Your Move

I love books, and over the decades must have acquired (and sometimes disposed of) hundreds of them. Some even worked their way into my affection. But for the life of me I cannot remember what siren call persuaded me to purchase The Golden Treasury of Chess, by the Editors of Chess Review, published by Arco in 1958.
Now, I am no chess player. I know the basic rules and I even have a chess computer, though I have never, not once, managed to beat it even at simpleton level. So I think my passing interest at the time may have been the thought that it was actually possible to write down the moves of some ancient game and replay them again, centuries later. Thus the book offered a brush with antiquity.
The earliest game recorded therein dates from the late 15th century, probably 1485, when a certain Francisco de Castellvi (white) beat Narcisco Vinoles (black) in 21 moves. It also contains the notation for a Ruy Lopez game in Rome in 1559. And so on and so forth, selected notated games right through until the late 1950s. Amazing!
One or two of the games particularly intrigued me, though. One was a match of 1873 played at Thorp (note the missing final e), near Norwich, between CH Capon and IOH Taylor. This was notable because after white's 16th move every one of black's pieces were liable to capture, though to take one would be to incur instant defeat. Another recorded game was played in Norwich in 1871 between an unnamed amateur (white) and JH Blackburne (black) who won on his 21st move.
But the really curious one was a correspondence match which ended in June, 1842. This was between Norfolk (Col Green and W Newton) and New York (Col Mead and J Thompson), New York winning after 29 moves.
How did they communicate? Letter? Telegraph? And how long did the match last? Alas, the book doesn't say.