The new financial year is a common time for businesses to refresh both their product packaging and shipping stationery, developing a new set of custom cardboard boxes intended to help the outside of their products stand out as much as the contents.

What makes parcel boxes so inherently fascinating is how versatile they can be made; whilst there is a range of standard sizes that they are typically designed for, parcels can be made to snugly fit almost anything.

Similarly, the parcel post system has become so sophisticated and accommodating that it can deliver anything that is legal to ship comfortably, quickly and efficiently.

However, one particularly fascinating aspect of both cardboard boxes and parcel post is when people attempt to post themselves through the system.

It is very rare, which means every story has a unique box and a unique story behind it that merits exploration.

Who Was The First Person To Be Delivered By Parcel Post?

Notwithstanding early and less well-documented forms of parcel post that existed before the 19th century, the first person known to have delivered themselves by post was the abolitionist, magician and public speaker Henry Brown.

Born into slavery in 1815, Mr Brown, alongside James Smith and the unrelated Samuel Smith, paid $86 to post himself in a “dry goods” box from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, a free state where slavery had been abolished.

The journey took 27 hours, and despite some rough handling from carriers despite the “handle with care” and “this side up” instructions, he avoided detection and successfully lived the rest of his life as a free man, even adapting the nickname “Box” into his name.

Who Was The First Person To Attempt To Travel The World By Parcel Post?

Henry Box Brown’s heroic exploits were largely driven by necessity, but Herman Zeitung was motivated by a baffling desire to do what had not been done before and what might not have even been possible.

The Railway Gazette and other specialist publications from 1893 to 1895 were filled with the bizarre, almost comedic stories of the Austrian tailor Herman Zeitung attempting to post himself via the US parcel service.

At the time, the Adams Express Service had a policy of confidentiality, which was the reason why Henry Box Brown had successfully escaped. However, even they had their limits, as shown by a series of farcical attempts by Mr Zeitung to deliver himself from New York to Chicago.

He did successfully make it to Chicago, although at one point he was caught and charged “corpse rate”, and several other times he was arrested, having nearly died during various human post stunts. There are no reports that he succeeded in his globetrotting postal journey.

Did People Travel Abroad Via Parcel Post?

International air mail and parcel post are incredibly affordable, and the idea of sending parcels around the world for a fraction of the price of a ticket on a passenger jet has led some people to have the extremely dangerous idea of putting themselves in a box and shipping themselves around the world.

It is impossible to overstate how dangerous this is; rather than being in a comfortable, secure pressurised cabin, air freight is in cargo holds which are often at the mercy of extremely bitterly cold weather and occasionally limited oxygen due to the thinner atmosphere at cruising heights.

There are at least three occasions where someone has successfully travelled internationally in a cargo box, however.

Reg Spiers

The first was Reg Spiers, an Australian javelin thrower who wanted to get home from England but had no money for the airfare. Instead, he spent 63 hours in a box flying to Australia, nearly dehydrated on the runway at Mumbai Airport and finally made it to Perth in 1964.

Somehow, this is one of the least unusual details of his life, which includes drug smuggling, escaping from a ten-year prison sentence in Adelaide, doing the same in India, before facing the death penalty in Sri Lanka, before being granted a reprieve and deportation.

Brian Robson

A year later, Welshman Brian Robson (unrelated to the football manager of the same name) found himself in a similar predicament but in the opposite location; he was stranded in Australia with no money to get home.

Inspired by Mr Spiers’ story, he asked two friends to seal him in a crate which was to be shipped to London from Sydney. Unfortunately, the flight he had planned to be shipped on was full, and so he ended up upside down on the runway for 22 hours before being flown to Los Angeles to be transferred to London.

He survived, barely, but was caught in Los Angeles and deported to London that way.

Charles McKinley

Nearly four decades later, Charles McKinley attempted the same journey to see his parents for less by shipping himself in a box and charging the fees to a UPS charge card. 

Unlike the other two instances, this actually cost Mr McKinley more, but he could pay it off in instalments and thus had access to the flight immediately.

Ironically enough, he made it to the airport and his parents signed for the package when he was finally caught, arrested and faced terror charges. Ultimately, he escaped with a fine and a misdemeanour stowaway charge.