In 1884, Sarah Gill was given the contract to take “Her Majesty’s Mails” from the Streetsville Post Office to the Credit Valley Railway station.

How seriously did the Victorian age take the postal system? Her contract required her to make the three-quarter of a mile trip four times a day, every day, except for Sunday.

For those 24 weekly trips, she made $100 a year. Those short jaunts tallied up quickly: three-quarters of a mile there and three-quarters of a mile back equals 3,012 kilometres a year, the same as a trip to Moncton and back!

If her pay seems low, consider that her husband Thomas Gill signed a contract in 1876 that saw him paid $600 for 624 annual round trips between Port Credit and Streetsville. Mr. Gill was a “stage driver,” though, suggesting he was already taking the route between the villages often anyway. Regularly scheduled stage coaches were the proto-public transit of their day.

When the census went through Streetsville in 1871, Sarah was caring for four children.

Born around 1835, Sarah died in 1897. Even though she held a government contract, Ontario didn’t allow women the right to vote until 1917.

The postmaster for the village of Dixie from 1890 to 1922 was Charles Gill. His wife served as postmaster after his death, until 1946. PAMA has been unable to confirm that the two families are related.

The Region of Peel Archives is in the process of getting a publicly accessible database, like those offered by other municipal archives. Archives staff has been re-inventorying the collection, as part of this project. This was one of the highlights “rediscovered” by staff. To discover Mississauga’s written and photographed history yourself, contact pamaarchives@peelregion.ca to set up a free appointment in the reading room.

For more, visit the Peel Region Archives website.