The Express Messenger’s Story

In the summer of 1863 I was serving as  messenger on the British and American (now called Canadian) express. My route lay between Portland and South Paris, though my office was in Norway, a mile and a half distant from the latter station, between which two points I traveled with my own team. As three, and sometimes four lines of stage, connected with the Grand Trunk road at South Paris, through all of which our express did business, my route was an important and a responsible one. I ate my dinner and then went into the Portland office to get my freight and my orders for the country. After the porters had taken out the various articles consigned to my charge, Mr. Prindle, our agent, called me to his desk, and exhibited a package, directed to a party in “South Paris”, containing three thousand dollars.

“Do you know that man?” he asked me, pointing to the superscription.

“Yes,” said I.

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Yes.”

“How far from your depot?”

“A mile and a half, I should think, on the old Rumford road.”

“Well,” he pursued, “I don’t care to have this lay over at the depot, and you had better deliver it yourself.”

I told him I would do so.

I may here remark that we had no regular office at South Paris. It was my custom to deliver such matter as was consigned to partied living in the village, within a radius of half a mile or so, while packages going beyond those limits, I usually left with the station master to be called for. And so, even at Norway, it was understood by our patrons that we did deliver express matter beyond the limits of the village corporation.

As I was leaving the office I observed one of the porters, assisted by a clerk, lifting a soldier into the wagon of the Kennebee express. Said soldier’s right leg was swathed in thick bandages from the knee to the toes, and he hobbled upon crutches; his… Read More