The year was 1854, and a
Victorian guide named James Perrott placed a bottle in the
wildest, most inaccessible area on Dartmoor, England, along
the banks of Cranmere Pool. In it, he included his calling
card so future visitors could contact him and leave their own
calling cards. Little did anyone know, this small act would be
become the hobby we now know as letterboxing. A hike to
Cranmere Pool in 1854 was anything but a simple walk in the
woods. This area regularly receives over 100 inches of rain
each year, and the peat acts as a sponge making travel through
the soft, wet ground a severe challenge. The easiest access
point required a nine mile, one-way hike through this
difficult terrain, and the low, undistinguished profile of
Cranmere Pool meant that hikers could easily miss the pool
even if they found themselves within a few hundred feet of it.
Those who made it to Cranmere Pool were justifiably proud of
their accomplishment and recorded their accomplishment by
including their own calling cards in the bottle. Needless to
say, not many people picked up James Perrott's calling cards
in those early years. In 1888, a small tin box replaced the
original bottle. Visitors left self-addressed postcards and
the next person to visit the letterbox (except if it was a
same-day visitor) would retrieve the postcards and mail them
back from their hometown. By April 1905, another upgrade was
in order—particularly a means by which the increasing number
of visitors could record their attendance. For the first time,
it included a logbook, and a zinc box replaced the tin box.
The first suggestion for a rubber stamp appeared in the
logbook on July 22, 1907 by John H. Strother who wrote,
"Reached the pool at 7.10pm, misty day with cool breeze, and
would suggest that a rubber stamp, something like the post
office stamps for postmarking letters or rubber stamp for
putting the address at the top of a piece of notepaper be
provided and kept here. If this were done it would be proof
that cards posted had really come from Cranmere." The
letterbox finally reached the point as we largely know it
today as a box containing a logbook and a rubber stamp.
Letterboxing is perhaps the slowest growing hobby of all time.
Forty years would pass from when that first letterbox was
planted by James Parrott until a second one made its way into
letterboxing history at Belstone Tor. Another 44 years would
pass before a third letterbox was planted at Ducks Pool. After
122 years, fifteen letterboxes dotted Dartmoor. In 1976, Tom
Gant created a guide map pinpointing the fifteen letterboxes
in existence, at which point letterboxing began to boom in a
big way. The number of letterboxes tripled the next year and
in the 1980s grew into the thousands. Letterboxing became a
full-fledged hobby in its own right, and letterboxers who
wanted to distinguish themselves started to create descriptive
names for themselves and personal stamps to mark the
letterboxes they found. Unfortunately, this wild west of
letterboxing did not work out very well. Letterboxers started
pulling apart historic rock walls, painting graffiti marking
the location of letterboxes, and so forth, and Dartmoor
National Park wanted to crack down by removing all but the
Cranmere Pool and Ducks Pool letterboxes, both of which at
this point had permanent structures to house the contents.
This is when another man, Godfrey Swinscow—affectionately
known as God—swooped in and rescued letterboxing from
extinction. He met with officials from Dartmoor concerned
about the impact of letterboxing, wined and dined them, and
hammered out a code of conduct still in use to this day: The
Cranmere Pool letterbox, as it stands todayBoxes should not be
sited in any kind of antiquity, in or near stonerows, circles,
cists, cairns, buildings, walls, ruins, peatcutters' or
tinners' huts, etc. Boxes should not be sited in any
potentially dangerous situations where injuries could be
caused. Boxes should not be sited as a fixture. Cement or any
other building material is not to be used. As the number of
letterboxes exploded on Dartmoor, a loose confederation of
letterboxers formed the 100 Club—formed when there were just
100 letterboxes on the moor!—to recognize the achievements of
those who found at least 100 letterboxes. The official clue
book is only for members of the 100 Club, but other than that,
it's largely a club that does not exist. There are no
meetings, no committees, and no membership fees. Godfrey was
once called, in a Tavistock Times article, the 'unofficial
president of a club that doesn't exist.' As of March 2006,
this non-existent club had nearly 14,000 members! Letterboxing
stayed a mostly Dartmoor-only tradition until April of 1998
when the Smithsonian magazine published a small article in the
United States about this oddly British hobby found on the
moors of southwest England. Many people read the article and
loved this treasure hunt concept wishing it was a bit closer
to home. A few readers, however, found each other through
means of the relatively new Internet and decided to take
matters into their own hands by hiding letterboxes for each
other in the United States. Through this effort, Letterboxing
North America (LbNA) was born. By 2001, over a thousand
letterboxes spotted the United States covering all 50 states.
Letterboxers traveling to international locations started to
plant letterboxes around the globe from Aruba to Zimbabwe.
Atlas Quest made its debut a few years later in 2004. Ryan
Carpenter, an unemployed software engineer, started with the
idea of allowing letterboxers to create a virtual online
logbook to show off all one's finds and plants. Things often
do not turn out as planned, and he ended up creating the city
search making it easier than ever to find clues for
letterboxes from around the world. Atlas Quest has continued
to grow supporting message boards and alternative letterbox
types such as postals, cooties, and virtual letterboxes into
the website you see today while LbNA has largely stuck to its
roots by focusing on the support of traditional,
post-Smithsonian letterboxes. James Parrott never could have
guessed his small act would evolve into a rubber stamp
addiction among adventurists from around the globe 150 years
later. What will happen with letterboxing in the next 150
years? (Ryan Carpenter, www.atlasquest.com/aboutlb/history/,
2008)
Letterboxing predated geocaching by over 150 years. Letterboxing
is the great great grandfather of the sport we enjoy today. To
fully appreciate geocaching you have to experience
letterboxing.