David McCullough (1933–2022)

McCullough's masterful biography and history (covered, I'm sure, in the other 200 reviews) lacks explanation of only one important mechanism: mail delivery, by land and sea, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. How systematic was it? If a person wanted a letter to reach someone in England or Prussia, for example, what channels did it go in? How did letters find their way to persons who may have been on the move? Although there were postal services (one that Franklin established in Pennsylvania,for example), how systematic were the connections between them?

(For a short explanation of postal service in the early 19th century, see Paul Johnson, *The Birth of the Modern, World Society 1815-1830* (Harper, New York, 1992), pp. 166-169. One key fact: "Letters were not yet stamped: the recipient paid.")… (altro)

As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River.… (altro)