Old Paymaster Says Farewell.
Amos Hershey has just retired as postmaster of Gordonville, Pa., ending a period of fifty-five years of service for the United States postal department.
In 1860, before the Civil War, Mr. Hershey, then sixteen years of age, entered the employ of John K. Smoker, in a general merchandise store. At the same time he became one of the clerks in the post office. Five years later Hershey purchased the store business from Smoker and was himself appointed postmaster. He received his commission from William Dennison, postmaster general under President Lincoln.
The efficiency of the post-office department in that day was very crude toward what it has become in later years. When Mr. Hershey first entered the service, there were no railway mail cars. In fact, it was only in 1860 that an arrangement was made with the railroads to run a mail train between New York and Washington, the only advantage of which was the quick transfer of mail matter from one large place to another. The traveling post office, where mails are assorted when going at fifty miles an hour, had not yet come.
It was several years later that a Mr. Davis, of the St. Joseph, Mo., post-office force, broached the thought that considerable valuable time would be saved if the overland mail could be sorted on the cars, and made up for offices at the end of and along the routes. The department allowed him to carry out this idea, which, starting in such a humble way, is now one of the most important branches of the department.
Before the “catcher” on the mail cars and the “crane” at small stations came into use, twenty years later, the process of catching and delivering the pouches was indeed strenuous, both for the mail clerk and the local postmaster. Shortly before train time, Mr. Hershey mounted a platform immediately alongside the track, and, propping his feet securely, would suspend the mail pouch in front of him at arms’ length, the right hand at the top and the left hand at the bottom. When the train neared this human crane, the mail clerk appeared at the door of his car, and, securing himself firmly, would extend his right arm in the form of a crook or an acute angle, and catch the pouch as the train rushed by. The mail clerk had his arm well padded to prevent serious injury; but, notwithstanding, the risk was exceedingly great—in more ways than one. Mr. Hershey states that the mail trains were running at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and it is hard for the uninitiated to comprehend the alertness and strenuosity connected with the delivering and catching of the pouch, aside from the constant danger.
They had a very complex system in making up letter packages in those days. Mr. Hershey had to sort the letters for each office separately, no matter whether there would be only one letter for an individual office. The let[Pg 66]ters for each office had to be placed in a paper jacket of Mr. Hershey’s own making, completely inclosing the letters, and the name of the office address written plainly on the wrapper, with a waybill attached to each package.
In the early sixties the postmasters enjoyed the franking privilege, being allowed to send all their private mail without the use of postage stamps. This privilege was rescinded in 1864.
Mr. Hershey recalls a story of one of the railway mail clerks, who were known in the early days as the “paper jerkers,” and how he increased his salary: “On a side lot near the Forepaugh circus grounds in Philadelphia, there was a faker, whose outfit consisted of the stake-and-ring game. The simple and enticing amusement was played as follows: The stake was placed in the ground at a certain angle, which led the uninitiated to believe that it was easy to throw the five-inch rings over it. The feat was almost impossible. The faker had a crowd around him, and was raking in the dimes—three ‘tries’ for ten cents—when a black-mustached, middle-sized man walked up and said he’d bet a dollar he could put three rings out of five over the stake.
“The faker winked at the crowd, and took the man up. The black-mustached stranger threw five rings rapidly, one after another, and, as three of them went over the stake, the thrower was in eighty cents. Then they bet ten dollars even that nine out of the first ten thrown could not be put over the stake. The whole ten settled safely, and the faker, as he handed over ten dollars in silver, said:
“I’m broke; what’s your business?”
“I’m a paper jerker on a postal car. I don’t do anything but fling papers all day long into the mouths of fifty sacks.”
The village of Gordonville in those early days of Mr. Hershey’s postmastership had two names. The section lying north of the railroad was called Concord, and that section lying south of the railroad was named Gordonville. The railroad station was Concord, but the post office has always gone by the name of Gordonville. The village was named after Daniel Gordon, who was the first citizen and who built the first houses in the town.