The Mailbag

As we all know, in the era before the invention of electronic communication, people wrote and received hard copy letters in envelopes; and each town’s local post office provided its means of daily communication with the world beyond its borders.  The importance of this lifeline, and the frequency with which residents sent and received letters, is nowhere more clearly shown than in many of the following examples, in which it is evident that the post office and its mail carriers in Hudson, NY required no street addresses in order to deliver the mail to its proper addressee.  In a city of over five thousand residents, the address of any individual named on a written communication was simply known to the post office and its employees.  In one astonishing example shown here, in 1863, a check was simply stamped and mailed to its addressee without the benefit of envelope or street address.  It apparently arrived, as it was endorsed and canceled.