Milestones of the Mail PDF by Lydia Jones

# Milestones of the Mail ## By Lydia Jones ### Pony Express! - Change of Time! - Reduced Rates! - 10 Days to San Francisco! - Letters will be received at the office, 84 Broadway, New York. - Up to 4 P.M. every Tuesday. - Up to 2 P.M. every Saturday. - Which will be forwarded to connect with...

# Milestones of the Mail ## By Lydia Jones ### Pony Express! - Change of Time! - Reduced Rates! - 10 Days to San Francisco! - Letters will be received at the office, 84 Broadway, New York. - Up to 4 P.M. every Tuesday. - Up to 2 P.M. every Saturday. - Which will be forwarded to connect with the Pony Express leaving St. Joseph, Missouri. - Every Wednesday and Saturday at 11 P.M. ### Telegrams - Sent to Fort Kearney on the mornings of Monday and Friday, will connect with Pony leaving St. Joseph, Wednesdays and Saturdays. ### Express Charges - Letters weighing half ounce or under: $1.00 - For every additional half ounce or fraction of an ounce: $1.00 - In all cases to be enclosed in 10 cents Government Stamped Envelopes. - And all Express Charges Pre-paid. - Pony Express Envelopes for sale at our Office: Wells, Fargo & Co., Ag'ts. - New York, July 1, 1861. ### People have always needed a way - To send messages from place to place. - Carrying letters dates back more than two thousand years. - Mail delivery then was nothing like it is today. - People did not have mailboxes in front of their homes. - How did they get their messages? - The messages could be found at a nearby meeting place. - But messages took a very long time to move from place to place. ### In the 1660s, the British formed colonies in America. - Letters from home had to travel by ship. - People visited places such as the local coffeehouse to pick up mail. - Those who did not live in town asked friends to bring them letters. ### By the late 1600s, it became clear that people needed a better mail service. - In 1692, they asked Thomas Neale to start his own mail service in the colonies. - It did not go well. - Neale died seven years later. - At that time he was deeply in debt. ### The British leaders tried again with their own system. - They hired a postmaster to run the new mail service. - During the next fifty years, many people held this job. - Then in 1753, Benjamin Franklin was given the job. - He changed the postal service forever. ### Franklin had a big job to do. - First he toured all the post offices and mail routes. - He saw that more routes were needed. - He also thought routes needed to be shorter. - He wanted the carriers to travel overnight. - All these changes would help the mail move more quickly. ### But Franklin was not finished yet. - He had markers placed every mile along major roads. - People did not have addresses as we know them today. - Letters were addressed with only a name and a town. - The carrier had to know where to go from there. - Franklin's mile markers were historic. - They were the first step toward modern addresses. ### In 1774, the British Fired Franklin. - They knew he wanted to fight against British rule. - England now ran the mail service. - As a result, the colonists became worried about the security of the mail service. - They thought their enemy would read their secret messages. - They needed to create a second postal service. - It needed to be safe from British spies. ### The Constitutional Post was well under way a year later. - It had thirty post offices moving mail around the colonies. - This service was used to send messages during the American War for Independence. - The mail service we know today grew out of the Constitutional Post. ### The founders of the United States knew the importance of good mail service. - They added a special section to the Constitution. - It said a postmaster general would be part of the new nation. - The first person to hold that job was Benjamin Franklin. ### In colonial times, mail was carried on boats, on horses, or on foot. - But the Postal Service has always been willing to try new ways of carrying mail. - For a while they used stagecoaches. - But these were powered by horses. - Stagecoaches could carry more mail. - But they were not much faster. - Steamboats were used for moving mail up and down waterways. - Steamboats also solved the problem of getting mail across the country. ### Carrying mail by land usually took more than a month. - Ships would float down the East Coast to South America. - The mail would travel across Panama by canoe and mules. - Then the mail would be loaded back onto boats. - These boats would travel up the West Coast. - This was faster than traveling across land. - Still, it took many weeks for letters to make the trip. ### First trains and then planes would speed letters around the country. - But horses made one more brief appearance. - The Pony Express began in July 1861. - It was designed to carry mail nonstop across the country by land. - A rider would leave from Missouri. - He would hand off the mail to other riders along the route. - About ten days later, the mail would reach California. - This method was about twice as fast as any other. - Still the Pony Express was short lived. - Four months after it had begun, it was stopped. - The telegraph became a better way to send messages quickly. ### Today we send and receive letters without giving it much thought. - The next time you open your mailbox, stop for a moment. - Think of how much work it would have been for a letter to travel the same distance a hundred years ago. ## Comprehension 1. The British fired Benjamin Franklin from his job as postmaster in: - **b) 1774.** 2. Benjamin Franklin was probably asked to be the first United States postmaster because: - **c) Both a) and b).** 3. The Pony Express lasted only four months because: - **a) The war for independence disrupted service.** 4. Which event happened first? - **a) The British started a mail service in the colonies.** 5. Whether they were sent by ship or carried across land, letters mailed to the West Coast: - **a) took many weeks to arrive.** 6. The Constitutional Post was: - **c) used to carry mail during the American War for Independence.** 7. Paragraph 5 is mostly about: - **a) changes Franklin made to improve the postal service.** ## Learn About Words 1. territories under the control of another country: - **colonies** 2. courses for travel: - **routes** 3. relating to the present time: - **contemporaneous** 4. people who start something: - **founders** 5. horse-drawn carriages: - **stagecoaches** 6. placed: - **markers** 7. act of coming out: - **appearance** 8. without interruption: - **nonstop** 9. dates: - **b) to come from a specific period of time** 10. change (4): - **c) to replace one thing with another** ## Word Study 11. They **are** going to the fair. 12. We **were** sure you would be there. 13. I **am** happy for you. 14. **Be** home at ten. 15. Samson **is** taking the train. 16. **Was** the test hard? 17. It's **been** four hours since she left. 18. I **am** leaving at five o'clock. 19. His uncle built the house. **S** 20. Books read Keisha all the. **J** 21. Dinner home for come please. **J** 22. Danny broke the window. **S** 23. The snail moved slowly. **S** 24. Was art drawing the work a of. **J** 25. Alicia locked the door. **S** 26. Warren ball threw the low. **J** 27. My dog chased a rabbit. **N-V-N** 28. Emilio laughed. **N-V** 29. Hakeem was a general. **N-LV-N** 30. Alissa left the room. **N-V-N** 31. The ship sank. **N-V** 32. Chet is a student. **N-LV-N** 33. My father bought a car. **N-V-N**