Let's See Your Territorial Covers!

Here are a couple of covers from Port Orford (originally Fort Orford), Oregon Territory. This one from 1854 (internal dating) acquired a Portland O.T. transit cancel as well, on its way to Indian Agent Joel Palmer in Dayton, O.T.

And this one features a territorial balloon cancel. I don't know why the adhesive was affixed over an indicia since the envelope bears no trace of having been used previously. Thoughts?

If the penciled docketing is to be believed, Port Orford was still using the territorial (O.T.) CDS in November 1860, nearly 21 months after Oregon statehood! This envelope appears to have carried election returns for Curry County (in which the plurality went to Douglas over Lincoln).

Maybe the sender had already addressed it - I presume the Nesbitt is 6c? - so space at UR was limited.

Since 10c was the proper rate at that point, the extra 6c was just not needed/pointless. If that's a 10c Nesbitt, then this would make less sense.

edit: It was April 1855 when the rate for over 3000 miles went from 6c to 10c. I assume it was a left-over 6c Nesbitt.

Yes, txstamp, I see on closer examination that the indicia was for 6c rather than 10c. So perhaps the sender, in a frontier situation (1855, per docketing on reverse), decided to suck up the amount already paid instead of going looking for 1c and/or 3c stamps to make up the difference. He might even have assumed the envelope was simply no good as postage in part payment.

Here's one of my all-time favorites from Wyoming Territory -- it's alive with the feel of how things were a-moving in 1880s America. The sender at Fort McKinney, having thought better of something he had just mailed to a lady back in New York, was able to avail himself of the instantaneous possibilities of the telegraph, to arrange for the envelope to be intercepted and returned to him! I've never seen anything quite like it.

"Returned to the Writer / Requested by Post Master pr Telegram / Fort McKinney Wyo. T."

I thought this may be of interest to you guys!

Wyostamp, is the blue cork cancel on your cover a masonic cancel?
Cheers

Laurie 02,

To the best of my knowledge the resemblance is only that, and it is just a quartered cork with an additional gash in it.

Thanks Wyo
Cheers

Following my earlier theme, this is a cover originating from the early Pre-Colorado mining region. The so-called Pikes Peak Gold Rush.

It is franked with a pair of 12c #36s paying the 24c British Open mail rate to Britain.

I think that this is an extremely interesting cover, as it is -

1) The earliest known foreign use from the Mining area

2) From Auraria, Kansas Territory - now part of Denver, Co.
One of the earliest PO's established in the region. They had a hard time securing a mail contract with anyone though. Jones & Russell was carrying most of the mail at this time to and from the area at adjacent Denver City. The fact that this did not go by J&R, and instead went north, via Ft Kearney is indicated by the Council Bluffs postmark. The Auraria origin is determined from the docketing (applied by recipient), in ink of the period. Also numerous other covers from the very early mining region entered the mails as this did, at Council Bluffs.

3) I am told that this is the earliest known use of this particular Portland, Me exchange office marking. An agreement with Canada about mail carriage had just been signed in November. As a result this likely went via the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway, maybe via Detroit, which is how it managed to get to Portland ME, instead of Boston or New York.

4) Outgoing Foreign mail that went through the Portland ME exchange office is not nearly as common as that which went through, say Boston or New York. In a census of about 500 Portland exchange covers, only 60 are outbound. Most mail posted in the East would default to Boston or NYC, while that posted centrally or West might find its way through the Detroit or Chicago exchanges. Those last two exchanges, however, were formed in December of 1859, for British Treaty Mail. So this letter was mailed just prior to those offices opening and bypassed them as a result. The Portland exchange was opened in Feb 1859.

Richard Frajola has a good write-up of this cover here:
https://www.philamercury.com/covers.php?id=28941

Very interesting cover!

Well, California never was a Territory, but here's a pre-statehood cover from San Francisco:





And this one from Michigan Territory. A few years later, this fort was in the Wisconsin Territory (boundaries, not the fort, changed locations):

Those are nice covers.

Early California is very interesting.

Not a Territorial cover, but probably one of the earlier Post Office documents related to post offices in Wisconsin Territory.

Part-printed Letter, dated June 30, 1837, to Thomas J. Sanborn notifying him that his request to establish a post office called Sanbornton in Dubuque County, Wisconsin Territory, with him as postmaster, has been approved, pending his submission of his Oath and Bond forms.





And the address panel.