<P> Postage stamps revolutionized this process, leading to universal prepayment; but a precondition for their issue by a nation was the establishment of standardized rates for delivery throughout the country . If postal fees were to remain (as they were in many lands) a patchwork of many different jurisdictional rates, the use of stamps would only produce limited gains in efficiency, for postal clerks would still have to spend time calculating the rates on many letters: only then would senders know how much postage to put on them . </P> <P> The introduction of postage stamps in the UK in May 1840 was received with great interest in the United States (and around the world). Later that year, Daniel Webster rose in the U.S. Senate to recommend that the recent English postal reforms--standardized rates and the use of postage stamps--be adopted in America . </P> <P> It would be private enterprise, however, that brought stamps to the U.S. On February 1, 1842 a new carrier service called "City Despatch Post" began operations in New York City, introducing the first adhesive postage stamp ever produced in the western hemisphere, which it required its clients to use for all mail . This stamp was a 3 ¢ issue bearing a rather amateurish drawing of George Washington, printed from line engraved plates in sheets of 42 images . The company had been founded by Henry Thomas Windsor, a London merchant who at the time was living in Hoboken, New Jersey . Alexander M. Greig was advertised as the post's "agent," and as a result, historians and philatelists have tended to refer to the firm simply as "Greig's City Despatch Post," making no mention of Windsor . In another innovation, the company placed mail - collection boxes around the city for the convenience of its customers . </P> <P> A few months after its founding, the City Despatch Post was sold to the U.S. Government, which renamed it the "United States City Despatch Post ." The government began operation of this local post on August 16, 1842, under an Act of Congress of some years earlier that authorized local delivery . Greig, retained by the Post Office to run the service, kept the firm's original Washington stamp in use, but soon had its lettering altered to reflect the name change . In its revised form, this issue accordingly became the first postage stamp produced under the auspices of a government in the western hemisphere . </P>

When was the first us postage stamp issued
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