Preservation Parks of Delaware County has announced that a special winter letterbox will be located at Deer Haven Park in January and February. This box was placed in preparation for the 2020 theme of “Forests.”
To access the letterbox, just stop by the Visitors Center and ask for the letterbox mini booklet. Follow clues, learn about animals that make their winter home in the woods, and find the letterbox stamp.
If you are unaware of letterboxing, the hobby began over 150 years ago when visitors to the Dartmoor region of southwest England began to do something rather peculiar. Those hiking on the moors would place a letter or postcard inside a designated box along the trail as a mark that they had visited. Those who would come after them would, in turn, post letters back to those who had left them. Soon, these “letterboxes” were carefully hidden so that they would be difficult to discover. As this habit grew in popularity, the hobby of letterboxing was born.
In the early part of the last century, a logbook was used for visitors to record their presence along a given trail. Then, shortly after the beginning of the 20th century, a rubber stamp was placed in a box for further proof that a visit had taken place. By the century’s last decades, the pastime had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and letterboxing became popular across America.
The standard letterbox is a small container carefully hidden in a publicly accessible place — often in parks, nature areas, cemeteries, etc.. Similar to their modern cousins, geocaches, with letterboxes clues to the box’s location are created with various levels of difficulty instead of GPS coordinates. Each letterboxer will have his or her own logbook and rubber stamp – some store bought, but often hand carved. When a letterbox is found, the visitor will sign in to the box logbook with his or her own stamp, and then take the box’s own unique stamp to add to his or her logbook.
Deer Haven Park is located at 4183 Liberty Road, Delaware.
