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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock New* Staff Writer
When Marti Cannon closes the Castleton Post Office in the basement of her home at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow, an era will come to an end.
Since March 1914, a Cannon has been postmaster at Castleton. Now it appears there may not even be a post office at Castleton. Mrs. Cannon has resigned from the post office after deciding to return to teaching.
The United States Postal Service has sent letters to the general delivery customers saying that the general delivery service will be suspended, and that officials from the postal service will be in contact with members of the community to determine their wishes.
Most customers with Castleton addresses are served by a rural route that actually comes out of the Boston Post Office. Mrs. Cannon has been providing general delivery service for about 13 customers. Many of them are people with weekend homes in Castleton who will have problems seeing that mail in a box along the road is regularly emptied.
She provides service at the post office for rural route customers also, selling money orders, receiving and mailing packages, selling stamps, and taking in priority and express mail registered letters and mail with postage due that can’t be delivered in person.
She has noticed changes since she took over from her mother-inlaw, Ruby Cannon, in 1981. First class mail went from 20 cents to 29 cents. She said she has seen a large increase during the past two years in the number of packages mailed at Christmas. She believes this is due to the economy, with people staying home at Christmas and sending packages rather than travelling.
On the other hand, she has also seen a dramatic increase in the use of express and priority mail. “They ask, ’How can I get it there fastest?”’ she said. “I very seldom see a personal handwritten letter,” she added. “People don’t correspond; they use the telephone.” Most of the first class mail she handles is bills coming in and payments going out.
As a fourth class post office, Castleton is only supposed to be open two hours a day. Sometimes, she admits, she’s had to bend the rules to accommodate her customers. “The post office gets good marks for the service we’ve been giving,” she said. “It isn’t required.
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