Nauvoo’s Post Office
In today’s world of instant communication, it can be hard to imagine waiting weeks or even months for a reply to a letter. Yet writing letters was one way the early Saints living in Nauvoo stayed connected to family and friends living elsewhere. Because of the high price of postage, and because mail services were less secure than they are today, many letters and parcels were carried by family and friends rather than by the regular mail. But Nauvoo’s post office still handled a lot of mail as steamships and mail carriers picked up and dropped off the mail—at least three times a week by 1845. The postmaster of Nauvoo was kept busy sending, receiving, sorting, and storing the mail that awaited delivery.
Nauvoo was expected to become a great city on the Mississippi, and those who wrote letters from here often encouraged others to move here and join in the work. They also wrote to and received letters from missionaries serving in places as far away as Europe and the Pacific Islands.
After Joseph taught of the doctrine of baptisms for the dead, many of the Saints in Nauvoo wrote to family and friends from afar seek the names and dates of their ancestors so as to have this sacred work done on their behalf.
Postal Regulations and Prices in 1840s America
US Postal rates were standardized in the summer of 1845. Postage varied according to weight and the distance that letters traveled. Before that, postage depended on distance and the number of letter sheets. Single-sheet letters traveling less than 30 miles cost only 6 cents, while triple-sheet letters going more than 400 miles would cost 75 cents, which was a lot of money considering the average wage in Nauvoo at the time was only $1 per day. After July 1845, the rates were standardized at 5¢ per sheet (or ½ oz.) if traveling less than 300 miles and 10¢ for more than 300 miles.
Before 1839, an envelope was counted as an extra sheet of paper, so letter senders would fold the letter, write the address on the outer face of the folded sheet, and seal the corners with a wax seal. The sender could seal the letter with a stamp, which often bore the family crest or the sender’s initials.
To conserve paper and save money, correspondents would sometimes turn the page and write across the previous writing. Some would even turn the page once more and write diagonally across everything, producing a nearly illegible letter. This was referred to as “crossing and re-crossing one’s lines.”
There were no printed stamps in Illinois before 1847. The postmaster could mark a letter as paid, partially paid, or unpaid. Mail marked unpaid meant that payment would be collected from the receiver. (COD) Uncollected mail was returned to the dead letter office in Washington D. C.
Joseph Smith frequently received letters that were sent COD. To make matters worse, some of the mail contained insults. According to the Prophet, “It is a common occurrence to receive C.O.D. letters and I am subjected to a great deal of expense by those whom I know nothing about, only that they are destitute of good manners; for if people wish to be benefitted with information from me, common respect and good breeding would dictate them to pay the postage on their letters.”
The problem continued until Jospeh finally put a noice in the Church newspaper, “I wish to inform my friends and all others, abroad, that whenever they wish to address me through the Post Office, they will be kind enough to pay the postage on the same. My friends will excuse me on this matter, as I am willing to pay postage on letters to hear from them; but am unwilling to pay for insults and menaces ~ consequently, must refuse all, unpaid.”
As you can see below, the post office in Nauvoo also shared space with other enterprises.
