Neither Snow Nor Rain...

Excerpt from Neither Snow Nor Rain by Devin Leonard. The famous description of postal service inscribed on the New York City post office building comes from Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484-425 BC) and his admiration of King Darius and the Persian postal system:

"Almost as soon as the written word appeared, people began sending mail. Archaeologists have determined that by 1900 BC, the ancient Assyrians had established one of the first postal services. Merchants used it to exchange messages written in cuneiform on tablets sealed in clay envelopes, and they trusted it enough to send each other currency. 'I provided your agents with three minas of silver for the purchase of lead,' one businessman wrote to another. 'Now, if you are still my brother, let me have my money by courier.'

James A. Farley Post Office in New York City

"Typically, however, ancient rulers didn't allow commoners to use their postal services. They reserved the post for their own use as a tool for controlling their subjects and consolidating their power. Two centuries later, the Egyptian pharaohs created a network of postal routes traveled by horsemen who carried messages written in hieroglyphs on papyrus to their princes and military leaders. Only the most highly born Egyptians could send mail through the official post. Merchants had to use slaves to deliver their messages.

"King Darius of Persia, who reigned from c. 521 to 486 BC, presided over perhaps the most celebrated ancient postal system and used it to extend his power throughout the Middle East and into Asia. The king copied his orders onto wax-covered tablets using a metal stylus and entrusted them to his postmen, who were legendary for their efficiency. 'Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers,' marveled the Greek historian Herodotus. 'These men will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the dis­tance which they have to do, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by darkness of night. The first rider delivers his dispatch to the second, and the second passes it to the third; and so it is borne from hand to hand along the whole line, like the light of the torch-race.'

"Do these lines sound familiar? They are nearly identical to those carved in stone above the entrance of the monumental James A. Farley Post Office in New York City designed by McKim, Mead & White and opened in 1914. William Mitchell Kendall, one of the firm's architects, read Greek for pleasure in his off-hours and selected a modified translation by Harvard professor George Herbert Palmer to adorn the building: 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.' Many have assumed that this is the motto of the U.S. Postal Service, but the USPS doesn't have one. It was just the world's largest postal service nodding respectfully to one of its most illustrious forbears.

Neither Snow nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service Author: Devin Leonard