The Mail Room

The Mail-Room was filled with over 7 million pieces of mail. All that mail filled the shelves and 3,423 sacks of mail. There was 5 post-masters named Oscar Scott Woody, John Star March, William Logan Gwinn, James Bertram Williamson, and John Richard Jago Smith. The Mail-room was located on G-Deck on the Port-Bow side. When the TITANIC struck an iceberg, the Mail-Room almost immediately filled with water. The Post-Masters almost immediately began to carry the bags to the upper decks. By the time they had almost met their fate, they had brought an estimated 200 bags to the upper decks. One eyewitness named Albert Theissinger said "I urged them to leave their work. They shook their heads and continued at their work. It might have been an inrush of water later that cut off their escape, or it may have been the explosion. I saw them no more." Those men were some of the first to die on the TITANIC. They have a memorial in the Smithsonian Institute with beautiful paintings of them. Their bodies were never found. The mail was thought to be lost for years but now, there may be parcels still in the bowels of the ship. First of all, there was a bag filled with not only jewelry and gold, but also bank-notes (English checks)that still had ink and was visible. Secondly, on the Empress of Ireland, there was a clearly visible newspaper from the day it sank. Hopefully, there will be a recovery expedition to find the mail and send the mail to the persons or family of those of whom the letters are sent.