Town of Newburgh History

Orange Lake once had its own post office

By Alan B. Crawford
Posted 11/25/20

Everyone today is accustom to our Postal System. It wasn’t always this way it is today. Let’s drift back about 100 years or so and look at what we had in our Town.Early in the history of …

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Town of Newburgh History

Orange Lake once had its own post office

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Everyone today is accustom to our Postal System. It wasn’t always this way it is today. Let’s drift back about 100 years or so and look at what we had in our Town.
Early in the history of our nation, Benjamin Franklin helped conceive and promote the concept of a postal system by which communications could be sent across the land. On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress created the postal system with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general. He helped mold many of the aspects of our current system.
Some of the innovations he set in place, even before the colonies became states, was faster mail delivery by having weekly wagon traveling weekly Philadelphia and New York, using relay teams so that they moved 24 hours a day. Many of the improvements he developed under British rule he continued and refined for our country until 1776 when he became ambassador to France. He also put into place a means of determining the cost of mailing something based on weight and distance.
By 1789, we had approximately 75 post offices. Today, we have over 40,000 post offices with about 500,000 career people, making it the largest civilian employer. But, so much for the beginning and the end. How about 100 years ago, or so.
Mail was delivered to our local post offices. People would periodically travel there and pick their mail up. Sometimes, neighbors would combine their efforts and do the courteous thing, by gathering another’s mail and dropping it off to their farm. Remember, back then people made their living by farming and leaving the farm to travel to wherever your post office was to see if you had any mail took away from your chores and livelihoods.

The concept of rural free delivery was developed and promoted by the Grange movement and through their efforts, legislation was passed putting into place mail carriers who would pick up the mail at the local post office and deliver it to the individual farms. This came into being in 1896, though it was probably another decade or so before it was in place. Pretty neat, huh! When I was young, we didn’t have house numbers, just RFD#’s. Once, when I was about eight, a family friend mailed me a post card while on vacation in Florida with only my name and Newburgh NY as an address. It actually arrived without any other address information! I guess the community was still small enough that everyone knew one another.
And what were the local post offices? Since people gathered at specific points, the first post offices were simply taverns, half-way houses, general stores, and so on along the more well-traveled byways. We need to remember the population of the Town in the late 1800’s was very, very small considering what we now have. This being said, everyone really knew everyone. So, let’s look at one of the post offices of our Town which still stands, though it is now a private home.
The first post office was established at Orange Lake on July 15, 1869. The first Postmaster was Charles L. Young. He was succeeded by J.R. Scott on June 21, 1871, with the service discontinued on June 3, 1872, and the service then being provided from Newburgh. However, the service was reestablished on January 25, 1886, with Ezra Van Wagner as Postmaster. On July 31, 1889, this post office was discontinued and the replaced with service from East Coldenham.
On July 14, 1900, the Model Post Office was established at Orange Lake. On July 30, 1907, the name was changed to Orange Lake. This post office provided service for over thirty years. On the effective date of October 31, 1931, it was discontinued with service now being provided from Newburgh.
At the Model Post Office, the first Postmaster was Mamie L. Lucine. She was succeeded by Tenny R. Hyde on September 29, 1903. The next Postmaster was Wilbur A. Benedict taking over the reins on July 30, 1907. The last Postmaster was Charles F. Chase, appointed on August 27, 1908.
I’m sure many of you will recognize some of the names mentioned. I wish I knew the names of the original mail carriers who first used horse and buggies to go about their routes. Imagine doing this back then with only dirt roads and rough paths in the winter? While this was faster for people to get their mail, something was lost when a trip into town to get your mail also provided a chance to pick up the latest gossip and news. Oh, well, today we have Wi-Fi and I guess we can just sit home and be couch potatoes. Damn, I miss some of these old ways of living.