9 COMMUNICATIONS

Postal Service

When writing home to Britain, the early settlers used to make a copy of any letter they wrote, each to be sent on a different ship, as a safe- guard on account of the many shipwrecks. On an average, it might take a letter two months to reach its destination in Great Britain — four months to write and get an answer back. Mail for Islanders came to the Halifax Post Office, to be picked up there; lists of names of settlers who had mail waiting for them there were published in the Nova Scotia Chronicle and Weekly Advertiser. These lists, from January 19, 1773, to October 5, 1775, contained the names of such Stanhope

Mount Joy, the oldest house in Stanhope and the first post office in the area. Jean Quick coll.

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