It didn’t take too long for hand-canceling to get out of hand. The first cancelling machine, created in 1875, made fairly quick work of that. The thing was hand-fed, hand-cranked, and only worked on ...

Hibbard School 6th graders poured through the Pittsfield Post Office yesterday afternoon, swarming around mail conveyors and canceling machines, ogling the towering inverted funnel of the parcel-post ...