Mr. Hampton Pullis was in Andover, a small borough near the northern-most tip of New Jersey.

Andover once boasted an iron forge, but the industry was superseded by the giant furnaces developed in western Pennsylvania.

Hampton may have been celebrating a birthday in August of 1908, as he received a postcard from his Uncle John in Passaic.

Passaic, a densely-populated city north of Newark, was founded by Dutch traders in the late 17th Century.

By the early 20th century, it was an industrial powerhouse, producing the first telegraph cables, and furniture, and textiles.

Uncle John addressed the postcard to Sparta, a township of northern New Jersey (close to Andover) which also had a mining history (copper, iron, zinc)   that had ended by the early 20th century.

Hampton may have moved, or Uncle John may have been unclear about the address.

I selected the postcard because it is an excellent example of postcard art.

Printed in Europe, the postcard features an original, embossed drawing of a bird bearing a note and a bouquet of flowers over a gilded horseshoe.

One might assume that Hampton enjoyed the postcard greeting as it has been preserved in decent condition for 116 years.