Historic Treasure of the Week - March 15, 1992
By David Buchanan
Vigo County Historical Society
Historic Treasure of the Week - March 15, 1992
By David Buchanan
Vigo County Historical Society
Vincennes once regional mail center
Receiving a letter in the late 1700s was a momentous event.
The fact that the letter arrived at its destination at all could be considered a minor miracle, due mainly to the difficulty of travel.
In fact, postage was based primarily on distance. The cost of sending a letter 30 miles was only 8 cents. The cost of sending one over 450 miles was 25 cents, which now may not sound like a great expense, but then could, for some, represent a day’s wages.
The first mail route for this area probably was Louisville to Vincennes.
Vincennes became the distribution point for much of Indiana and Illinois. All of the mail collected east of Cincinnati and west of St. Louis was sent to Vincennes to be sorted and re-distributed.
Mail usually was sent by stage coach, but if the roads were too muddy a "go-cart" was used. The go-cart was a two-wheeled vehicle holding the mail pouches and drawn by four horses. If the roads were impassable even to these carts, the mail was carried by "postriders"--men on horseback.
The arrival of the mail often was known far in advance. Stage coach drivers carried long tin horns and they started blowing them several miles before reaching their destination. The sound of the horns told those managing the stage coach stop to have a fresh set of horses ready.
Eventually, as routes expanded, it wasn’t uncommon for rural postmen, riding their own horses, to blow tin horns as they arrived. By doing so, those responsible for receiving mail knew of the postman’s arrival.
Terre Haute’s first postmaster was Curtis Gilbert, who became postmaster before the city was founded. He received the commission in December 1817 and worked at Fort Harrison.
After Terre Haute was formed, the U.S. Government moved the post office into the city. It appears the first "post office," which probably was a simple log cabin, was located at First and Ohio.
Until the 1870s arriving mail was sorted, but not delivered. People picked up their mail at the post office.
Terre Haute’s first newspapers often published names of the people with mail that needed to be picked up. This system was acceptable for those working in or near town, but more of a hardship for the rural areas.
So "star routes" was established. There were seven of these routes in Vigo County.
Star routes were sublet by the government to individual who delivered the mail along the routes. The leasing arrangement usually was quite low because the deliverymen also expected to be paid for making deliveries other than mail.
By 1878 the postal demand had grown to the point where "free delivery" was offered in the city. Postmaster Nicholas Filbeck appointed six carriers from the 115 applicants for the job of mail carrier.
Like Filbeck, all of the new carriers were veterans of the Civil War.
In October 1896, Indiana got its first "free" service for rural routes. The rural carrier’s route started in Hartsville in Bartholomew County.
Vigo County’s first free rural route was established in December 1899. Wood McComb was postman. His first trip had very little mail and he rode in his own buggy.
In 1906, McComb was stopping at almost every box and had an official buggy marked RFD No. 1. The route went south on the Prairieton Road and returned by First Street.
In September 1900, three more free rural routes were established. One went south and east toward Riley. The second went north over the Rockville Road to Rosedale and then to Atherton. The third left West Terre Haute and covered much of the county sent of the Wabash River.
As the years passed, more and more routes opened until all homes in the city and on every rural county road finally were linked to the free mail system.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.