Arthur McCleery, longtime mail carrier in Greenport, dies at 87

Arthur McCleery was recognized as the oldest mail carrier with the longest route on Long Island, but he had another distinction — a fan base of not just people but dogs along his Greenport circuit, his family said.

Pockets of canine treats earned him friends, such as the two pit bulls who headed for him but then gobbled the cookies McCleery scattered in their path, his two sons said. Pooches even protected the postal carrier from less friendly dogs, his family said.

“He had a couple dogs that walked the whole route with him every day because he gave them treats,” said older son Arthur McCleeery of Southold. “One of the guys on the route had a dog named Ginger and said she knew what time he was coming around and Ginger would get uncontrollably excited.”

Greenport’s mailman for decades, McCleery was still walking his 10-mile route at 73 in early 2010 when the U.S. Postal Service recognized his age and daily distance, an accolade that got him on News 12 Long Island.

“He was kind of like an iron man,” his older son said. “In the mornings, he would tape his knees up like a football player. He did a lot of walking every day, and he wasn’t getting any younger.”

McCleery, of Cutchogue, died April 4 of kidney failure at age 87.

Born in Brooklyn as the youngest of three and raised in Lindenhurst, he was drafted into the Army in the mid 1950s and served two years, his sons said. He worked as a radio operator and also prison guard at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, with a stint in Germany. He later told his family he was lucky he served primarily between the Korean and Vietnam wars.

He also made the most out of his meeting with one famous soldier, said his son Brian McCleery of Mattituck: “He was hanging out with Elvis, and he always bragged about it.”

In 1964, McCleery married Grace Partenheimer, who he met through friends, and they moved to West Islip. He worked for several years as a supermarket deli clerk and went to his sons’ baseball games.

Searching for a better career with a pension, he nabbed the postman’s job in the 1970s and was assigned various routes before his family moved to Cutchogue in 1980. Five years later, Greenport landed on his lap, according to the Long Island branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers union, where McCleery was Greenport’s steward.

With no truck assigned him, McCleery journeyed along County Road 48, a main east-west thoroughfare, down to Greenport Harbor and up to Long Island Sound, his family said. The Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital served as convenient restroom break. A bench on a cliff overlooking the Sound was a pleasant setting if he had time for lunch. On the places where stray cats hung out, he left cans of food daily.

“He liked the people, out being alone, walking the route, just being in the fresh air,” Arthur McCleery said. “The old-timers that were retired would wait for him so they could talk to him. He would say ‘Listen, I can’t gab with you for long. I’m on a schedule.’ “

As a union steward, McCleery was vocal in bringing up members’ issues to management, Brian McCleery said. “He would file grievances all the time,” the younger son said, “and he won more than he lost.”

After slipping on ice one winter, he retired in 2014 at age 77, wishing he had left earlier.

“Artie loved boating and fishing in the waters of eastern Long Island, which was a favorite pastime, when he was not enjoying the peaceful solitude of his front porch,” according to daughter-in-law Judy McCleery, Arthur’s wife.

Nicknamed Dr. Doolittle by neighbors, the retiree fed turkeys, birds, deer and stray cats that came without fear onto his one-acre property, his family said.

“There wasn’t an animal he met that wasn’t interested in making friends with him,” Judy McCleery said.

His wife Grace died in 2017. McCleery was cremated April 7, and his ashes are to be spread at a place he designated.