For decades, the unofficial slogan of the United States Postal Service was: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” That phrase was chiseled over the entrance of the James A. Farley Building, a post office facility in New York City.
The spirit of that tagline was demonstrated one day when a pilot of the Lake George mailboat briefly interrupted his postal duties to rescue a boater in distress.
It was early August 1927, and Bolton, New York-born Alexander Taylor was transporting mail over Lake George when he spotted a wooden launch and its occupant in peril.
During summers in that era, the mailboat left Lake George Village at 10:30 am for post offices around the 32-mile-long waterway. The craft arrived at Baldwin, at the north end of the lake, at 1:30 pm. At 4:30 pm the carrier returned to Lake George Village.
George A. Martin, president of the Railroad Cooperative Building and Loan Association in New York City, had a summer residence on Lake George. One day while crossing the lake, the banker’s craft unexpectedly began taking on water.
Alexander Taylor was cruising on those waters in his mailboat when he observed the sinking vessel. Taylor promptly came to the rescue of Martin, who later claimed he would have drowned. Following the near tragedy, Taylor spotted an unusual hole in the stern of George A. Martin’s wooden runabout.
When back at the boathouse, Taylor spied a nearby tree that had been hit by lightning. The strike created a furrow in the ground from the evergreen to where the watercraft was tied up. The letter courier hypothesized the suspicious cavity in Martin’s launch was due to a thunderbolt.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), lightning kills more people each year than tornados, hurricanes, and flooding.
Ships made of steel have an automatic ground of lightning in their hulls. This is not so with wooden boats. To protect wooden and fiberglass vessels, one needs to create a ground for those crafts. Today, Maryland Sea Grant provides information about properly grounding your motorboat.
Taylor’s quick action in August 1927 seems to have brought him good luck later that year too, as it was a great season for this fan of the New York Yankees.
In October 1927, Taylor and his friend Charles Finkle attended one of the World Series games in New York City. The Bronx Bombers with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Mark Koenig leading the way, defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4 games to 0.
Alexander Taylor, a veteran of the First World War (1917–1918), later moved to Saratoga Springs and became a machinist at the Scotia Naval Supply Depot near Schenectady.
He passed away in 1961 at the age of 63 and was buried in Bolton Cemetery in the Town of Bolton.
On a summer day in 1927, this waterborne mail courier not only completed his “appointed rounds,” he also rescued a Lake George boater in “harm’s way.”
A version of this article first appeared on the Lake George Mirror, America’s oldest resort paper, covering Lake George and its surrounding environs. You can subscribe to the Mirror HERE.
Illustration: A wooden boat near Anthony’s Nose on Lake George (J.S. Wooley Publisher).
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