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In the King’s Service

Hugh Finlay and the Postal System in Colonial America
By Alison M. Gavin

ext-day delivery, the Internet, texting . . . never has communication on a

personal level been so easy. Telecommunications, which has made enor-
mous progress over the last 10 years, stands alone as a testament to
American ingenuity in the world market.

Not even today’s octogenarians can imagine, however, the extent to which
communications have improved since colonial times. Getting a letter to a neighbor-
ing town was difficult and involved, while trying to get one’s mail across the
Atlantic to Great Britain might prove futile.
Top: Hugh Finlay’s diary includes this map showing his survey for a postal road “from Canada to the Massachusets Province.” He states at the start of his
diary that “I received orders from Mr. Foxcroft to hold myself in readiness to enter on service in September [1773] by beginning the Survey in exploring
the uninhabited country between the most Southerly settlements on the River Chaudiere in Canada, and the most Northerly habitations on the River
of Kennebek in the Government of Massachusetts Bay.” He ended the survey in Virginia in June 1774.

Above inset: The postal rider was an essential part of mail delivery in much of Colonial America, but due to harsh terrain and conditions, delivery was often uncertain.
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The emergence of Benjamin Franklin,
first as Philadelphia’s postmaster in 1737,
and then as deputy postmaster for British
North America in 1753, brought much-
needed reform to the postal system in the
American colonies. He developed a “Dead
Mail Office” for undeliverable letters and
began a system of fast-sailing “packet ships”
for the delivery of mail from abroad.
Franklin was dismissed from his position
in 1774 for his association with writings
injurious to the Crown and replaced by loy-
alist Hugh Finlay. But Finlay’s appointment
was short-lived and nearly meaningless.
American revolutionaries were destroying
British postal routes throughout the
colonies and viewed postage paid to the
Crown as taxation without representation.
The colonists began their own postal sys-
tem, the Constitutional Post, in May 1775
with Franklin as the new postmaster gener-
al.The Crown’s postal system in the colonies
ceased by Christmas of that year.
Franklin often gets credit for beginning
the first system of mail service along the
eastern seaboard. But Hugh Finlay made
improvements that are documented in a
journal kept between September 13, 1773,
and June 26, 1774. The original handwrit-
ten “Journal Kept by Hugh Finlay, Surveyor
of the Post Roads on the Continent of
North America” is in the National Archives.
Finlay’s journal is significant among the
National Archives’ pre-Federal records for
two reasons. First, it provides a transition
between the British postal system of the
colonies and the U.S. postal system. Second,
it serves as documentation of the antago-
nism that Finlay, a Crown appointee, en-
countered from American patriots in the
period leading up to the Revolutionary War.
A Neighborhood Event—Mail
Handling in the Colonies
The Massachusetts Bay Colony led the way
in establishing a postal system in America. The
introduction to the 1867 printing of Finlay’s
journal describes early methods of distrib-
uting the mail. As early as 1639, one colonist,
In the King’s Service
Richard Fairbanks, received and sent off letters
from his Boston home. He charged a penny
for each letter but had to “answer all miscar-
riages through his own neglect in this kind.”
In other American colonies,“every family
sen[t] a member on board [incoming
ships] for the purpose of receiving letters.”
Letters that went unclaimed were taken to
a coffee house or a tavern near the wharf
that was heavily frequented by the commu-
nity. There the items were spread out on a
table. People would come in and “carried
away not only their own letters, but all the
letters belonging to people in the neigh-
borhood.” Letters or packages for persons
far from a city would be given to a local
magistrate or minister to distribute in his
town. For there to be any guarantees that a
letter would arrive at longer distances,
senders had to hire a rider or entrust it to
travelers going in the general direction.
The idea of post offices and regularly
scheduled arrivals and departures of a
postal rider, as established in England,
evolved slowly in the colonies. Much of the
territory, especially in the south, was wilder-
ness. Travel required fresh horses, overnight
stays, and hardship on the part of the rider in
the event of flood, heat, or snow. Even if there
was a system of postal riders in place, the
Benjamin Franklin (right) brought much-needed
reform to the postal system in the
American colonies when he became
deputy postmaster in 1753, as evidenced in
part by his table of postal rates (below).
sender still could not be certain that the letter
would arrive safely. Most postmasters in
major American villages and towns kept
sloppy accounts or no accounts at all. The
position was usually a part-time job financed
by the Crown, given to the local customs offi-
cial, printer, bookseller, tavern-keeper—or
simply anyone who was willing to do it. The
colonists did not consider post officer or post
rider a desirable position. A larger issue was
the reluctance of colonists to adhere to the
Crown-sponsored mail system. Resentment
over the cost of postage going to the Crown’s
purse, and the inefficiency of the Crown’s
post offices, led to widespread clandestine
franking and delivery. This was something
Finlay was determined to change.
Hugh Finlay’s Expeditions in
the Name of Better Mail Service
Finlay did not begin his civic career as
a postmaster. Arriving in Canada from
