In my mother’s wonderful eclectic collection of family treasures were letters from 1845 and 1848. The letters were folded into an envelope, and then addressed. The contents of the letters are typed out in Chapter 6 in The Mill on Halfway Brook.
The last letter in this post was written in 1845 to James and Hannah Eldred, from their daughter Mary Ann Eldred, my great-grandmother. You can see the address sideways on the left. Perhaps of interest is that James Eldred was the Postmaster of Lumberland from 1831 to 1851. The post office was one room of James and Hannah Eldred’s home.
There were no stamps on them, I found this to be interesting. Must be there was a time when you didn’t need a stamp to send a letter!