[Genealib] Post village vs post office

[treviawbeverly]

MessageI  think this would be a smaller town or village - unincorporated - with a larger full-service post office not far away.
Such was the community of Wooster when the main post office was at Goose Creek (pre & early 1900s, Harris Co TX). Two sites that some may be interested in for future reference are

National: http://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/
TEXAS: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txpost/countyindex.html

Trevia Wooster Beverly
Houston, Texas
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Susan Scouras 
  To: genealib at mailman.acomp.usf.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 2:00 PM
  Subject: [Genealib] Post village vs post office


  Does anyone know the definition of a "post village" as opposed to a "post office," as used in the early 19th century?  I have tried dictionaries and Googling with no luck.  I checked four different postal histories, plus a couple of historical journal articles. A post road is a road over which mail was carried.  A post office is an established building or site (someone's store, usually), run by a postmaster, where stamps and other services can be purchased.  Statistics give the miles of post road designated and number of post offices, etc., but no mention of postal villages.  I can find hundreds of towns identified as "post villages," a far higher number than the total number of post offices at any given time, but no explanation of what a post village is.  Much later, around 1911-12, a postal village was one that had mail carriers that delivered to one's door, but that was not the case prior to this date.  The term appears to have been used in England as well  

  I am guessing it is essentially a mail drop along a post road without a full service post office, since other towns in the same sources are designated as having a post office and are not called postal villages.  Post offices and postmasters were classified, with those offering the fewest services and handling the least mail designated as "fourth class," but again, this does not seem to correlate with post villages.  Contemporary works assume the reader knows what the designations mean.  

  Susan Scouras
  Librarian
  WV Archives and History Library
  The Cultural Center
  1900 Kanawha Blvd. East
  Charleston, WV  25305-0300
  (304) 558-0230, Ext. 742




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