The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1891-06-24
A PORTLAND PRINTER.
mr.. Cyrus s. King, Who Put jack
sonlan Democracy into Type, and
Ran the First Railway Mall Car out
of Portland.

Mr.. Cyrus ). King of Washington, ID. c..
was 10 the city yesterday. He is now located
at his cottage at Pine poiat for the summer.
MIR. King is an old Portlander, although he
went to Washington In '66. Just after the
fire. Mr.. King came originally from Paris,
with the old "Jeffersonian," the weekly
Democratic paper that was moved to Port
land to oppose f. o. J. Smith. There were
two wings of the Democratic party In this
county in those days, one led by Smith. who
was member of Congress from this district.
and the other led by Judge William Pitt
Preble, Judge Ashur Ware, Wendell p.
Smith, sheriff Of the county, and others. 1t
was about 1882 that the Jeffersonian was
moved to Portland, with Horatio King, later
postmaster general. as editor and publisher.
Mr.. Cyrus King was then boy and cama &c
assist his brother In the publication of the
paper. In 1885 HoratiO King went to Wash
ington into the pOstoffice department under
the famous Amos Kendall. Andrew Jack
sons great wire-puler: Mr.. Cyrus King
worked for number of years as q journey
man printer, for time as the foreman Of
the office In Washington where Amos Ken
dali published an influential political maga-
zine during Tyler's administration.
About ls4S Mr., King was in Portland
department as one Of the first railway route
agents-now called railway mail clerks-in
the country. Mr.. King had charge of the in
PRODUCTION Of this useful department of the
mail service In this part Of the country. He
introduced the service ON the Concord rail-
road. and then on the Boston & Maine, then
called the Eastern as far as Portsmouth, aud
the Portland Saco Il Portsmouth for the rest
of the distance.
They had mail cars In those days as now.
az nrst on the Concord road Mr. King had
16-foot passenger car with table in IL for
distributing the mail. When he came to the
Portland route he had a room partitioned off
In freight car, which was attached TO the
passenger train. The mail and the mail
clerk, too. were much shaken up by this al
rangement. Soon after Mr.. King superln-
tended the construction OF special mail car,
made by the railroad. This car had pigeon
holes for letters; and much resembled the
modern railway postal car. This was about
1S49. Postmaster General James. in a maga-
zine article, has given the credit II origIr-
ating the railway mail service to Postmaster
General Montgomery Blair, who was in
Ltncoln's cabinet. But Mr.. Hobble, the
first assistant postmaster general, who an.
pointed Mr.. King route agent, was an Off
cial OF Folks administration. The car con-
structed by Mr.. King was the first this side
OF Boston, the Boston IL Albany having had
one before that for the run westward. Mr..
King ran ten years as route agent, the busi-
ness increasing greatly curing tnat time.
Sometimes he would have thirty sacks of
papers, besides the letter mail. The letter
mail from out of the state used to come In
three bags. oRe large one for Boston letters.
another large one from New York and a
smaller bag from Washington. Letters
from the West were of so little consequences
that they were thrown into the Boston bag
With Mr.. King was George w. Clark. who
ran alternately with him ON the route. Later
Mr.. Clark became connected with the Massa-
chusetts Ploughman.
From 1861 TO 1866 Mr.. King had a job
printing office over Hays drug store. 10 the
great FIRE Mr.. Kings office, with the whole
square, was saved by a Cincinnati fireman
VINO happened to be in the city and oilciated
eHectlveiy with bucket brigade ana long
handled dipper.
Mr.. King says that the hrst paper printed
after the fire was the PRESS, which was
printed July 5th as usual, after the fire of
Wednesday ard Wednes day night. Mr..
King had only a small Gordon press, and
the PREss of that morning was small sheet, |
bnt the only one that appeared In Portland. |
Mr. Kings printing office was tie only one |
in Portland not burned out.
In October 1886 Mr.. King went to Washing |
ton to accept a place In the Treasury De- |
partment. Since then he has resided in |
Washington, In later years coming to Maine |
every summer.