2. 1847 Issue Block of 16 of Ben Franklin
The year 1847 is a huge one for stamps: this was the first year that you could purchase stamps from the United States government and affix them to a piece of mail as a method to prepay for its delivery (the legislation was passed in 1845). These are examples of the very first U.S. Federal stamps. Naturally, a great deal of correspondence was exchanged before 1847—the United States Post Office Department was established in 1792—but those letters were mostly paid for by the receiver.
Benjamin Franklin, who along with George Washington graced the first stamps, has a fascinating history with the post, filled with intrigue. In 1775, upon his return from England, Franklin was named postmaster general of the independent colonies by the Continental Congress. But long before, the Crown had named him postmaster general of the American colonies in 1753, a post he shared with William Hunter. Franklin was fired from that job when, in 1774, it was discovered that he had been opening mail (between English authorities) and feeding the correspondences’ contents to his rebel friends—in what’s become known as the Hutchinson Affair.
