What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“CONSTITUTIONAL POST … to the CAMPS at ROXBURY and CAMBRIDGE.”

During the siege of Boston that followed the battles at Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775, Nathan Bushnell, Jr., advertised his services as a post rider along a route that connected Boston and New London.  He placed advertisements simultaneously in the New-England Chronicle, published in Cambridge, and the Connecticut Gazette, published in New London.  With militia unites from throughout New England converging on Boston, the demand for his services significantly increased.

Bushnell asserted that he was affiliated with the Constitutional Post, a network operated independently of the British postal system.  William Goddard, formerly the printer of the Maryland Journal and the Pennsylvania Chronicle, founded the Constitutional Post in 1774.  As an alternative to the British postal system, it allowed colonizers to send letters and to disseminate newspapers without interference from British officials.  The first route connected Philadelphia and Baltimore, but the Constitutional Post extended to New England by the time the Revolutionary War began.  Bushnell mentioned several associates, each with established routes between towns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

Although Bushnell accepted correspondence of all sorts, he emphasized letters sent to soldiers away from home now that the imperial crisis had taken a new turn.  He rode to “the CAMPS at ROXBURY and CAMBRIDGE, and as often as practicable, to BOSTON.”  On the return trip, he carried “Letters from the Camps.”  In a nota bene, he advised that “when Letters are directed to private Soldiers, the Regiment they belong to may be mentioned” to aid in efficient delivery.

This was such an important service, especially considering the events unfolding in New England, that Bushnell did not expect those who sent letters to fund it by themselves.  Instead, he placed subscription papers “in the Hands of Gentlemen in several Towns … to encourage this expensive Undertaking — and the smallest Favours will be acknowledged.”  The post rider anticipated that subscribers would make pledges to fund the enterprise, recognizing its value and affirming their support of an alternative to the Parliamentary Post.  As the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum notes, the Constitutional Post “proved quite popular as a way of rejecting British rule.”