{{No footnotes, date=October 2019
A Seapost was a mail
compartment
Compartment may refer to:
Biology
* Compartment (anatomy), a space of connective tissue between muscles
* Compartment (chemistry), in which different parts of the same protein serves different functions
* Compartment (development), fields of cells ...
aboard an ocean-going vessel wherein international exchange mail was distributed. The first American service of this type was the U.S.-German Seapost, which began operating in 1891 on the
S.S. Havel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe dur ...
North German Lloyd Line
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of th ...
. The service rapidly expanded with routes to
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
,
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
,
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...
, and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
. The Seapost service still employed fifty-five clerks in early 1941. The last route of this type (to South America) was terminated October 19, 1941, due to unsafe wartime conditions on the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...
. The few remaining Seapost clerks transferred to branches of the
Railway Mail Service
The Railway Mail Service of the United States Post Office Department was a significant mail transportation service in the US from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th century. The RMS, or its successor the Postal Transportation Service (PTS) ...
(RMS). Seapost operations for the US
Post Office Department
The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, in the form of a Cabinet department, officially from 1872 to 1971. It was headed by the postmas ...
were supervised from a
New York City, New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, office.
Seapost offices were also operated by the postal authorities of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and New Zealand.
Boyce, Virginia
Boyce is a town in Clarke County, Virginia, United States. The population was 749 at the 2020 census, up from 589 at the 2010 census.
Geography
Boyce is located in western Clarke County at (39.093118, −78.059190), along U.S. Route 340. It ...
. Available as an MS Word file at http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/articles/THE_RMS.DOC
* United States Sea Post Cancellations Part 1 ''Transatlantic Routes'', Edited by Philip Cockrill, Cockrill Series Booklet No 54
* ''Seaposts of the USA'' by Roger Hosking, Published by the TPO & Seapost Society, September 2008