Story of our post office by Marshall Cushing in 1893
The Transportation of the Mails
Pg. 41
(Miss Westman)
There is a brave little woman mail carrier in Oregon. She travels from the head
of navigation on Siuslaw's River over the Coast Range Mountains, and then
follows the river through Hale's post office within fifteen miles of Eugene
City. Her route is twenty miles long, and right in the heart of the mountains.
She carries the mail night and day, and fears nothing. She rides horseback and
carries a revolver. Miss Westman is a plump brunette, twenty-two years old. Her
father and uncle operate a stage line. At Hale's station the young woman meets
her father and takes the mail from Eugene City. Miss Westman has never met with
a mishap. On one of her trips last year she found three good sized bears in the
road, right in front of her. The horse became frightened, threw his rider to the
ground, and ran back. Miss Westman started after the runaway, remounted, and
rode right through the savage line, and strange to say, she was not attacked.
Some friends later went to the place and killed the bears. On another occasion
Miss Westman met two bears, but they did not molest her.
Pg. 475
The Oldest Postmaster
(William Irwin)
In the far northwest are some old timers. William Irwin, postmaster at Ten Mile,
Oregon, was appointed June 13, 1870, when his office was established. His office
has been served from such romantic points as Lookingglass, Civil bend and
Olalla. The Ten Mile office has doubled its business since it was established.
Mrs. Irwin is the deputy postmaster at Ten Mile.
Pg. 819
Clerks' and Carriers' Organizations
(Edward F. Daugherty)
Edward F. Daugherty of Dayton, O., sergeant-at-arms, is a Lebanon, Pa., boy,
born in 1867. When he was four months old he was taken to Dayton. He went to the
public schools and to a commercial college, and then learned pharmacy with his
father. In 1887 he went west, and finally reached Portland, Oregon, with five
dollars in his pocket; but he found work with the storekeeper and postmaster of
Glencoe, Oregon. He was soon assistant postmaster, clerk and bookkeeper, and, as
he says, teamster and cowboy. Later he was an engineer in his employers mill.
Mr. Daugherty soon returned to Dayton, however, and was clerk in the Dayton,
however, and was clerk in the Dayton post office. After two years he became a
carrier; and he lately passed an examination for the Railway Mail Service. Mr.
Daugherty weights[sic] one hundred and seventy, and is six feet tall. His mother
was a teacher in Mr. Wanamaker's Sunday school in Philadelphia thirty one years
ago, and was one of the guests at the future Postmaster General's wedding.
Transcribed for Genealogy Trails by Shauna Williams