Dear Sir,

Readers of The Specialist have recently been treated to an outstanding series of articles on the Postal and Treasury Savings Systems.  A horde of forms from the Stoyestown, Pennsylvania post office was recently acquired by this writer on ebay, which provides an interesting sidebar to Dr. Charles’ comprehensive series.

Purchasers of War Savings Stamps had the option of presenting their stamps, affixed to a War Savings Certificate, to a post office for registration.  Upon so doing, the certificate could only be cashed by the registered owner and only at the post office where registered.  Registration thus protected an owner against loss.  The Stoyestown post office registered 226 United States War Savings Certificates between January 2, 1918 and November 30, 1921.  “Application for registration” forms representing 171 of those registrations are in the recently acquired cache.  The cache consists of 123 applications to register Certificates for the Series of 1918 stamps, two for Series of 1919, 24 for Series of 1920, and 22 for Series of 1921.  It is noteworthy that the form used to apply for the registration of Series of 1918 stamps (W.S. 110, 2-3983) was also used by the Stoyestown post office as applications to register War Savings Stamps of the Series of 1919, 1920, and 1921.  The year “1918” was stricken out with pen on form W.S. 110, and 1919, 1920, or 1921 was handwritten in order to make the form serviceable for the War Savings Stamps issued in those years.  It is unknown to this writer whether or not specific forms were produced by the Post Office Department for intended use during 1919, 1920 or 1921.

Stoystown (as the name is now spelled), located in Somerset County in rural central Pennsylvania, had a population of 342 according to the 1920 U.S. Census.  According to the USPS, the spelling was changed to Stoystown on June 1, 1935, although that spelling is used in 1920 census data.  The Stoyestown postmaster during the period in question, John Custer, registered 11 certificates in is own name, and used the spelling “Stoystown” on his applications, while most of his customers used “Stoyestown,” perhaps suggesting a division of civic opinion on the correct spelling.

One Certificate was registered to a “Post Office Clerk” and one to a “Rural Carrier.”  Of the first nine certificates to be registered at the Stoyestown post office (between January 2 and January 15, 1918) eight were registered to a man who identified his occupation as “bar tender” and one to a “newsboy” with the same surname as the bar tender.

Daniel Swank, a 35-year-old miner employed by the Smokeless Coal Co. registered two certificates for the Series of 1918 War Savings Stamps. The certificate represented by this application (#33033579) was registered on July 31, 1918 and assigned registration #113 by the Stoyestown post office. Four stamps were attached to the certificate when it was registered. An additional 16 stamps were registered on August 31, 1918. The certificate was redeemed on the date of maturity, January 1, 1923.

Of the applications for registration that have been examined, 131 represent certificates to which the full complement of 20 stamps had been affixed.  The rest represent certificates to which between one and 19 War Savings Stamps had been affixed.  In other words, about 77% of the registered certificates contained the maximum number of stamps allowed – twenty.

Each of the applications identifies the owner’s nationality as “American.”  The most common occupation of registered owners was farming (28).  Sixteen registrations were made for laborers, and 13 registrations identify the owner’s occupation as some variant of “housekeeper.”  A “coal operator” registered five certificates and the dentist registered nine.  Five certificates are registered to some variation of “mechanic.”  A man identifying himself as a “miner” (see Figure) registered two certificates; a “miller” registered one.  The local “merchant,” Harvey Specht, registered nine cards.  Three school teachers registered a single card each; all three were female and two were sisters.  The sisters each registered six stamps.  John Berkelile, an “engineer,” registered 17 cards, each with 20 stamps.  Two “retired” folks registered a total of five cards, each with 20 stamps.  A “child,” a “baby” and three “minors” also registered certificates, none with more than ten stamps affixed.  A painter, William Rhodes, registered a single certificate with 20 stamps.  The local lodge of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics (something akin to what we today would call a fraternal insurance company) registered a single certificate with 20 stamps.  Two applications were made for registration of certificates with single stamps attached, one by a “farmer” and the other by a “housekeeper.”  Several cards list no occupations.

The forms are themselves of some interest.  One was noted with its reverse printed inverted in relation to the front.  The reverse of the application for registration contains 20 boxes.  The postmaster was required to place his initials and date of registration in each space corresponding to a stamp placed on the actual certificate.  Most of the 171 applications examined have the same date in each of the boxes utilized on a given form.  However, 14 applications have stamps registered on different dates.  The application of Lois Snyder, “a child,” has its total of three Series of 1918 stamps registered on three different dates, January 16, July 13, and December 24, 1918.  Her certificate was “paid” on the first day of maturity, January 1, 1923.  Indeed the postmaster in Stoyestown must have been kept busy that New Year’s Day.  A total of 39 Series of 1918 certificates were cashed on that day.  Others were cashed on the following days.  Of course not all certificates were held to maturity.  For example, Freda Custer registered her 20 stamps on June 16, 1918 and cashed them on July 1, 1920.

Forty registered owners had the last name of Custer, representing nine unique individuals, including the postmaster, the dentist, the coal operator, and the “inspector.”

Puzzling to this writer is the small number of Series of 1919 certificates registered compared to the number of Series of 1921 certificates registered.  Based on the catalogue value of the attached stamps this seems to be an anomaly.  Nevertheless, this cache of post office forms provides some insight into the operations surrounding War Savings Stamps and their purchase in small-town America during the years of the Great War.

Again, thanks to Dr. Charles, who I suspect has stirred up renewed interest in these back-of-the-book stamps!  Nice work.

Sincerely,
Rodney Juell

The Author Responds

Dear Sir,

The Letter to the Editor by Rodney Juell provides an interesting glimpse of War Savings Stamp sales in small town America during the WWI era.  The writer is to be commended for his diligent data collection and analysis of the information contained within this large cache of nominally ninety year old forms.  The information presented shows the commitment of the town’s people in supporting the war effort.  I suspect that the large numbers of registrations resulting from stamp sales in 1918 was primarily due to two factors.  The first was that American solders were in combat (including I’m sure many from the Stoystown area) and second there were many fund raising drives to promote the sale of War Savings stamps during the 1918 timeframe including a National Day of Savings (June 28, 1918) declared by President Wilson.  Such sales efforts were greatly diminished in 1919, 1920 and 1921.  The extremely small amount of registrations (stamp sales) in 1919 could possibly be due to the fact that the Great War had ended on November 11, 1918 (threat to soldiers and families was gone) and that the people had contributed so much the year before that their resources were drained.

As to the W.S.110 (2-3983) forms, I have also seen instances of the date changing to accommodate registration in later years, but given the small total number of forms in my collection, I thought this was just an individual Postmaster addressing a form shortage rather than the lack of specific W.S. 110 forms for the years 1919, 1920 and 1921.  The large number of forms (48) for these later years reported in the Juell letter seems to suggest that no new forms were created.  It would be extremely interesting to know if such forms exist.

Again, Mr. Juell is to be congratulated on providing a truly informative and intriguing letter concerning WWI era War Savings stamps and the role of the Post Office.

Sincerely,
Harry K. Charles, Jr.