THE FIRST U.S. POSTAGE STAMPS By Cheri Kay Clifton

As an historical western author, I write books that take place in the mid to latter 1800’s; consequently, I spend a lot of time researching everyday life back then.  Many of my blogs have been written about differences between common items of today and those our ancestors used in the 1800’s.  Often while going about my day, my curiosity arises about things I take for granted in comparison to what they were like in the 19^th century.

Hence, my subject for today’s blog … the postage stamp … something we all are using less in the 21^st century thanks to our cell phones, texts, fax, email, Skype, social media & online bill paying.

In the 19^th century, as our nation expanded, so did the need to expand and modernize the postal service. Increased immigration from Europe as well as increased expansion westward across the American frontier prompted the United States to update the way in which written communication was delivered.

Initially, U. S. postage rates were set by Congress as part of the Postal Service Act signed into law by President George Washington in 1792. The postal rate varied according to distance zones, which was the distance a letter was carried from the post office where it started to its final destination. There were double and triple rates as a letter’s size increased.

 The U.S. issued its first postage stamps in 1847. Before that time, the rates, dates and origin of the letter were written by hand or sometimes in combination with a hand stamp device. Postage could be paid in advance by the sender, collected from the addressee on delivery, or paid partially in advance and partially upon delivery.

The first general issue postage stamps went on sale in New York City, July 1, 1847. One, priced at five cents, depicted Benjamin Franklin; the other, a ten-cent stamp, pictured George Washington. Clerks used scissors to cut the stamps from pregummed, nonperforated sheets.

Only Franklin and Washington appeared on stamps until 1856, when a five-cent stamp honoring Thomas Jefferson was issued.

 A two-cent Andrew Jackson stamp was added in 1863. George Washington has appeared on more U.S. postage stamps than any other person. 

The first U.S. commemorative stamps were issued in 1893, honoring that year’s World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The subject of Columbus’s voyages to the New World and the size of the stamps were innovative, almost double the size of the previous stamps in order to properly show reproductions of paintings of Columbus’s voyages.

 Important to note historically, the first stamp honoring an American woman was the eight-cent Martha Washington stamp of 1902. 

Native Americans were depicted on several earlier stamps' but the first to feature a specific person was Pocahontas on the 1907's five-cent stamp.

The first to honor an African American was in 1940 commemorating Booker T. Washington.

Not of historical importance, but I would like to add my favorite commemorative stamp, the 29-cent stamp featuring Elvis Presley, issued in 1993 on what would have been Elvis’s 58^th birthday.  The public was invited to vote for the “younger or the older” Elvis for the stamp’s design. No surprise, the youthful Elvis stamp won and it has become the best-selling U.S. commemorative stamp to date.

With advent of all the faster and easier ways of correspondence and communication, the postal system has come to be referred to as “snail mail.”  Another Internet slang term, “Papernet” has also been used for postal mail.

The handwritten note or card goes back to what often is referred to as “simpler times.” However, it is still used by many of us wanting to take the time and effort to express our heartfelt thoughts, sympathy, congratulations or gratitude to someone.  After writing the recipient’s address on the envelope, then sticking a specially selected postage stamp on the top right-hand corner and slipping the card in the mail box, we hope the delivery of our snail mail will be the next best thing to showing up in person.

Born in Nebraska, I loved researching the Oregon Trail, historically known as the "Gateway to the West." My passion for those brave pioneers, Native Americans and 19th Century America led me to write the epic western historical Wheels of Destiny Trilogy.

"I feel the Old West is a major part of our heritage and we should enjoy learning about it.  Hopefully, by reading the fictional genre I write, my readers will not only enjoy the story but the historical background as well."

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George Washington -- President and Whiskey Distiller

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

By 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion threatened the stability of the United States while it was starting to develop and forced President Washington to personally lead the United States militia westward to stop the rebels........

The Whiskey Rebellion, also known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791, during George Washington's presidency. The so-called whiskey tax was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. It became law in 1791 and was intended to generate revenue for the debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. The tax applied to all distilled spirits, but American whiskey was by far the country's most popular distilled beverage in the eighteenth century, so the excise tax became widely known as a whiskey tax.

Western frontier farmers were accustomed to distilling their surplus rye, barley, wheat, corn, or fermented grain mixtures into whiskey. These farmers resisted the tax. In these regions, whiskey often served as a medium of exchange. Many of the resisters were war veterans who believed that they were fighting for the principles of the American Revolution, in particular against taxation without local representation, while the federal government maintained that the taxes were the legal expression of Congressional taxation powers.

Throughout Western Pennsylvania counties, protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed men attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. Washington responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time calling on governors to send a militia force to enforce the tax. Washington himself rode at the head of an army to suppress the insurgency, with 13,000 militiamen provided by the governors of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The rebels all went home before the arrival of the army, and there was no confrontation. About 20 men were arrested, but all were later acquitted or pardoned. Most distillers in nearby Kentucky were found to be all-but-impossible to tax—in the next six years, over 175 distillers from Kentucky were convicted of violating the tax law. Numerous examples of resistance are recorded in court documents and newspaper accounts.

The Whiskey Rebellion demonstrated that the new national government had the will and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws, though the whiskey excise remained difficult to collect. The events contributed to the formation of political parties in the United States, a process already underway. The whiskey tax was repealed in the early 1800s during the Jefferson administration.

