In an era of instant messaging and crowded inboxes, Toronto’s First Post Office offers a vivid link to a time when communication was deliberate, tangible and steeped in ritual. For nearly two centuries, the Georgian brick building at 260 Adelaide St. E. has stood as both a working post office and a museum, preserving the art of letter writing with quills, ink, and wax seals.
Built in 1833 as the personal residence of postmaster James Scott Howard and the city’s first official post office after incorporation, the site once handled every piece of mail coming into Toronto. Inside its original walls, visitors today can glimpse an era when folded letters served as their own envelopes and wax seals carried messages as distinctive as the words they protected.
Artifacts on display range from delicate signet rings to worn quill cutters, alongside correspondence from prominent figures like William Lyon Mackenzie and Egerton Ryerson. These relics, combined with archival letters brimming with personal emotion, reveal how this early postal hub connected a growing city to the world—and to each other—long before telephones or fibre-optic cables.
The museum’s commitment to preserving and sharing history extends online, with nearly 1,800 items from its archives now freely accessible to the public. Whether in person or virtually, Toronto’s First Post Office invites visitors to slow down, take pen in hand, and experience the enduring beauty of ink, wax and paper. You can read the entire story on this amazing service by subscribing to Canadian Stamp News.
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