Robert Fairbanks
The Early Settlers of the West End (1630 – 1645): Robert Fairbanks, Public House Keeper
Robert Fairbanks was an inn and public house keeper in South Boston, as well as a landowner in the New Fields (now the West End). In 1638 he was permitted to sell “wine and strong water” at his home and tavern on Water Street between Washington and Devonshire Streets (neither had their modern names at the time). The practice of dropping mail at local meeting places for distribution had been common in England, and was quickly revived as after Boston’s settlement. In November of 1639 Fairbanks’ tavern was officially made the first consolidated location for international mail to come in and out of Boston, effectively making it the first Post Office in the colonies (over a century before Benjamin Franklin would become the first Postmaster General in 1775). The town established the post office in a vote that read:
For preventing the miscarriage of letters; & it is ordered, that notice bee given that Richard Fairbanks his house in Boston is the place appointed for all letters which are brought from beyond the seas, or are to be sent thither, are to bee brought into; and hee is to take care that they bee delivered or sent according to their directions; and hee is allowed for every such letter 1 penny, & must answere all miscarriages through his owne neglect in this kind; provided, that no man shalbee compelled to bring his letters thither, except hee please.
Fairbanks’ Tavern was located at the current site of the Boston Globe building and was eventually sold to another West End land holder in 1652: Richard Turner.
The Early Settlers of the West End (1630 – 1645) is a series of articles covering the surviving records of the earliest landowners in the West End.
Article by Mia Sager, edited by Sebastian Belfanti
Source: Annie Haven Thwing; The Crooked and Narrow Streets of the town of Boston; Thwing Database, accessed at the Massachusetts Historical Society archives; Samuel Chester Clough Research Materials Toward a Topographical History of Boston; United States Postal Museum; Boston Globe (April 8, 1922); Celebrate Boston
