Three surviving records of the post in the Żuławy and towards Elbląg and Braniewo are set side by side here, without being joined into a single road. Choose a sender and an addressee: you will see in which record both places appear.
Without JavaScript you see the example Gdańsk → Braniewo. Choosing your own pair of places requires JavaScript; the explanation and sources are below.
Gdańsk → Braniewo: none of the three records mentions both places at once. This is a limit of the sources, not proof that a letter could not travel — that route cannot be put together from them.
The merge is the sum of the three records. It shows how easily such a sum looks like an established road.
Permission for the Gdańsk–Elbląg–Królewiec connection
Gedanopedia, „Poczta” [“The post”]
Only one placeGdańsk: mentioned. Braniewo: not mentioned. Absence of a mention does not prove there was no connection — it only means that a route cannot be derived from this record.
Żuławy road with a station at Ząbrowo
Program opieki nad zabytkami gm. Stare Pole [Monument care programme of Stare Pole municipality], p. 216
No pair in this recordGdańsk: not mentioned. Braniewo: not mentioned. Absence of a mention does not prove there was no connection — it only means that a route cannot be derived from this record.
Berlin–Królewiec line, bypasses Gdańsk
Gedanopedia, „Poczta” [“The post”], opened 1 October 1772; in the V2 summary “among others” via Tczew, Malbork, Elbląg and Braniewo
Gdańsk bypassedGdańsk: bypassed. Braniewo: mentioned. This line bypassed Gdańsk, so a route involving Gdańsk has no documented section in this record.
Sum of the three records — not a source
The author’s illustrative device
Merged: not proofGdańsk: from 1686. Braniewo: from 1772. No single record mentions this pair — the merge creates it artificially.
A topological diagram, not a map: the order of the columns is the layout of the diagram, not a result of the records (the records give at most the order of the places they mention), and it implies neither distances nor geometry. A line joins only adjacent columns that the record mentions; at “not mentioned” and “bypassed” it breaks off, which is why the 1686 row has no line at all. The red line of the merge is only a warning. No record here settles the direction of journeys.
“Not mentioned” means: absent from our summary of the record, carried over from the previous version (for example, according to it the 1772 line ran “among others” via Tczew, Malbork, Elbląg and Braniewo, so the list is not exhaustive). It does not mean: absent from the full Gedanopedia entry or from the PDF, because those sources were not opened.
Vistula · NogatNone of the three records describes a crossing of these rivers (bridge, ferry, causeway). That is why they have no point on the diagram — their position along the route is undetermined, not zero.
Ząbrowo
Source detail · reference carried over from the previous version, to be checked in the PDF (p. 216)
The municipal monument care programme describes a post road from the last quarter of the 18th century running through Tczew, Gnojewo and Malbork towards Elbląg. It places a post station within the present Stare Pole municipality at Ząbrowo, on the Via Elbigensis.
According to Gedanopedia, the Brandenburg post administration was moved in 1705 to a house at Długi Targ 42, and from 20 April 1710 mounted posts were dispatched from there. This is an address in the city; it does not settle where horses were changed in the Żuławy.
After the railway station at Stare Pole opened in 1852, the post office was placed by the station; earlier, after the building of road no. 1, it stood near the junction with the road to Fiszewo. The source gives no exact date of the move at this point.
This record is not in the matrix above, because it does not describe a connection between places. The previous version drew a network with Malbork and Elbląg on its basis; that does not follow from the cited record, so it was removed.