Mail Legend. Owney was a stray mutt who, in 1888, started sleeping on old mailbags and was then adopted by the mail clerks at the Albany, New York post office. He started riding in horse-drawn mail delivery wagons and graduated to trains. He was considered a good luck charm for the trains for they always reached their destination safely in a time when train wrecks were frequent. He was presented a harness-like jacket by the Postmaster General in 1894 to help evenly distribute the weight of all the leather and metal baggage tags that marked his travels. He logged 140,000 miles on the rails alone. He was sent around the world in 1895 as a goodwill ambassador and traveled with a dog-sized suitcase to hold his belongings. He was placed in retirement confinement in 1897 but escaped and stowed away on a train bound for Toledo, Ohio. On June 11, 1897 he was shot and killed after becoming ill-tempered when a mail clerk was showing him to a reporter. Donations from mail clerks allowed him to be preserved and was transferred to the National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian Institute in 1911 after being kept at the Post Office Department headquarters in Washington D.C. On July 27, 2011, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp depicting him with some of his tags and medals.
Mail Legend. Owney was a stray mutt who, in 1888, started sleeping on old mailbags and was then adopted by the mail clerks at the Albany, New York post office. He started riding in horse-drawn mail delivery wagons and graduated to trains. He was considered a good luck charm for the trains for they always reached their destination safely in a time when train wrecks were frequent. He was presented a harness-like jacket by the Postmaster General in 1894 to help evenly distribute the weight of all the leather and metal baggage tags that marked his travels. He logged 140,000 miles on the rails alone. He was sent around the world in 1895 as a goodwill ambassador and traveled with a dog-sized suitcase to hold his belongings. He was placed in retirement confinement in 1897 but escaped and stowed away on a train bound for Toledo, Ohio. On June 11, 1897 he was shot and killed after becoming ill-tempered when a mail clerk was showing him to a reporter. Donations from mail clerks allowed him to be preserved and was transferred to the National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian Institute in 1911 after being kept at the Post Office Department headquarters in Washington D.C. On July 27, 2011, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp depicting him with some of his tags and medals.
Bio by: Dıehard
Advertisement
See more the Postal Dog memorials in:
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
