[POSTAL HISTORY]. PICKERING, Timothy (1745-1829). Document twice signed ("Timothy Pickering") for Levi PEASE (1740-1824), as Postmaster General. N,p., 4 September 1794.

3 pages, 7 1/2 x 12 1/2 in., old creases, occasional spotting, framed to 21 1/4 x 17 1/4 in., first page of document not visible, photocopy attached to verso, not examined out of frame.

The first two pages are a partly printed contract appointing Levi Pease as a mail carrier with stipulations of his duties including penalties for not delivering the mail on schedule. The second page, entirely in manuscript, details the Pease's schedule for both summer and winter, with stops around Massachusetts and New York.

Levi Pease (1740-1824), considered "the Father of New England Stage-Coaching" established a weekly stage line between New York and Boston in 1783. By the time of this contract, the line was daily. "The stagecoach mail system had evolved into an operation where the postmaster general in Washington was the overseer of the whole enterprise, while the actual mail routes were contracted out to individual stage line owners. It was thus largely a series of private enterprises monitored by the federal government." (Holmes & Rohrbach, Stagecoach East, p. 118).

Timothy Pickering, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, was appointed by President Washington as Postmaster General on 12 August 1791. Pickering would serve briefly as Secretary of War before he was appointed as the third Secretary of State. He continued his political career in the 19th century representing Massachusetts.

Property from the James Milgram, M.D., Collection of Broadsides, Ephemeral Americana, and Historical Documents