Scotland, shortly after the territory was
ceded to Great Britain in 1763, he worked
first as a merchant in Quebec and rose
quickly among the English and French com-
munities. No doubt his ability to read and
speak French fluently added to his value as
Prologue 7
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a businessman. Quebec’s city council soon
appointed him a justice of the peace. Later
that year, Benjamin Franklin, then joint
deputy postmaster general of British North
America, put Finlay in charge of the colonial
post office in the Canadian territory. Finlay
established post offices at Quebec, Trois-
Rivières, and Montréal and between these
cities and New York. Two years later, Finlay
was appointed to the Governor’s Council,
Finlay recorded the “Post days at New York,” with
days and times of postal deliveries from and dis-
patches to Philadelphia, Boston, and Quebec. He
states, for example, that “The Boston Mail by way of
Hartford called the upper road, is irregular,” for rea-
sons he explains elsewhere in the journal.
Below: Finlay included a drawing and description of “an
avenue cut through an island” in the Cape Fear River
leading to Wilmington, North Carolina. “The island is a
swamp,” he wrote, and “ ’tis with difficulty that one can
pass it on foot, with a horse ’tis just possible.”
8 Prologue
where he oversaw transportation and roads
for the Crown. In December 1772 the
British postmaster general appointed him
postal surveyor. In this position, he mapped
out the most expedient routes in British
North America to facilitate the safe delivery
of mail. In September of the following year,
Finlay began mapping out a new post route
between Quebec and Falmouth, Maine. On
October 2, 1773, he headed south from
Falmouth through New England
on a tour of post offices and roads.
Upon arrival in Philadelphia, he
boarded a boat to Charleston,
South Carolina, to begin a journey
northward to Virginia, where he
ended his trek in June 1774.
Finlay displays the zeal of
Jesuit explorer and the tenacity
of a master politician in his jour-
nal. The journal documents the
quality of roads and mail service,
Finlay’s assessments of the post-
masters and their records, and
observations on the American
colonists’ increasing antagonism
toward Great Britain. What em-
erges from the journal is a por-
trait of an intense and dedicated
public servant who refused to
back down from his allegiance to
the British Crown.
To support his postal survey
from Quebec across Maine, the
“Gentlemen of the Council” and
city of Quebec raised “more than a
sufficiency” of funding. The expedi-
tion party included several Indians who
knew both English and the Abenaki lan-
guage native to that region, a scout for mark-
ing the path for a potential postal road to the
Kennebec River, two military officers, two
servants to help carry the provisions and
three canoes, and Finlay.
Like many of the European immigrants to
the North American continent, Finlay’s feel-
ings toward the Native Americans vacillated.
Of the Indians’ cartographic abilities he
writes, “It is impossible to guess distances
from an Indian draft; that people have no
idea of proportion.” Yet within a day he
wrote, “Every night after supper, Men-
towermet, our chief guide, drew a sketch of
the next day’s route on a sheet of smooth
birch bark with charcoal.”As the expedition
neared the border of Maine (then governed
by Massachusetts), Finlay released the
Indians from their duties: “I discharged my
Indians here, and instructed the Interpreter
to return to . . . where we left provisions. . . .
I recommended it to him, to keep it ever in
his mind that the intention of this examina-
tion was to learn the most proper pass for a
road.” Finlay’s ultimate appreciation of their
services is obvious, however: “We parted
from our Indian friends.”
The second part of Finlay’s postal survey
journey, taking him from Falmouth to
Savannah, Georgia, and then to York,
Virginia, serves as proof of his determina-
tion. As with his trek through Canada, Finlay
encountered physical challenges such as
hail, lame horses, quicksand, and broken fer-
ries. On a personal level, he encountered
rude, inhospitable behavior from city-
dwellers and farmers alike. In many cases,
Finlay’s proposal of a new colonial postal
route was rebuked by the colonists. Instead
of seeing it as an advantage, colonists felt it
would “reduce the value of lands, for this
reason they will not encourage the settle-
ment of the East by opening roads.”
American Patriots and the End
of Crown-Regulated Mail
Using their own, unpredictable method of
mail delivery, American patriots found a rela-
tively easy way around the Crown’s system in
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place. In Rhode Island, Finlay comments,
“[There are] two Post offices in New Port, the
King’s and Mumfords [a resident]. . . . It is com-
mon for people who expect letters by Post
finding none at the Post office to say ‘well
there must be letters, we’ll find them at
Mumfords.’ It is next to impossible to put a
stop to this practice in the present universal
opposition to every thing connected with
Great Britain.” Like the tax collector in early
colonial America, Finlay was an unwelcome
sight to many post officers and riders. Anyone
who cooperated with him, he wrote,“would
draw on himself the odium of his neighbours
and be mark’d as the friend of Slavery and
oppression and a declar’d enemy to America.”
When Finlay visited Massachusetts, a
“good authority” told him, “the assembly
will not grant one shilling towards opening
a road this way, into Canada. . . . Governor
Hutcheson [Massachusetts Governor
Thomas Hutchinson] promised to write to
the Minister on this matter.” In Falmouth,
the deputy postmaster “once attempted to
put the Law in force and took the letter bag
of one of those vessels [that carried letters
