Unclaimed Letters 1900's

DOCUMENT WRITTEN BY : TINA EASLEY

I HAVE CREATED THIS DOCUMENT WHILE RESEARCHING THE OLD NEWSPAPERS .

THIS RECORD OF UNCLAIMED LETTERS , WHEN THE LETTERS WERE NOT PICKED UP FOR TWO WEEKS , THE LETTERS WERE RE -TURNED TO WASHINGTON D.C. . TO THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE. THE LETTERS MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN PICKED UP FOR VARIOUS OF REASONS THE PERSON COULD HAVE MOVED , ILLNESS , OR DECEASED. BELOW IS INFORMATION I FOUND ON THE NET ABOUT THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE . APPARENTLY THE UNCLAIMED LETTERS ADDRESSES WERE READABLE BUT THE PERSON WAS NOT LOCATED.

The United States Postal Service started a dead letter office in 1825 to deal with undeliverable mail. Approximately 57 million items end up in this office which is now refered to as the Mail Recovery Center (MRC) every year, where the letters are scanned now days for checks, credit cards , money orders or things of value. If the letter is considered of value it is opened and attempt to find a address to return or forward the letter or parcel. If no address where enclosed , items of value are removed and the correspondence is destroyed. Items of value that cannot be returned are sold at auction. Except for pornography and firearms, everything that can be lost in the mail is included at auction. The auctions also occasionally include items seized by postal inspectors and property being retired from postal service.

Established in 1825 the Dead Letter Office was set up to handle the letters and packages that could not be delivered. In the early years the office employed retired clergymen because items of value such as money and jewels, sometimes end up in the Dead Letter Office. Employees of the Dead Letter Office are the only people authorized to open mail that belongs to someone else.

The dead letter clerks handled ; Misdirected letters, which were those which had all of the correct information necessary to be delivered, but for some reason were lost or the person to whom the letter was to not located , largely either because they weren't handled correctly by postal employees or had been abandoned at the designated post office (such as the Unclaimed Letters) ; "Blind Readings," so called because to the average postal worker the address would appear as though it was read blindfolded.
The Dead Letter Office clerks had the authority to open letters which couldn't seem to get delivered. Once opened, the contents of letters were considered sacred material , so much so that the dead letter clerks were and still are forbidden to read any more of the information within the letter than absolutely necessary to determine where the letters should go.

At the end of the 19th century it was not uncommon for the clerks in the Dead Letter Office to handle as many as 23,000 pieces of "dead" mail daily. Unfortunately, less than 40 percent of these letters got to the correct destination, although not from lack of effort. The rest were sold as scrap paper.

Why was these old letters destroyed ? The answer is simple. On the average, over 80,000 of the letters and packages forwarded to the Dead Letter Office at that time didn't contain any address at all, and on much of the rest, the information provided was not complete or such poorly hand written or mispelled that the addressee could not be found or was unreadable. This was especially true about the mail from foreign countries. The dead letter clerks or snoops sometimes referred to , had a real talent for unscrambling the scribbled addresses on mail from overseas .
However, before being sent to the trash pile, each letter received a very thorough going over before being destroyed . Each letter was considered it's own special case . Just like detectives the clerks , tried to solve the crime of the lost letter. The dead letter snoops searched for clues , hints that would reveal where a letter was meant to go. Sometimes , their searches paid off. Using such things as published guides and travel brochures, in true Sherlock Holmes style they were able to find homes for much of the unclaimed mail or misdirected letters.

Of course some cases were harder to solve than others. The clerks of the Dead Letter Office made keepsakes of many of the worst letters they handled. When the clerks solved a really tough address (case) , a card was sent along with the letter to the postmaster requesting that the empty envelope be returned once the letter was delivered to the addressee. The Postmaster forwarded the outer wrappers to the Dead Letter Office, where they were retained as keepsakes . Collections of such keepsake letters were bound together into small leather albums. One such volume is in the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum. Another can be found in the U.S. Postal Service Library in Washington, D.C.

Oh how I wish all these Unclaimed Letters could of been saved they would have helped to fill in so many pieces !

TINA EASLEY

tina@grnco.net

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ar/county/greene/

MARCH 21, 1909 - THE DAILY SOLIPHONE

UNCLAIMED LETTERS IN THE PARAGOULD POSTOFFICE FOR THE WEEK ENDING MARCH 1ST, 1909 . IF NOT CALLED FOR IN TWO WEEKS, WILL BE SENT TO THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE AT WASHINGTON , D.C.

