Do you know of Centreville ???

This entry has been created as a placeholder - we hope to develop more information in the future.

This entry could be in error. It might be that our source had a mis-print, was simply wrong or we made a transcription error while referencing it. We hope to learn more about Centreville in the future.

We found mention of Centreville as a post office, but can't determine its location - other than being located somewhere in Kent County, Rhode Island.

It's common that the post office is named the same as the community in which it's located. In this case, we can't match this post office to any of the communities in our gazetteer.

The earliest mention that we've found of Centreville was in a Postal Guide dated 1851 (see the 'Miscellaneous References' section below).

Concerning post office names, please consider:

There were no written policies concerning the naming of post offices prior to 1891. The community or a postmaster would propose a name when applying for a post office. The Post Office Department could accept or reject the proposed name - it might even insist upon a name of its own choosing.

The names were usually taken from the community, a township, a railroad stop, a location or feature like a crossroad. In some cases, the post master supplied their own name, that of a family member or even the name of a business.

There are cases where the community's name was rejected and another name had to be picked. In some cases, the application for a post office left the name blank and then the Post Office Department would chose a name of their own.

There are cases where the name of the community and the post office are different. Maybe the name of an established post office was changed because the community or the postmaster requested a new name.

If a large community had more than one post office, they had to have different names. In that same vein, the name of a post office must not conflict or cause confusion with a post office elsewhere.

Miscellaneous References and Mentions for Centreville ...

We've created the following list to keep track of the sources that proved useful by adding to our knowledge about Centreville:

Business Atlas and Shippers' Guide (1895)
Published by Rand McNally & Co.

A note taken from the Shipper's Guide for Centreville:
Services available in 1895: had a Railroad Station, Express Office

Table of U.S. Post Offices in the United States (Jan. 1851)
Published by W. & J.C. Greer, Printers