Post road

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Old Albany Post Road in Philipstown, New York, a section that remains unpaved and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places Old Albany Post Road.jpg
Old Albany Post Road in Philipstown, New York, a section that remains unpaved and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places

A post road is a road designated for the transportation of postal mail. In past centuries, only major towns had a post house and the roads used by post riders or mail coaches to carry mail among them were particularly important ones or, due to the special attention given them, became so. In various centuries and countries, post road became more or less equivalent to main road, royal road, or highway. The 20th century spread of postal service blurred the distinction.

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Asia

Great Post Road (Dutch : De Grote Postweg), from Anyer to Panarukan, Indonesia, was a notable post road in Asia, built during the governancy of Herman Willem Daendels of Dutch East Indies from 1808 to 1811.

Europe

1563 post road map of Europe Postkurse 1563.jpg
1563 post road map of Europe

Notable post roads in Europe include:

North America

The following are notable post roads in Canada and the U.S.

Canada

Chemin du Roy was built between Montreal (Repentigny) and Quebec City from 1731 to 1737, for mail and as a means of travel for the key settlements in New France [1] /Lower Canada. It was later incorporated as Quebec Route 2 and is now part of Quebec Route 138.

Two notable post roads built in the late 1700s and early 1800s were Dundas Road (The Governor's Road) and Kingston Road (Lakeshore Road or York Road) to provide a route for mail and stagecoaches between key settlements in Upper Canada. [2]

The latter route, which became The Provincial Highway in 1917 (Ontario Highway 2 c. 1923), and the former which became a Dundas Highway in 1920 (Ontario Highway 5 in 1925), were the beginning of the provincial highway system in Ontario.[ citation needed ]

United States

In what was to later become the United States, post roads developed as the primary method of communicating information across and between the colonies.[ citation needed ]

The Articles of Confederation authorized the national government to create post offices but not post roads. [3] Adoption of the U.S. Constitution changed this, as Article I, Section Eight, known as the Postal Clause, specifically authorizes Congress the enumerated power "to establish post offices and post roads." This was generally interpreted liberally, to include all public highways. U.S. Supreme Court justice Joseph Story defended the broad interpretation that had become dominant in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833). [3]

18th century milestone on the Boston Post Road Upper Post Road MP 8.jpg
18th century milestone on the Boston Post Road

Notable American post roads built for the purpose include:

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quebec Route 138</span> Highway in Quebec

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albany Post Road</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemin du Roy</span> Road in western Quebec

The Chemin du Roy is a historic road along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. The road begins in Repentigny and extends almost 280 kilometres (170 mi) eastward towards Quebec City, its eastern terminus. Most of the Chemin du Roy today follows along the present-day Quebec Route 138. The expressway that replaces both Route 138 and the Chemin du Roy through most of its course is Quebec Autoroute 40.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quebec Route 338</span> Highway in Quebec

Route 338 is a provincial highway located in the Montérégie region of Quebec west of Montreal. The highway runs from the Ontario Border near Rivière-Beaudette as a continuation of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Road 2 and ends at Vaudreuil-Dorion at the junction of Autoroute 20 which the 338 acts as an alternate and service route parallel to A-20 although through several villages along the Saint Lawrence River. Before the 1970s, this road was named "Route 2", as part of an interprovincial Route 2 that stretched from Windsor, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quebec Route 340</span> Highway in Quebec

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Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads." The Post Office has the constitutional authority to designate mail routes. The Post Office is also empowered to construct or designate post offices with the implied authority to carry, deliver, and regulate the mail of the United States as a whole. The Postal Power also includes the power to designate certain materials as non-mailable, and to pass statutes criminalizing abuses of the postal system.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dundas Street</span> Major arterial road in Ontario, Canada

Dundas Street is a major historic arterial road in Ontario, Canada. The road connects the city of Toronto with its western suburbs and several cities in southwestern Ontario. Three provincial highways—2, 5, and 99—followed long sections of its course, although these highway segments have since been downloaded to the municipalities they passed through. Originally intended as a military route to connect the shipping port of York to the envisioned future capital of London, Ontario, the street today connects Toronto landmarks such as Yonge–Dundas Square and the city's principal Chinatown to rural villages and the regional centres of Hamilton and London.

References

  1. de Boisclerc, Lanouiller (September 16, 2013). "History: Last August I travelled by carriage from Montreal to Québec in four and a half days". Le Chemin du Roy. Archived from the original on April 8, 2023. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  2. Fitzgerald, G.J. (July 26, 1975). "Heritage Highway Link". Montreal Gazette . Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Story, Justice Joseph (1833). "Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7". Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Vol. 3:§§ 1119–42, 1144–45. Boston: University of Chicago Press. Archived from the original on June 28, 2023. Retrieved October 28, 2008.