John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1779

At the Memorial for Klaus Wust, Gary Grassl said it would be a waste to lose the smaller pieces written by Klaus.  They are widely distributed and someone would have to look hard to find them all.  In addition, some of them are written in German.  Gary was wondering about collecting these pieces and republishing them.  I think his idea is great.

I thought I would paraphrase an example of what Gary is talking about.  He distributed copies of this to attendees at the Memorial and I would like to promote the basic idea by my comments here.  Originally, this appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1951 (two years after he came to Virginia).

This note is about Peter Barnhart, Poet and Postillion. . .

The Postman's Predecessor.

Peter Barnhart began as a post rider in 1798, riding between Winchester and Staunton and back every two weeks.  Along the way he delivered the mail and carried news both verbally and in print from the newspaper publishers.  He followed a regular routine, both in the path and in the time of day that he arrived.  People could congregate at the taverns which served as post offices awaiting his arrival.

As he rode up and down the Valley, week after week, little rhymes came to his mind.  Some of these he wrote down.  At first he was giving them away to the children but friends of his persuaded him to have them printed.  He left a few lines of verse with Lawrence Wartmann, a printer, and asked him to print it.  He did succeed in selling these which appealed especially to children.  After this he always carried a few with him.

He was regular in his rounds, which he kept for thirty years, which allowed people to anticipate his arrivals.  And then he blew a horn as he approached the destinations.  So people could rush to the tavern to leave mail for him or to pick up mail and newspapers.

Originally, Peter was hired to deliver the newspapers up and down the valley but he expanded the service to mail of all kinds plus the sale of his poetry.  He left from his home in Winchester every Wednesday two weeks and he arrived at Rockingham on Friday evening.  The next day he went to Staunton and from there returned to his house.  Though the publisher who had originally hired him went out of business, Peter continued to carry the mail and became the first official mail carrier of the US Postal Service in the Shenandoah Valley.

When there was no post office, he stopped at the taverns.  The last one on the south bound trip was Peter Heiskell's tavern in Staunton.  At first he made one round trip every two weeks but later he had to make the trip every week.  In spite of the very poor roads and the unpredictable weather, Peter had the reputation for faithfulness.