A Brattleboro postmaster comes up with a unique idea
that just might stick around.

The first gummed stamp made in America went out of circulation on this day in 1847. It was the invention of Brattleboro postmaster Frederick N. Palmer, a music teacher from Maine.

He was Brattleboro's postmaster from 1845 through 49, and he commissioned engraver Thomas Chubbuck to make plates for a Brattleboro stamp.

The US Post Office Department converted postage to five and ten cent denominations two years prior, but were just getting around to issuing appropriate stamps. Palmer printed 500 five-cent stamps with gummed backs, to use until the federal stamps were ready.

Photo courtesy the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, Inc.

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