Early Mail to Walla Walla

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 3, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 26.

Early Mail to Walla Walla

This is the way mail reached the Walla Walla Valley, now in Washington Territory, some forty or fifty years ago: There were semi-annual mails from Boston; papers would accumulate in New York for six months, then be carried on a sailing vessel to the Sandwich Islands, thence on the Hudson Bay Company's vessel to Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, 100 miles from its mouth; and thence in bateaux, propelled chiefly by human hands, 250 miles to Fort Walla Walla, on the Columbia. And it was a two weeks' journey from a home missionary's station among the Indians in the valley to the post-office at the fort and return. Now letters go from Boston to Washington Territory in seven days.—Sabbath Recorder.