Clues lead "detective" to hitchhiker By Pamela Edwards pamedwardse@sc.rr.com

Photo by Hugh Staples Detectives walk through water and woods in search of clues.

I am a spy, a detective, and a pirate searching for buried treasure. I have found letterboxing.

Letterboxing

Letterboxing began in Dartmoor, England, in 1854 with Victorian guide James Perrott placing his calling card inside a bottle along the banks of Cranmere Pool. He invited others to leave their calling cards.

In 1888, a tin box replaced the original bottle and visitors would leave self- addressed postcards; the next person who found it would retrieve the postcards and mail them back from their hometown. Hence, the name "letterbox" was coined from the British term for mailbox.

In 1998 Smithsonian magazine published a small article in the United States about this oddly British hobby found on the moors of southwest England.

Readers found each other via the relatively new Internet and formed Letterboxing North America.

The first letterbox in the U.S. is believed to have been planted in Prayer Rock, Vermont, in April, 1998, and by 2001 over a thousand letterboxes spotted the United States covering all 50 states. The first letterbox believed to have been placed in South Carolina in November of 2000, was called "Lost Fish."

Pamela Edwards searches for clues.

My letterboxing

I now have the necessary supplies: a rubber stamp which would become my signature stamp, a small notebook in which to record boxes found, an ink pad, and a pen. I may need to add a compass in order to find the more obscurely hidden boxes. I enlisted the assistance of my fiancé, and we chose a rubber stamp with fish on it as our "team" signature stamp and a "trail name" to match, in honor of our early dating days, wading the river and fishing.

I searched the websites letterboxing.org and atlasquest.com for clues to find boxes hidden nearby. Clues ranged from the extremely complicated with multiple steps and intricate puzzles to the simple "drive- by" boxes placed near the edges of parking lots or other easily accessible areas. Each clue page contained symbols denoting handicap accessibility, child friendliness, pet friendliness, etc., as well as the distance of the walk or hike necessary.

Detectives find letterbox.

With clues in hand, we set out on our first letterboxing adventure on a September Sunday afternoon. Our first letterboxing excursion paid off with three stamps for our new, blank logbook. We followed clues near the grounds of the State Capital, near Finlay Park, and a small lake.

Our previously blank logbook now contains ink stamps from the two letterboxes found, the logbooks hidden in the boxes now boast our "signature stamp" of two fish, and we got a bonus on our very first day! We found a "hitchhiker!" So we got an extra stamp for our newly begun collection.

A hitchhiker, in letterboxing language, is a rubber stamp and logbook without a home box placed in another's letterbox to "hitch a ride" from one box to another. The finder's responsibility is to take the hitchhiker and place it into another letterbox within a reasonable amount of time or to leave it for someone else to move.

Photo by Hugh Staples Tracking clues in letterboxing leads participants to beautiful areas in Columbia.

We plan to take the hitchhiker, "Shoo Kitty" with us to plant in another box while we are on a trip.

We logged our finds onto the Internet website Atlas Quest and have since received feedback from the letterbox planters, as well as from the hitchhiker planter.

For more information on letterboxing, visit these letterboxing.org and atlasquest.com.