Believing that you could not perform a more beneficial or acceptable service to the people residing in the district of country extending from the vicinity of South Bend, & running south west to Winnimac, & on to Monticello, in white Co., & from the Michigan road westward, almost indefinitely, than by Supplying them with those mail facilities they have needed so much & so long, I have concluded, after conversing with various persons, well acquainted with the circumstances connected with this subject, to call your attention especially to it, and request you to procure the passage of a law, establishing a mail route from South Bend, via North Liberty, Barbers Mill, Morris’ Bridge, recently created at the old ford, one & a half miles north of me, North Bend, in Starke, & thence on to Winnimac & Monticello. You know the country perfectly well, and could better inform the Com. on P. O. & P. Roads, as to the actual facts & necessities of the case, than all the petitions in christendom. You are undoubtedly aware, that the entire belt of country west of the Michigan Road from Logan to South Bend, is without an P. O. save at Winnimac & Barber’s Mill, unless there be the mere apology for one on the road from Plymouth to Laporte, & that the people in all the section named have no access whatever to the mail than at Plymouth, Rochester & Winnimac. Our Township, the heaviest farming one & highest taxpaying one in the county, never yet has a mail carrier set foot upon its soil, & being so remote from Plymouth, the people generally take no newspapers, & know nothing of what is passing in the world, save by occasional rumour. Very few of them know, at this moment, who was elected President, early last month, & not one in fifty, I venture to affirm has yet, or ever

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will, see the President[’]s late message to Congress. Now this state of things in a community like ours— in a small township of 500 inhabitants & all farmers, I humbly conceive to be outrageous, & that, at least, a weekly horse mail ought to be put upon the route designated, as soon as may be practicable.

From my information, it is believed that postoffices ought to be established at North Liberty, the one continued at Barbers Mill, & the present mail from thence to Plymouth discontinued, one in this vicinity, another at North Bend, for the Tippecanoe Bogs, & some one or two between Winnimac & Monticello, the people in that region to tell how many & where. But all this, it is supposed, is an after affair, to be settled by the P. M. Gen^l & parties concerned. If it be necessary for the several routes to be designated & established by law, & is presumed to be the fact, before mails can be run upon them, then our first object is to procure the proper enactment, & follow up that by the other measures requisite.

I have no means at hand to determine whether you are on the Com. of P. O. & P. Roads or not; if you are, you can easily present our tribulations to that Com., & if not, the additional trouble would be so trifling, that you would readily incur it. In any case, it is confidently hoped that you will bestow the proper attention upon this matter & have the necessary measures taken at an early day, so that failure may not arise from want of time, at the short session of Congress.