Edward Shippen to Benjamin Franklin and John Foxcroft, 2 July 1764
Edward Shippen8 to Benjamin Franklin and John Foxcroft
Letterbook copy: American Philosophical Society
Lancaster 2d July 1764
I Received your Favour of the 29th Ulto.9 and had the perusal of yours to Mr: George Ross1 of the same Date which we answered this Morning jointly.2 Francis Campbel Esqr: and Mr: John Piper of Shippensburg I think I could Take the Liberty to Recommend as Honest Men and very proper Persons to under Take the Management of a Post office in that Town.3 Colonel Bouquet4 is acquainted with them both and if the former should not Chuse to accept of the Commission perhaps the Latter may. I wish I could write with greater Certainty about this and as to a proper person at Carlisle I must Refer you to the Colonel, who I think, is better acquainted with the People there Than I am. I am Sorry I can Say nothing Concerning the weekly Post which you intend to Carry on from Lancaster through York and Baltimore to Annopolies.5 I am Sirs Your most obedient Humble Servand
Edwd: Shippen
To Messieurs Franklin and Foxcraft
Postmasters General
8. For Edward Shippen, mayor of Philadelphia in 1749 and a resident of Lancaster after 1752, see above, V, 195 n.
9. Not found.
1. George Ross (1730–1779), a Lancaster lawyer, was a member of the Pa. Assembly, 1768–75, a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. DAB.
2. Neither the letter from BF and Foxcroft to Ross nor the joint answer from Ross and Shippen has been found.
3. BF and Foxcroft had apparently decided to establish a postal route from Philadelphia to Shippensburg and were looking for personnel to man the offices. On July 18 William Dunlap, postmaster at Philadelphia, announced the establishment of a regular post from the capital to Shippensburg, leaving the Philadelphia post office every Thursday afternoon at 3 o’clock and passing through Lancaster, York, and Carlisle. Pa. Gaz., July 26, 1764. Francis Campbell (d. 1790?) was an Indian trader, storekeeper, and minor officeholder at Shippensburg. Charles H. Browning, “Francis Campbell,” PMHB, XXVIII (1904), 62–70. A Col. John Piper of Bedford Co. served on the Pa. Executive Council in 1781 and is mentioned occasionally in the documents of the period. Whether this is the same man as the one mentioned here is not certain.
4. Col. Henry Bouquet (above, VII, 63 n) was at this time in Philadelphia organizing an expedition against the Delaware and Shawnee towns in the Ohio Valley.
5. Nothing is known of plans to establish at this time a direct postal service southward from Lancaster and York, although the Record of Outgoing Philadelphia Mail, 1764–1767 (below, pp. 398–402), indicates the probability that such a route had been set up by the autumn of 1764.