The Jackson Mail: Transported from Ann Arbor by a Yoke of Oxen.

The Jackson Sunday Herald contains an interesting article on the development of the post office of that city, and the postal service, which in an early day was principally with Ann Arbor. As to the latter it says:

The evening of a beautiful fall day in 1830, was drawing near. The smoke from the few scattered log cabins of Jacksonburg rose lazily in the air. The creaking and jolting of a heavy wagon over the timbers of the rude bridge across Grand river, on the Washtenaw trail, broke upon the ear. The driver urged his oxen to a faster walk and finally stopped them in front of the little log store of Isaiah Bennett. Walking gravely in, he took from the crown of "grandfather's hat" a small packet which he handed to Mr. Bennett.

The loitres [loiterers] around the frontier store looked curious and their curiosity was soon rewarded by the announcement that Jacksonburg at last possessed an official post office, for that packet, carried in the "attic" of Hiram Thompson's hat, all way from Ann Arbor, a long distance in those days, contained Mr. Bennett's commission as postmaster of Jacksonopolis, as the office was to be officially known. That hat was the first "mail pouch."

It was nearly four years after the above incident before mail was received regularly. Teamsters from Ann Arbor brought any mail that had accumulated there, and upon its arrival here it was thrown into a basket, to be called for. Geo. Mayo, the first mail contractor to bring mail, arrived on his first trip, in the summer of 1834, announcing his arrival by the blowing of a huge tin horn and shouting in tones echoed by the neighboring hills. "The great eastern mail from Ann Arbor!"