illegally outside the post] to the office, but
it made such a bustle and noise in town
that he dared never attempt it again.”
Likewise, in Salem, if a complaint were
made about letters not going through the
post office,“(. . . an informer wou’d get tar’d
and feather’d) no Jury wou’d find the fact;
it is deem’d necessary to hinder all acts of
Parliament from taking effect in America”
Finlay’s public service did not end with
the establishment of the United States of
America. As a loyalist, he found refuge in
Canada when the war began. Always sensi-
tive to the ways in which mail delivery might
be improved, he participated in a correspon-
dence with the British Home Office in the
1780s. Urging colonization in Canada, and
the creation of postal offices every 10 miles,
he advocated the use of snowshoes for
postal officers in a 1783 letter:“Till then the
Mails must be drag’d on handsleighs by men
on snowshoes, a painful and slow mode of
Journeying in the winter, but there’s no other
way of getting forward in a country four, five,
or six feet deep with snow, without inhabi-
tants to beat and keep the way open.”
In the King’s Service
In 1787 he was given responsibility an administrator, Finlay set an example
over the whole postal service of British for public service in the wilderness and
North America, not including the newly city alike.
formed United States. His participation in Hugh Finlay knew the American charac-
the first-ever international postal conven- ter well, even before the first shots at
tion in New York in 1792 led to a signifi- Lexington. At the beginning of his tour of
cant decision by the Americans to permit the Eastern seaboard, he observed the
mail from Canada to pass through New colonists’ character:“They are[,] they say[,]
York. But through a series of unfortunate to be governed by Laws of their own fram-
circumstances, Finlay was dismissed from ing, and no other.” In the face of opposition,
his position in 1799 on the grounds of unpopularity, and the growing resentment
irregularities in accounting, even though of a nation, however, Finlay remained a
the charge referred to a postmaster under steady loyalist civil servant.As he confident-
him, not to him directly. Finlay died on ly declared to a group of North Carolinians
December 26, 1801, deeply in debt. His he visited regarding the postal system in
life had been one of courage, tenacity, and British North America in 1774, “The
allegiance to the Crown. From his early Publick good is the sole inducement for
days as a postal surveyor to later years as taking so much trouble as we do.” P
NOTE ON SOURCES
“The Journal Kept by Hugh Finlay, Surveyor of the Post Roads on the Continent of North America”
lay dormant for 80 years and was rediscovered in the belongings of a dead Swedenborgian minister
in New York in the 1850s. It is not impossible that Finlay had some connection with the Church of
the New Jerusalem, as the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) called themselves.
In a happy coincidence, the journal fell into the hands of publisher Frank H. Norton. He owned the
Mercantile Library Press in Brooklyn, NY. Norton transcribed the journal, carefully retaining the original
wording and punctuation; he published 150 copies of the text, with his own introduction, in 1867.
Norton sent the journal to an official of the U.S. Post Office Department, and when the department’s
records were retired to the National Archives, the journal came with them. The journal is described in
A Guide to Pre-Federal Records in the National Archives (compiled by Howard H. Wehmann and
revised by Benjamin L. DeWhitt, [Washington, DC: National Archives Trust Board, 1989], p. 321). It has
been microfilmed as Journal of Hugh Finlay, Surveyor of Post Roads and Post Offices, 1773–1774; and
Accounts of the General Post Office in Philadelphia and of Various Deputy Postmasters—“The Ledger
of Benjamin Franklin”—January 1775–January 1780 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T268,
one roll), Records of the Post Office Department, Record Group 28.
The easiest way to access the 1867 Norton transcribed version of the journal is through the
Library of Congress’s online collection of American travel narratives (through www.loc.gov).
Pagination varies among the original journal as it was microfilmed at the National Archives, the
Norton version of 1867, and the 2006 reprint published by Applewood Books (vol. 169, Finlay’s
Journal and Drinkwater’s Letters [Bedford, MA]).
Little biographical information exists on Finlay. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5,
1801–1820, edited by Francess G. Halpenny (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983; www.
biographi.ca/), offers a sketch of his life. Readers may also seek out his place in Canadian history at the
Canadian Museum of Civilization (www.civilization.ca). The web site of the Smithsonian’s National
Postal Museum, http://postalmuseum.si.edu/outofthemails/finlay.html, has some information on Finlay.
A pertinent study of early postal history is Kay
Horowicz and Robson Lowe’s The Colonial
Author
Posts in the United States of America, 1606–
1783 (London: Robson Lowe, 1967). Alison M. Gavin is a partici-
If Finlay’s journal is any example, the pre-Federal pant in both the Federal Career
records in the National Archives are worthy of more Intern Program for Archivists
scholarly investigation. From them we can learn and the Archivist Development
more about British North America and those who Program at the National Ar-
participated in its governance.The National Archives chives at College Park, Maryland. She has written for
also has records documenting appointments of post- New England Ancestors, Historic Nantucket, and
masters in towns throughout the country. Prologue (Summer 2007).
Prologue 9