John Jeffries (1796-1876) was an ophthalmic surgeon and co-founded the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary. John Jeffries John Jeffries (5 February 1745 – 16 September 1819) was a Boston physician, scientist, and a military surgeon with the British Army in Nova Scotia and New York during the American Revolution. He is best known for accompanying Jean-Pierre Blanchard on his 1785 balloon flight across the English Channel. Born in Boston, Jeffries graduated from Harvard College and obtained his medical degree at the University of Aberdeen. Dr. Jeffries played a large role in the trial for the Boston Massacre as a witness for
Airmail priority of service. Specific instances of a letter being delivered by air long predate the introduction of Airmail as a regularly scheduled service available to the general public. Although homing pigeons had long been used to send messages (an activity known as pigeon mail), the first mail to be carried by an air vehicle was on January 7, 1785, on a hot air balloon flight from Dover to France near Calais. It was flown by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries. The letter was written by an American Loyalist William Franklin to his son William Temple Franklin who was serving in