We have now completed that part of the story showing what happened to the mails locally. We use the word "completed" in the sense that we have used all the contributions offered by postmasters and employees directly connected with post offices. 

     It is realized that this nor any other story of the flood can never be fully told. We pointed out in the Foreword that many interesting experiences of postal workers in the flood area had not been sent in for publication. This of course is to be regretted, but the reader should have already found tales of sufficient variety and interest to warrant going with us into a generalization of the whole mail affair under the above heading: 
Again for the benefit of those not familiar with mail transportation, the First Division Railway Mail Service comprises the New England States. Its function is to provide satisfactory interchange of mails, not only between the many post offices within New England but, in coordination with other Railway Mail Divisions, an expeditious exchange with every post office in the world. 

     A division of Railway Mail Service has six headquarters officials: 
 

    Under these is a force of clerks and stenographers sufficient to carry on the necessary work. 

     A Railway Mail Division is subdivided into Districts. The First Division has six Districts located as follows : 
 
 

     The numbered Districts have offices with a force of from five to eight clerks and stenographers headed by a chief clerk with one assistant clerk for each District, except District No. 2, which has two assistants. 

     To each of the Districts are assigned certain railroad and electric lines over which the chief clerk and his force must layout and closely supervise the mail service performed. 

     The number of railway postal clerks (men who distribute mails enroute) under the supervision of the chief clerks' Districts in New England range from 150 to 450, or about 1500 in the whole Division. 

     The Railway Mail Service is highly technical. In a sense, it has a language of its own. The study and application required to make a first class trunk line railway postal clerk would have easily made him a lawyer or a doctor. 

     This somewhat lengthy preamble is intended only to bring the reader into the proper setting for what follows. We will let the uninitiated in on a little of our language: 

     "RPO" means "Railway Post Office," which is a car or cars regularly operated and used for the transportation and distribution of mail en route between two designated points, serving all post offices and connecting lines between the terminals of the run. For example, "Rum. & Port. RPO" does not mean 'rum and port', right proportions of, but in our vernacular a line of railway post office cars regularly operated between Rumford and Portland, Maine. 
 

   "CP" means "closed pouch" service, or mails carried in trains where distribution is not performed. 

     If the reader who is not familiar with the service will kindly absorb these two of our many symbols, considerable space can be saved and those in the Service will not be pained with needless repetition. 

     Postmasters in the flood area have already told us how they received and dispatched mail locally; as, for example, East Wallingford, Vt. was taken care of by truck service from Bellows Falls. What we now propose is to tell you how mail got to the trucks. East Wallingford is only 13 miles from Rutland; yet for a few days, as the mail had to travel, it was about 613 miles. 

     The Railway Mail Service publishes a general scheme of mail distribution for each state. A state scheme shows all of the mail supplies for each post office in the state. With this scheme and a special schedule of mail trains, the railway postal clerk works or schemes out the quickest, not necessarily the shortest, routes by which he can dispatch mail from his particular train to every office in the state. After which he studies and memorizes the result of his scheming. To do his work in the RPO car speedily and correctly, he must know his distribution better than 100%; that is to say, he must know the correct dispatch of each piece of mail he handles, and he must know it instantly. Now to add to the railway postal clerks' troubles, the distribution he had learned by continuous hard study changed from day to day during the flood period. 

     The Superintendent at Boston kept a large post map of the flooded area spread out before him. This map he changed and made over from day to day and in some cases from hour to hour from telephone and telegraph reports received from his men in the field. 

     For example, mail from Boston for Rutland, Vt. one day had to be sent via New York, Albany and Whitehall, N; Y.; the next day a shorter route via Bellows Falls had been opened; the next day found this new route impassable; the next day it was good via North Adams and Troy, and so on for weeks. 

     The Superintendent and his office staff watched this field map as might a General watch and revise a battle map of like area. To continue the allusion, there would have been thousands of mail bags, had they tongues asking "Where do we go from here?” and it was for the Superintendent and his staff to answer this question as best they could. There was a continuous flow of telephone and telegraph messages giving instructions to the field. May we say here that the wire service rendered was wonderfully efficient considering the great damage done to the lines in the flooded area. 

     As has already been pointed out, White River Junction is the headquarters of Chief Clerk, District No. 4. This District has local supervision over the greater part of the Railway Mail Service in the states of Vermont and New Hampshire. It is strategically located to handle the area. But if there was ever a Railway Mail Service unit more hopelessly disrupted and disorganized than this one on the morning of November 4th, we have yet to hear of it. There were no trains moving, no wires operating; there were well-founded and ill-founded reports of the loss of life and property and many trains including RPO crews marooned in the flood. 

     We will quote from a report made by the chief clerk of this District:

  "On the night that the flood started I was on the road, inspecting Alburg & Boston train 5511. On arrival at Bellows Falls, I was advised by the Rutland Railroad that all train service north of Bellows Falls was discontinued till further orders. Also they advised that all wire communication was fast going out of commission and. that they were unable to state what the extent of the flood damage was going to be. I therefore left train 5511 at Bellows Falls and took Newport & Springfield train 79 in order to get back to my headquarters where it was my opinion I could best handle the emergency which it was apparent was to be of a major character. Train 79 managed to make White River Junction, although in doing so we ran through one land slide and several hundred feet of roadbed went out 15 minutes after we had passed. This was the last train to arrive at White River Junction for several days. 