BOGAN , MR. G.H.

CAGLE , MISS MAUD

BALDING , JAKE

COX , C.R.

CRUTCHFIELD , MR. V.H.

CUCKS , MRS.

DARE MISS VIRGINIA

FELTHY , MR. VAN

FERGUSON , MR. J.T.

FAULKNER , MR. HILL

IRVIN , MR. FRANK

HODGE , MR. H.H.

HATCHCOCK , MRS. H.A.

HAMPTON , HARIS

HARRIS , ELIZABETH

JONES , MR. F.A.

KNIGHT , MR. W.D.

KEY , MR. WILLIS

LANCASTER , MISS KATE

MAYSE , MR. JAMES

MEALLER , MISS MARY

MILLER , FRANK

MURRELL , MR. J.R.

REDENBEAUGH , MR. ALBERT

SMITH , MRS. MARY

ROOKS MR. J.P

ROBERTSON MRS. NANIE

STEVENSS MR. CHARLIE

SIMES , MR. J.V.

SIMS , MR. C.J.

TRAMEL , MRS. AGNES

WASHBURN , MRS. CLARA

WOOD , MR. I.W.

PARTIES FOR ABOVE LETTERS PLEASE SAY ADVERTISED .

J.H. McPHERSON , P.M.

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SEPTEMBER 15, 1909 - THE DAILY SOLIPHONE

UNCLAIMED LETTERS IN THE PARAGOULD POSTOFFICE FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPT. 13, 1909 . IF NOT CALLED FOR IN TWO WEEKS WILL BE SENT TO THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE AT WASHINGTON D.C.

BLAKENSHIP JESSIE

BALLARD HARVY

CARROLL CHAS.

FORD JNO. A.

FEDERER KARL E.

HIGDON SAM

HIGGINS EMMA

LAKE MRS. MERTIE

MORDEN W.H.

OWENS IDA

PRATHER MRS. CHAS. B.

PRESSBURG J.L.

POOLE MRS. DORA

PORTLAND H.R.

PARKER MRS. D.R.

REYNOLDS MRS. D.E.

SMITH MISS MARY

SMITH C.F.

SPENCE GILBERT

SEELY MRS. E.J.

SCOTT J.O.

VANPOOL MRS. BELLE

WHITSIDE HOMER

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OCTOBER 18, 1909 - THE DAILY SOLIPHONE

UNCLAIMED LETTERS IN THE PARAGOULD POSTOFFICE FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPT. 13, 1909 . IF NOT CALLED FOR IN TWO WEEKS WILL BE SENT TO THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE AT WASHINGTON D.C.

AUSTIN MRS. G.W.

BOWLES A.C. (2)

BURRIS VICTORY

BRUST G.W.

BROWN ROBERT

COX DR. J.J.

COMPTON K.C. (4)

GOODEN MISS LUCY

GARDNER MISS LUCY

GRAY C.E.

JAYNS WALTER

MELLER ALBERT

McGEE WILL

NIMNICHT MISS LENA

WATKINS ALVATIS (2)

WILKINS MISS MERRY

PARTIES CALLING FOR ABOVE LETTERS PLEASE SAY ADVERTISED AND GIVE DATE OF THIS LIST . OCTOBER 18, 1909 .

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OCTOBER 27, 1909 - THE DAILY SOLIPHONE

UNCLAIMED LETTERS IN THE PARAGOULD POSTOFFICE FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPT. 13, 1909 . IF NOT CALLED FOR IN TWO WEEKS WILL BE SENT TO THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE AT WASHINGTON D.C.

ALBRITTON T.C.

COMPTON K.C

DAVIS MISS STELLA

FISHER R.E.

FERRELL R.F.

GRIGGS S.A. (2)

FREEZE OATLEY

HAFFORD J.C.

HOPPER JOHN D.

McCLAIN CLAUDE

REED MRS. OMA

SMITH EDWARD W.

SMITH H.J.

ROBINSON J.H.

RUDY W.P.

SCOTT S.G.

SCOTT FRAZER

SISK ELIZA

SHANNON R.D.

SHERLEY S.T.

TRUSLEY J.L.

TUCKER MARVIN

WHITE MISS DEWDROP

WATKINS MRS. OLLIE

WILMURTH MRS. HATTIE

PARTIES CALLING FOR THE ABOVE LETTERS PLEASE SAY ADVERTISED AND GIVE DATE OF THIS LIST. OCT. 25, 1909

J.H. McPHERSON , P.M. (POST MASTER)

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