K. HALL[A] AND THOMAS BLOSSOM.[B]

No very satisfactory account of the origin and progress of the Postal
Service of the country, in its more immediate connection with the local
history of Buffalo, can now be compiled. The early records of the
transportation service of the Post-Office Department, were originally
meager and imperfect; and many of the books and papers of the
Department, prior to 1837, were destroyed or lost when the public
edifices at Washington were burned in 1814, and also when the building
in which the Department was kept was destroyed by fire, in December,
1836. For these reasons the Hon. A. N. Zevely, Third Assistant
Postmaster-General--who has kindly furnished extracts from the records
and papers of the Department--has been able to afford but little
information in respect to the early transportation of the mails in the
western part of this State. Indeed, no information in respect to that
service, prior to 1814, could be given; no route-books of older date
than 1820 are now in the Department, and those from 1820 to 1835 are not
so arranged as to show the running time on the several routes.

The records