The Beginnings of the True Railway Mail Service: And the Work of George B. Armstrong in Founding It
George B. Armstrong
Paperback
(Forgotten Books, Dec. 3, 2017)
Excerpt from The Beginnings of the True Railway Mail Service: And the Work of George B. Armstrong in Founding ItGeorge B. Armstrong was a native of the north of Ireland. His mother was a Buchanan, and she traced a relationship to James Buchanan, a fact which brought the Armstrongs over to this country. While his eminent relative was a United States Senator, young Armstrong made use of the Senator's influence to get himself a place in the Post Office Depart ment. There, in the capacity of clerk in the contract office, he labored intelligently and faithfully, and it was there that he acquired that kind of knowledge of postal business which early distinguished him as an expert. His proved executive ability obtained for him the recommendation of his superior to the Postmaster at Chicago, who was at that time in quest of an experienced man to be his assistant. This was in 1854. In the position of Assistant Postmaster, he remained through successive administrations, and until 1865, when, at his own request, he was relieved to give his entire time and energy to the railway postal system.It was in 1864 that he made known to the Department at Washington the outline of his scheme for mail distribution on the railways. His presentation of the scheme was so plain and attractive that it received the unhesitating indorse ment of postmaster-general Montgomery Blair.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.