  "On my arrival at White River Junction I found all wire communication broken and wild rumors concerning location of trains, extent of damage, etc. This was about 1:30 Friday morning. We were isolated and unable to get into communication in any manner till Saturday afternoon when I succeeded in getting a wire to the Superintendent at Boston. His answer was, 'Move the Mails.' On Sunday morning I received information that St. Albans & Boston train 302 was between two bad washouts at Canaan, N. H. where they had been since early Friday morning and had several thousand dollars worth of Federal Reserve Funds in their possession. I managed to get to them by automobile about 10 A. M. and returned the money to White River Junction Post Office. At 2 P. M. on same day I started by auto for Montpelier and Barre which I could not get by wire. After several unsuccessful attempts I managed to get through (by the process of building temporary roads and getting my car over washed-out culverts, etc. on planks carried on our backs) to Barre about 10:30 P. M. 

  "On this trip I arranged with the road commissioners of the different towns to make temporary repairs on the route which I had passed over so that trucks could be operated Monday morning. As soon as I arrived at Barre I succeeded (with the courtesy of the New England Telephone Co.) in getting a message through to my assistant at White River Junction to start the trucks Monday morning for Montpelier and Barre and connecting points. There was at this time considerable mail at White River which had been received from Newport, N. H. via truck service from that point. On Sunday, previous to my starting from White River, I had received a wire from Superintendent Yarrington at Boston that he was sending a chief clerk to work his way through to St. Johnsbury, Vt. and another chief clerk to Bellows Falls to work north on the Rutland Railroad towards Burlington, Vt., south to Springfield, Mass., and north to White River on the Boston & Maine. 

  "On Monday I succeeded in getting information from the postmaster at Burlington that a steamer had been put in commission between Burlington and Port Henry, N. Y. to move mail in and out of Burlington, connecting with the Rouses Point & Albany RPO at Port Henry. He had also succeeded in putting some sort of service north through Grand Isle County by truck, as well as from Burlington to St. Albans. 

  "I then bent my efforts to checking up on the service in the Lamoille Valley, St. Johnsbury to Cambridge Junction, which was hard hit. On Wednesday when I arrived at St. Johnsbury I found that the chief clerk from Boston with the assistance of the postmaster at St. Johnsbury, had connected up the entire country as far north as Newport, Vt. Also that service was connected between White River Junction and St. Johnsbury. The service between St. Johnsbury and Cambridge Junction was connected up through the personal efforts of a former railway postal clerk in the Hardwick office who took it on himself to establish truck line and transfers over impossible lines at a time when this territory was cut off from all communication. This service also extended to Waterbury, Vt. and reached Burlington via Smugglers Notch which on account of the snow in the mountain passes had to be abandoned a few days later or as soon as I could make other arrangements. 

  "During the week after the flood I drove 700 miles in the flood area, making personal examination of roads and making changes where necessary in the service which necessarily had been instituted by different postmasters, clerks, etc. operating without information, and unable to know the exact needs required in sections other than local. In connection with this, I cannot say too much of the ability shown by these postmasters, railway postal clerks, star route and rural delivery carriers in their efforts to move the mails. 

  "In about ten days after the flood, with the return of some sort of wire communication and the valuable assistance rendered by chief clerks assigned to assist me, I was able again to have some idea of conditions in my district, although up to that time a great deal of the information as to receipt and supply was somewhat hazy. 

  "The airplane service between Concord, N, H. and Burlington, Vt. first attempted by free planes furnished the Governor of Vermont by the Governor of New York State (for any purposes he wished to put them to) was soon, through the personal efforts of Superintendent Yarrington at Boston replaced by temporary service handled by an aviator at Concord under government contract. This service continued till the first of the year and too much cannot be said about the manner in which it was performed and of its great value to the business interests of the flood area. I believe that this service has revealed more than anything else, the value of having proper air fields available. Several towns and cities in this vicinity are already making arrangements for such fields as a commercial enterprise ( see above photo of Lieut Robert S. Fogg of Concord  N.H.)

  "As fast as train service was resumed, the temporary truck service was withdrawn; but it has been necessary to maintain a considerable number of these routes through the winter. This has been accomplished with some difficulty, but on account of the open winter and lack of snow this difficulty has in a measure been reduced. 

  "In connection with my efforts to move the mails during the first part of this emergency, I wish to mention the assistance rendered the Post Office Department by the trucks furnished at Montpelier, Vt. by the Adjutant General of the State of New Hampshire. These were in charge of two officers from the National Guard of New Hampshire and manned by enlisted men from the same organization. Also the Adjutant General of the State of Vermont placed at my disposal trucks, men and other equipment, which were used in transportation over the roads as well as in operation of the air field at Barre, Vt." 
 

Source:  Mail Story Of The Flood, November 1927, Samuel J. Pease, Editor, Chief Clerk, Railway Mail Service, Boston Mass, October 1, 1928, Printed by The Concord Press, Concord NH; prepared by Tom Dunn, January 2002

[Provided by Tom Dunn]
 

To be continued.