Wilton’s first Post Office opened in October of 1816. It was located in The Brick Store, which is now the Unitarian Red House. The mail was delivered by horseback or stagecoach. In 1828, a four-horse stage line was established from Milford to Keene which brought the mail to West Wilton.

The railroad arrived in 1851and by the early 1860s, the commercial center of town had moved to East Wilton, now the downtown. The railroad carried the mail until the great flood of 1936. After that the mail came by bus. In 1976, mail was brought to Wilton from Manchester by truck.

Rural Free Delivery was started in 1900. The first carriers were C. Preston Edwards and George Frye. They delivered mail to rural customers six days a week as they do now. Rural Route 1 included the Perham and Johnson’s Corner sections of Lyndeborough. In 1976, the carrier was Perry Joslin.

In 1964, the Post Office established a numbering system, the Zip Code, to make the system more efficient. For many years, the downtown Post Office was located in what is now Local Share. In 1976, the Postal Service negotiated a lease for what was Stanton’s Store at the end of the business district and renovated the lower floor into the present office.

There have been many popular Postmasters over the years including resident Dennis Claire during the 1970s and Kirk Pomeroy during the early 2000. Christopher Meiman was named Officer-in-charge in 2020 and Postmaster in 2021. He succeeded Cindy Heidbreder.

Meiman has been with the Postal Service since 2000, and served in Nashua and then in Concord for ten years as a supervisor. “That is the busiest retail office in the state,” he said recently. “I helped supervise over 100 employees with our team in Concord. Concord delivered to 5 towns with over 50 carriers.

Meiman lives in Milford and was looking for something close to home, but COVID put a moratorium on advancements, although people could move “laterally". When the Wilton position came up, “I applied for it. This is awesome.”

Wilton, he said, “Is a neat place.” For instance, he recalled, coming into town during last Halloween’s Haunting of Wilton. “I saw somebody lying face down on the ground and I hopped out to help. When I turned him over, I saw it was one of the figures that had blown over.” He got a little teasing over that, “Rescuing a mannequin.”

Meiman is trying to reorganize the office and hire more people. “We were short when COVID came, and if you had symptoms, you were out for two weeks. All the neighboring offices were impacted at different times, all during December (2020) our busiest time of the year. This year we were good.”

The Postmaster is the manager, he said, doing supervisory things, like safety checks with clerks and carriers, and coordinating with the central state office. “This is a rural office with curbside delivery. In the city you have carriers walking a route. There is a lot of program changing going on,” he said, updating, getting our GPS. We are trying to digitize all of the rural routes, become higher tech and more customer friendly.

He has to deal with customer complaints – very few and minor in Wilton – like tracking issues. There is still a lot of manual input. Wilton is kind of off the grid compared to a busy office like Concord. He has to make daily reports on the number of letters, flats of packages, if routes are being covered. Then there are the Post Office mailboxes, rentals to keep track of, “and stamp prices are going up again in July.”

There is also some delayed maintenance on the building, another consequence of COVID, a new floor needed in the office, painting the outside of the building,  a tree that needs attention. “I’m having trouble finding people to work weekends.” If a route isn’t covered, he has to deliver the mail.

Meiman is married with three adult children and a two-year-old granddaughter, the apple of her grandfather’s eye. He enjoys bike riding and has ridden his bike to work. “It may look level from Milford to Wilton, but it is a gradual uphill all the way. Going home is a breeze. He also enjoys an occasional golf game with his children – an annual Father’s Day outing. “That’s fun.”

Wilton is a real cool place,” he said, “and I like it here. The people are friendly. This place is really great.”