One of the more famous early Adirondack natives was Joseph Call, or as he is more commonly known, Joe Call, the Lewis Giant.

According to Kay and Smith, Joseph Call was the first postmaster of both Callsville (Franklin County) and Pineville (Essex County). Pineville operated from December 29, 1828 and September 7, 1829 while Callsville was a post office between April 3, 1833 and October 21, 1834.

In local lore, Call was called the Lewis Giant because he was so tall, so massive, and so strong!

Contrary to the listing in Kay and Smith, many local Adirondack historians have assumed that Callsville was in the town of Lewis where Joe Call lived a good part of his adult life. Indeed, most historians have no knowledge that there was ever a post office called Pineville in Essex County.

In his work, "Joe Call, the Lewis Giant", Maitland Desormo writes that Callsville was located where exit 32 of the Adirondack Northway (Interstate 87) was built in 1966. This view has been accepted by most local historians. This has been further reinforced by another document found in the Essex County Clerk's office which shows a receipt from the postmaster of Westport, C.B. Hatch, to the estate of Joseph Call settling the accounts at Callsville. It seems that these historians have assumed that since Joe Call was a postmaster of a small post office in the early Town of Lewis and since his estate settled with the Post Office department his Callsville account, that it would follow that Callsville must have been the name of the post office in the Town of Lewis.

However, Burr's map of 1839 shows Callsville on the road from Ausable Forks (Clinton County) to Malone (Franklin County). The location is definitely inside Franklin County. I make the assumption that the Post Office Department records and Burr, being contemporary of Joe Call would have the right information, i.e. that Callsville was located in Franklin County. Therefore, could we also make another leap of faith and perhaps tentatively identify Call's post office in the Town of Lewis as being Pineville?

I have searched county records, historical records, and postal records for the definite location of Pineville for the last decade to no avail.

In Postage Accruing in the Year 1834 (ending March 31, 1834) "Letter from the Postmaster General (2/27/1835)" written to the 23rd Congress, 2nd Session Doc. No. 176, Callsville is noted as having $3.94 in income for 1833.

Covers from these two post offices must be extremely scarce or non-existent. There are no examples recorded in the Stampless Cover catalog or in Manuscript Listings by Chlanda and Wilcox and Penwell.

Anyone with information about either of these post offices is asked to contact the author at PO Box 451, Westport, NY 12993 or via e-mail at gestus@westelcom.com.

March 2, 2003