That Will be 6 Cents Please!

Another one of the historic sites in historic Nauvoo is the Post Office. It was so much fun explaining the creative way people wrote to get as much information on one side of a piece of paper so the letter would only cost 6 cents. The price went up if the letter was being delivered farther away. If the letter was going farther than 400 miles (like back to England) then it would cost 25 cents. That's alot since one dollar was a day's wage in 1840's.  If the information you wanted to mail was really important, you might write 2 letters and send one by steamboat, one by stagecoach to help ensure it arrived at it's destination safely. There were many hazzards along the way in those days. It was fun to tell people that we don't have to worry about those hazzards when we communicate with Heavenly Father through prayer. We can just use "knee-mail".

The visitor's also get to see the Fredrick Merryweather Dry Goods Store which shows people the various things that were available in the 1840s. The neatest thing was a "chalk box" for marking a line when building except they used red berry juice instead of chalk! Who knew!?