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  Oldest Post Office in USA
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ContributorChronicler 
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DescriptionIf you were standing right in the middle of Main Street in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, (population 1700) facing south toward the Asheulot (pronounced Ash-wheel-lit) River, you would be looking at the oldest, continuously-operating post office in the United States.

When the big yellow building with brown trim opened its doors in 1816, James Madison, the fourth president of the country was in office; the Pony Express wouldn't come into being for another 44 years, the Civil War was still 45 years away, and Abraham Lincoln was 7 years old.

The building started out as a combination village store and post office, with apartments on the second floor.Can you imagine going up to the barred window ordering stamps, a can of beans, and a dozen eggs as well?

Back then, mail was moved by horse and wagon over unpaved roads that were a sea of mud in the spring, dry and dusty in the summer. They couldn't be seen (or sometimes found) in the winter.

In the mid 1800s the railway made its way to Brattleboro, Vermont, a town eight miles away. Outgoing mail was taken there and put on a train; incoming mail was picked up...

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