What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“Colonel Greaton and his Regiment had a great Desire that he would return back with Letters.”
One officer and the soldiers in his regiment devised a clever way of receiving mail from home while they served in the army during the American Revolution. On August 22, 1776, Elijah French of Braintree, Massachusetts, ran an advertisement in the New-England Chronicle that announced that he “just returned from Ticonderoga.” He brought news that “Colonel Greaton and his Regiment had a great Desire that he would return back with Letters.” French did not mention why he had been to Ticonderoga or whether he had business there that made it necessary to return, but he did accept the charge to solicit and deliver letters. He advised readers of the New-England Chronicle that “whosever has Friends in that Regiment or any other, and would choose to write, may depend upon their Letters being safely conveyed to their Friends.” In addition, they could expect “an Answer back as soon as possible with the greatest Care and Speed.”
French provided an invaluable service for soldiers far from home and their friends and family in Boston and nearby towns. He did not mention any sort of fee for carrying the letters, suggesting that he acted as an informal messenger rather a post rider. He did, however, devise an extensive network of local agents who collected letters, making it more convenient for friends and family to send them. That may have prompted more friends to write to the soldiers who longed for word from home. French instructed “Those Persons who would choose to send … to leave their Letters at the Widow Cowing’s or Bracket’s, in Braintree, Vose or Davis’s, in Milton, Partridge, the Barber’s in Roxbury, or the Sign of the Lamb in Boston” before the second Monday in September. After that, he would make his rounds to each of those places to collect the letters before departing for Ticonderoga. The assistance of a widow in Braintree, a barber in Roxbury, a tavernkeeper in Boston, and the other local agents (along with an advertisement in the public prints) made delivering mail to soldiers a community effort, an eighteenth-century version of supporting the troops.