With little-variation this through mail arrangement, from which doubtless the inhabitants of Westchester County derived the same advantages a.s others on the route, continued on for twenty years longer,, when, Benjamin Franklin having^ been made Post-, master-General for the colonies, entered upon office with determination to increase the ])ostal facilities.* The weekly mail was soon started, through the winter months as well as summer, and letters leaving Philadelphia on Monday morning reached Boston by Saturday night. We have the names of two of the old mail- carriers, whose faces must have been very familiar and welcome at the various

points along the post-road. They were both of Stratford, Conn., and must have started on their stirring careers about the same

•■■ X. Y. Col. MSS., vol. V. p. 55.

' Valentine's Manual, ISM, p. 710.

Franklin himself set out on a tour of inspection, and, travelinB patiently over the routes, erectc<l mile-stones (some of which are still standing)." Mrs. Lamb's Hist, of the City of N. Y., vol. i. p. •;C8.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

time, 1728. The first was Deacon Thomas Peet, " employed as a Post- rider between New York and Saybrook for the last thirty-two years of his life, in which station he gave general satisfaction. He died of a Fever in the sixty -second year of his age."* The second was Ebenezer Hurd, who was forty-seven years, at least Post-rider and was in the i^osition at the commencement of the Revolution. '

Newspapers. -- Although not one newspaper seems to have been published in Westchester County in ante-Revolutionary times, the city press found here its firmest patrons. The weekly mail brought out with it the just iiublished Journal, and afforded for the instruction, amusement and excitement of the farmer, as of the citizen, not merely the events that were hapi^ening, but the stirring thoughts and purposes which were offering for examination and advantage.