President Washington wanted to resolve this dispute peacefully. In 1792, he issued a national proclamation admonishing westerners for their resistance to the operation of the laws of the United States for raising revenue upon spirits distilled within the same. However, by 1794 the protests became violent. In July, nearly 400 whiskey rebels near Pittsburg set fire to the home of John Neville, the regional tax collection supervisor. Left with little recourse and at the urgings of Secretary Hamilton, Washington organized a militia force of 12,950 men and led them towards Western Pennsylvania, warning locals "not to abet, air, or comfort the Insurgents aforesaid, as they will answer the contrary at their peril."

The calling of the militia had the desired effect of essentially ending the Whiskey Rebellion. By the time the militia reached Pittsburgh, the rebels had dispersed and could not be found. The militia apprehended approximately 150 men and tried them for treason. A lack of evidence and inability to obtain witnesses hampered the trials. Two men, John Mitchell and Philip Weigel, were found guilty of treason, though both were pardoned by President Washington. By 1802, then President Thomas Jefferson repealed the excise tax on whiskey. Under the eye of President Washington, the emerging United States survived the first true challenge to federal authority.

George Washington’s Rye Whiskey is distilled at George Washington’s reconstructed distillery at Mount Vernon from a recipe discovered by scholars examining the distillery ledgers for 1798 and 1799. It is distilled in limited quantities and only available for purchase in person. In 1797, urged on by his farm manager, James Anderson, Washington ramped up production and it produced 600 gallons in 1799. The year Washington died, the distillery produced nearly 11,000 gallons, making it the largest whiskey distillery in America at that time.

The Majestic Figures of Mount Rushmore

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore, a batholith (a large emplacement of plutonic rock that forms from cooled magma deep in the Earth's crust) is located in the Black Hills in Keystone, South Dakota. My children's visit to the monument a month ago stirred my interest in the history of the iconic symbol of the United States that over two million visitors view annually.

The Majestic figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are surrounded by the beauty of the Black Hills. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the design and oversaw the project's execution from 1927-1941with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum.

Mount Rushmore features 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The memorial park covers 1,278.45 acres and is 5,725 feet) above sea level.

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson conceived the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region. The sculptures face southwest, which gives them maximum sun exposure. Robinson originally wanted to feature American West heroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud, and Buffalo Bill Cody, but Borglum thought the sculpture should have broader appeal and chose the four presidents.

After securing federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of "Mount Rushmore's great political patron" U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck, construction began in 1927. The presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. After Gutzon Borglum's death in March 1941, his son took over as leader of the construction project. Each president was originally to be depicted from head to waist. Lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941.

Quaker Woman

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

In 1938 Associated Press Writer Jack Schreibman wrote an article titled Quaker Woman Saved Army. While my Mother was working on our family genealogy she found the post on the unlikely Revolutionary War hero who is possibly from the same family tree as us.

"She was dead for 38 years before the world learned of Lydia Darragh, the heroic woman who saved George Washington's revolutionary army 200 years ago this month. The archives of the University of California at Berkeley, California, show only a few published references to the incident in besieged, Philadelphia during the bitter winter of 1777.

But there is enough in the stacks on the on the American Revolution to reconstruct the startling affair that gave the nation one of its earliest and unlikeliest spies -- a delicate, righteous Quaker lady.

Philadelphia was in enemy hands the night of December 2nd. Washington and his ragged, starving men were shivering at Valley Forge when the Irish born woman was called before the British officer who had requisitioned her house. Sternly, the unnamed adjutant general confronted the 48-year-old woman, who was known in the community as a skillful and tender nurse and midwife. But, she had another reputation.

Mrs. Darragh was under a cloud in the Society of Friends for her membership in the "Fighting Quakers," a group which rejected the sect's strict requirement of pacifism. In fact, her son Charles was an officer in the revolutionary army and was rebuked for this later.

The adjutant general informed the little woman that she and her family were under orders to retire early that night because he and his staff were to have a council. Accordingly, she and the family went to bed at 7 o'clock, the archives show. But Mrs. Darragh, her curiosity aroused by the urgency of the general's orders, couldn't sleep.

The minutes dragged by. Finally, she slipped downstairs and pressed her ear to the keyhole of the council chambers. She overheard an order for all British troops to march two nights later and attack General Washington's despairing army. She rushed back to her bedroom in turmoil over the threat she had overheard.

A militant believer in the American fight for independence, she decided on a desperate course of action. General Washington must learn of the British plan. The morning of December 4th, she told her family they needed flour, and with this story she succeeded in getting a pass to go through British lines to Frankford.

Not daring to tell even her husband of her mission, she went to the mill at Frankford, got the flour, then pressed on deep into American held territory, where she met an officer she happened to know, Lt. Col. Thomas Craig of the Light Horse.

Taking him aside, the woman confided the momentous secret gleaned at the keyhole, after extracting a promise that her identity be kept secret. The startled officer sped off to Washington's freezing encampment and told the commander in chief the British were planning a surprise attack.

That evening, General Sir William Howe marched out of Philadelphia with a strong force to destroy the American revolutionary army. As reported in the American Quarterly Review of March, 1827, from narrative accounts by Mrs. Darrah, a thoroughly confounded adjutant general later confronted her in her house. The woman's blood ran cold with terror fearing her secret was out. Said the British general, "When we arrived near Whitemarsh, we found all their cannons mounted and the troops prepared to receive us. We marched back like a parcel of fools."

Mrs. Darrah waited for the blow to fall, perhaps an order for her execution. As if in response to her unspoken thought, the general earnestly inquired whether any of her family were up the night he and the other officers had their meeting. Then he added, "I know YOU were asleep, for I knocked at your chamber door ... I am entirely at a loss to imagine who gave General Washington information of our intended attack, unless the walls of the house could speak."

The little Quakeress went back in her kitchen, a tight smile on her lips.