The Mill River Disaster of May 16, 1874, was a day that changed Williamsburg, Mass., forever. May 15-21, 1938 was National Air-Mail Week, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the U.S. postal air-mail service. The brainchild of Postmaster General James A. Farley and proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, each town was invited to create its own cachet which would be printed on envelopes on May 19 with letters flown all over the country bearing the new special 6 cent airmail stamp. So, in 1938, Williamsburg’s legendary dam-breaking disaster and U.S. postal air-mail delivery anniversary were united in this postal cachet commemorating that fateful 1874 flood. A cachet is a printed or stamped design or inscription, other than a cancellation, on pieces of mail that commemorates an event.
Richard F. Burke, Postmaster and Robert F. Nash, Assistant, in the Williamsburg Post Office, provided this explanation of the disaster cachet, “Sponsored by the Citizens,” created for the 1938 celebration: “This cachet commemorates the Mill River Flood, of May 16, 1874, in the town of Williamsburg, Massachusetts. This flood was caused by the breaking away of a storage reservoir dam [in Goshen]. The picture in the left-hand corner of the cachet is George Cheney [the dam keeper], the picture in the right-hand corner is Collins Graves [local farmer], the heroes who rode ahead of this body of water to spread the alarm to the towns below savings hundreds of lives. The loss of life from this great disaster was 150 and the property damage was close to a million dollars.” The memorial marker, sponsored by the Williamsburg Historical Commission, for the town’s Mill River Disaster flood victims sits in front of the Old Town Hall, now the Williamsburg Historical Society, in the center of Williamsburg. #throwbackthursday; #tbt
Posted to Facebook 5/13/2021
