post-office

post-office (plural post-offices)

1. Archaic form of post office.
   • 1771–1790, Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography [Part 1]”, in John Bigelow, editor, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. […], Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co., published 1868, →OCLC, pages 188–189:

     However, as he kept the post-office, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news; his paper was thought a better distributer of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many, more, which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me; for, tho’ I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, […]

   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XVI, in Emma: […], volume II, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, pages 306–307:

     The post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.

   • 1835 February, Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, page 104:

     An embezzlement of government money to the extent of about Rs. 2,000 was discovered some time ago in the post-office here, between the baboo, mutsuddy and mohurrer.

   • 1842, Daniel Parish Kidder, Mormonism and the Mormons: A Historical View of the Rise and Progress of the Sect Self-styled Latter-Day Saints, Carlton & Lanahan:

     […] that he and David Whitmer swore falsley, stole, cheated, lied, sold bogus money, (base coin,), and also stones and sand for bogus; that letters in the post-office had been opened, read, and destroyed; and that those same men were concerned with a gang of counterfeiters, coiners, and blacklegs.

   • 1845, Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Law of Promissory Notes and Guaranties of Notes and Checks on Banks and Bankers‎, page 388:

     In all cases of this sort, it will be sufficient, that a letter is put into the post-office early enough after the day of the dishonor of the Note to go by the next post, whether it be a bi-weekly, or tri-weekly, or a mere weekly conveyance, if it be the ordinary mode of communication.

   • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, pages 101–102:

     For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.

   • 1896, Henry Lawson, “Hungerford”, in While the Billy Boils, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson […], →OCLC, page 41:

     The post-office is in New South Wales, and the police-barracks in Bananaland.

   • 1906, Newell Meeker Calhoun, Litchfield County Sketches, page 134:

     Outside the door were a bed of fennel — meeting seed — and some rose bushes. Close by was the country store and post-office.

   • 1907, Eleanor Gates, Cupid, the Cow-Punch, page 48:

     Somehow, though, as the parson come 'long-side the post-office, most anybody wouldn't 'a' liked the way thinks looked. You could sorta smell somethin' explodey.

   • 1910, United States Congressional Serial Set, volume 5592, page 4:

     A telepost is a dispatch of 50 words, between all points, for 25 cents, delivered at the post-office.

   • 1917, James A. Cooper, Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper‎:

     Halfway down the hill, just beyond the First Church and the post-office, was the rambling, galleried old structure across the face of which, and high under its eaves, was painted the name "Cardhaven Inn."