"The Long Journey Begins"
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North face of the pavilion]
It all started in June 1974 when Franklin Judge J.T. Riley decided to replace the white building pictured here. It was reputed that the right portion was where J.N.C. Schenck had his store and post office. He was appointed Territorial Postmaster in 1802 and Postmaster in 1803 when Ohio became a state.
Riley donated the log post office to the Franklin Area Historical Society with a term that it must be moved before December 31. Fund raising took some time. On December 6 all was ready to move the building some two blocks south on River Street. A significant date: On April 9, 1976, we were notified by the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board that the Log Post Office had been entered in the National Register of Historic Places. We are the oldest standing post office on the National Register in the state of Ohio.
The Log Post Office had been protected with clapboard for almost 2 hundred years. For 30 years Mother Nature did a number on it basically on a number of the large logs. The rings [on] one of the logs were counted: 219 - this meant it was alive in the late 1500s!
We have given you a peek of some of the items displayed on the first and second floors.
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South face of the pavilion]
The historical growth of the United States is solidly intertwined with the nation's postal service. On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established an American postal system and appointed Benjamin Franklin the first Postmaster General of the Thirteen Colonies. As architect of the mail system, Franklin's postal organization eventually developed into today's United States Postal Service. General George Washington wisely said that the Postal Service, as a communications system, would "bind the nation." Without communications and its inherent need for transportation, no manufacturing or business enterprise could prosper. From horseback to modern day shipping the Post Office Department modified the various forms of transport for its own use. As a result, it has subsidized and breathed life into every major form of transporation in the United States.
After the Revolutionary War, the Ohio Company of Associates, led by General Rufus Putnam, scouted the Northwest Territory and established Ohio's first permanent settlement in Marietta on April 1788. The nation's westward expansion from across the Allegheny Mountains began with this Ohio settlement. In 1796, General William Schenck and Daniel Cooper founded the town of Franklin, Ohio. Warren County's first post office was established in Franklin 1n 1802. The General's brother, John Noble Cummings Schenck, was appointed its first Postmaster.
Early towns frequently politicked for a post office knowing that the nation's only form of communication would bring growth, manufacturing enterprises, and improved roads and transporation. This corridor of Ohio, including the town of Franklin, was extemely interested in building manufacturing plants and roads along the Great Miami River. The very road Franklin's post office was established still follows this same route. Even other forms of transporation such as the Miami-Erie Canal, the railroad, highways, and now the Ohio Bike Path basically follow the old postal route established in 1802.
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Transcription of letter establishing the post office]
[August] 5, [1802]
New Post offices have been established at the following places in the North Western Territory viz: Middletown, Williamsburg, Hamilton, Franklin, Dayton, & Staunton. I pray you, (taking the advice the advices of Judge Meggs & others, your friends) to give me the name of a suitable postmaster for each of those offices without delay. The public service will be injured by an inattention to this request.
G.G. [Gideon Granger, Postmaster General from 1801 to 1814]
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