‘Owney’ the Mail Service Mascot: A Tribute...
BY DAN SAYERS continued
the border into Canada. (One of his trips to Montreal resulted in a demand from the local postmaster for $2.50 to cover the cost of dog food!) As his journeys grew ever longer, the postal clerks in Albany became concerned for Owney’s safety. They decided to attach a dog tag to his collar that read: “Owney, Post Office, Albany, New York.” Other post offices quickly followed suit, adding tags of their own. For the better part of a decade, the canine vagabond was given various tags, tokens and trinkets. So numerous had Owney’s collection become that postal clerks throughout North Ameri- ca would remove various tags and send them back to Albany for safe-keeping. To help lighten the little dog’s load even further, Postmaster General John Wanamaker presented Owney with a vest that could accommodate a multi- tude of tags. It is estimated that 1,017 metal pieces found their way to the vest at some point in time. At the museum, a bronze statue of Owney by sculptor Daniel C. Brown features both the vest and many of its tags. In 1894, fresh from an excursion to Alaska, Owney left Tacoma, Wash- ington, on the trip of his lifetime. As a goodwill ambassador for the U.S. Postal Service, the bedazzled Border (or Irish) traveled for four months aboard the North Pacific mail steamer Victoria on a course for Asia, North Africa and Europe. By the time he returned to New York he’d been awarded two passports and several medals, including one bear- ing the Imperial Seal of Japan and anoth- er a Chinese dragon. In Hong Kong and Singapore, coins were attached to Owney’s vest, and stopovers in Egypt, Algeria and the Azores only added to his cache. Wherever he went, his adorn- ment allowed him to be treated like a dog of great importance. His world tour only increased his fame. When he
returned to the States on December 28, his arrival was covered by local, nation- al and international newspapers. Even the Los Angeles Kennel Club awarded him a “Best Traveled Dog” medal. All good things, as they say, must come to an end. Although he’d logged more than 143,000 miles in his life- time, Owney the Elder was no longer permitted to ride the rails or the high seas. Nearing the end of his celebrated life, the world-famous wanderer had apparently grown both quarrelsome and weary. (He’d reportedly become prone to biting some of the hands that fed him.) Yet despite protestations from an influential Chicago Railway Mail Service manager who referred him as a “mongrel cur,” Owney was granted one final journey aboard a mail train by the postal workers who had come to see him as more than a mascot. Unfortu- nately, Owney’s life came to a sudden and tragic end. Newspaper accounts of the day reported that the old dog had become ill and allegedly attacked a postal clerk and a U.S. Marshall in Toledo, Ohio. Before anything could be done to intervene, the local postmaster ordered that Owney be shot and killed. The headline of the June 11, 1897 edi- tion of the Toledo Bee read: “Tramp Dog Was Executed.” Upon his death, Owney was sum- marily eulogized in the international press. Postal clerks refused to bury him, choosing instead to have his remains preserved by means of taxidermy. In 1904, Owney’s effigy was displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair with a com- memorative silver spoon commissioned by the postal workers of Cleveland, Ohio, and manufactured by jeweler and watchmaker Webster Clay Ball. Fol- lowing the fair, Owney’s remains were sent to the Smithsonian together with his vest and 372 of his tags. Though his legacy faded during the 20th century
Owney’s effigy was first displayed in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Photo by Dan Sayers.
(more popular dogs such as Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and My Own Brucie captured the public’s imagination), he was not for- gotten at the National Postal Museum. In celebration of his arrival in 1911, Owney received a makeover and was once again presented to the public. As part of a centennial celebration, the U.S. Postal Service issued an “Owney For- ever” stamp that features a portrait by painter Bill Bond that includes five rep- resentative dog tags selected by the art- ist. The curated exhibition was titled, “Art of the Stamp: Owney the Postal Dog” and it included the rejuvenated Owney wearing his vest with much of its original regalia intact. This is Owney as I met him. Though some might find Owney’s preserved remains a bit macabre, his legacy could have been lost without it. His effigy is a reminder to today’s inter- net users of a time when hand-written notes arrived by mail and a little dog could ride the rails without benefit of a service dog registry. In fact, Owney would have remained unknown to me—and, perhaps, to you—if not for a cold November rain.
Owney is thought to have traveled 143,000 during his lifetime. Photo courtesy National Postal Museum.
150 • S how S ight M agazine , D ecember 2018
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