Hi! My Mom was a rural route carrier and I happened to be looking through her stamp collection this past weekend, trying to figure out how to catalog it for her, when I ran across this stamp. The following doesn't really have anything to do with the Norwood surname as such, but I did think it an important piece of history involving, and an interesting connection between two locations with, the Norwood name. Hope you find this an interesting slice of history! Irene ************** Rural Free Delivery: August 7, 1996; 32 cent stamp In Georgia in 1868, former slave Jerry Elliot was hired to carry mail for six rural families. From his cabin on one of the families' land, Elliot walked to Norwood, the nearest town, every morning. He got the mail from the postmaster and walked home, distributing it on his way. While making deliveries, he picked up outgoing letters and carried them to town in the afternoon. Tom Watson, a Norwood store clerk, remembered Elliot's delivery arrangement, and when Watson was later elected to Congress, he drafted legislation to establish a nationwide free rural delivery system. Postmaster General William S. Bissell rejected the 1893 bill, but farmers and other constituents had already petitioned Congress to establish such a system. They argued that the were entitled to the same free mail service city dwellers had. They also pointed out that it would be more efficient and economical for one person to deliver the mail to several households than to have someone from each house travel to town individually. In 1896, the first five official rural delivery routes were established in West Virginia. Within three years, 40 states had rural routes, and today, rural routes serve more than 25 million people in every state of the union. >From the beginning, rural carriers have been a vital link between their communities and the outside world. Their friendly, reliable service is legendary. In the 1897 Annual Report, Postmaster General James A. Gary wrote, "It would be difficult to point to any like expenditure of public money which has been more generously appreciated by the people...". This stamp was designed by Richard Sheaff of Norwood, Massachusetts and was issued August 7, 1996, in Charleston, West Virginia.