Keys and chain embody dedication of Titanic sea post clerk Oscar Scott Woody 

Stamped "Sea Post 101/US Mail 19,"  the antique, flat metal key has a patina of orange rust from its immersion in salt water nearly 100 years ago—while still in its owner's pocket. The key opened locks on the 200 bags of registered mail being carried across the Atlantic to New York City aboard the White Star Line steamship R.M.S. Titanic during the ship's maiden voyage in April 1912.

"Sea Post 101" and two other keys attached to a 24-inch chain were recovered from the body of Oscar Scott Woody, sea post clerk for the U.S. Post Office Department, a few days after the Titanic sank in the early morning of April 15, 1912. Woody died, but his body was kept afloat by a cork life vest. His personal effects were returned to his widow. In April, the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum acquired Woody's keys, ring and chain at a public auction in England.

As a sea post clerk, Woody was "expected to protect the integrity of the mail and keep it safe at any cost," explains Allison Marsh, assistant curator at the National Postal Museum. "Something as simple as the key to a mailbag lock represents how these clerks did their job."

Sorting, cancelling and redistributing the estimated 7 million-plus pieces of U.S.-bound mail in 3,364 sacks aboard the Titanic was how Woody and his fellow clerks spent their days during the voyage. Clerks attached a facing slip indicating the destination to each bundle of mail they sorted. Each slip was stamped with a clerk's name, so sorting errors could be traced to a specific sea post employee.

According to eyewitnesses, Woody and four other mail clerks aboard the Titanic struggled valiantly during their final hours in frigid waist-deep water to haul the registered mail sacks up from the flooding lower decks.

"I urged them to leave their work," recalled Albert Theissinger, a steward aboard the Titanic who survived the disaster. "They shook their heads and continued at their work. It might have been an inrush of water later that cut off their escape, or it may have been the explosion. I saw them no more."

All five Titanic sea post clerks—three Americans and two British—died in the tragedy, as did 1,517 other passengers and crew.

The acquisition of Woody's keys by the National Postal Museum reunites them with a second item recovered from Woody's body that also is in the museum's collection: a paper facing slip labeled  "Wash. & Alaska" and stamped "Transatlantic Post Office, April 10, 1912. Titanic. O.S. Woody." Along with his keys, watch, wallet and pocket knife, Woody was carrying five postal facing slips in the pocket of his suit on the night he died.