While postmaster, Franklin streamlined postal delivery with properly surveyed and marked routes from Maine to Florida (the origins of Route 1), instituted overnight postal travel between the critical cities of New York and Philadelphia and created a standardized rate chart based upon weight and distance.

[6] Samuel Osgood held the postmaster general's position in New York City from 1789, when the U.S. Constitution came into effect, until the government moved to Philadelphia in 1791.

Timothy Pickering took over [7] and, about a year later, the Postal Service Act gave his post greater legislative legitimacy and more effective organization.

[10] JD Thomas said the Postal Service Act was shaped in part by the desire to avoid censorship employed by the Crown to try to suppress their political opponents in colonial times.

Before they got a post office in 1826, "The neighbors would club together, put a boy on a horse, and about once a month he could be seen wending his way through forest and stream, ... to get, perchance, half a dozen letters and papers for four times that number of families.