A GLOBE-TROTTING DOG MEETS THE GRIM REAPER IN OHIO
The biggest stories in the June 24, 1897 Vancouver World were about the celebrations in London for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, marking the 60th year of her reign.
But to modern eyes the most interesting item was a small story on page five: “’Owney, the Famous Canine Traveller, Executed in Toledo.”
Owney was a terrier cross who became famous in the 1880s and 1890s for travelling around North America in railway cars operated by the post office. Newspapers referred to him as “Owney the Postal Dog.”
“The news that Owney has been killed will be read with regret by thousands of railway clerks all over the country,” said a story in the Baltimore Sun.
“Owney was a dog without a pedigree, a yellow mongrel cur, but he was known and loved by the postal clerks. His first owner was a railway postal clerk of a mail car for a run of several hundred miles. Owney received a fondness for travel, and never again could be induced to live at home.
“During the last 10 years he had travelled over almost every railroad route in the country. One clerk would pass him along to another for safekeeping, and at the end of each run he would be passed along again.”
The postal clerks would send messages along with Owney explaining that he wasn’t just some stray sleeping on postal sacks.
“To Whom It May Concern,” read a letter from a postal clerk in Portland, Me., to his compatriots in Nova Scotia on Feb. 7, 1891.
“This will introduce to your acquaintance ‘Auburn Jack,’ of Auburn. N.Y. who deserves any attention you may be able to give to Halifax, N.S. and return.
“Use him well and he will you. Jack is a great traveller, and well known in all railroad post offices in the United States. Please endorse your receipt and delivery.”
Auburn Jack – a.k.a. Owney — arrived in Halifax on Feb. 14.
“I was somewhat impressed with the introduction into our midst of so distinguished an official of the U.S. P.O. Dept.,” wrote the chief clerk of the Halifax post office.
“(But I) was inclined to look upon his visit with a distrustful eye, thinking perhaps he might be an annexationist in disguise.”
He sent Owney on to Montreal, but a problem arose — the post office there refused to send him back to his home in Albany, N.Y., until they received $2.50 for the cost of his room and board.
The Albany clerks sent the money, and Owney was on his way back to the States. He was apparently as loyal to the post office as its clerks were to him.
“Owney turns up his nose at a parlour car,” said a Boston Globe story on May 19, 1891. “(He) will not dine in a buffet car, never deigns to travel in a regular coach or a smoker, barks a statement to the effect that a baggage car is beneath his notice, but he dotes on a postal car.”
In 1895 the post office in Tacoma arranged for Owney to take a round the world cruise.
“He will go to Hong Kong on the Northern Pacific steamer Victoria as the guest of Capt. John Panton,” said a story in the Sept. 24, 1895, Quad City Times.
“There Capt. Panton will put him aboard a Pacific and Oriental mail steamer bound for London via India and Suez. Owney will thence be sent back to New York and then to Tacoma.”
His round-the-world trip lasted 132 days and included a visit with the Emperor of Japan. Posties kept track of his travels by affixing a tiny badge or medal to his collar with the name of their town or city. When the collar was full, someone would remove them and send them to Albany for safekeeping. Over the years he collected 1,017 badges.
By the spring of 1897, Owney was believed to be 17 years old and getting a bit cranky. He bit a postal clerk in Toledo, Ohio, and when a U.S. marshal was brought in to deal with him, “the dog made a rush for the gentleman and tore his trousers.”
That was the end of Owney – the cop shot him. But his fame was such that postal clerks collected money to get him stuffed and mounted. They then sent his body to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., which still has Owney on display in its National Postal Museum.
His fame endures, 120 years after his death: Owney was honoured with his own U.S. stamp in 2011.
Owney turns up his nose at a parlour car. (He) will not dine in a buffet car, never deigns to travel in a regular coach or smoker.