Interesting US Auxiliary Markings

This is one of my favorites. "Mail delayed Train late" It happened so much they made a stamp for it :)

Well, here is a surprise discovery! However, this may not have been applied by the USPS.

I came across a fairly early "Missent" on an 1867 cover. Which begs the question, when was the earliest auxiliary marking used on mail?

This one is fun because it was missent to Miss Lolita's middle name "Hayward"




Hayward was originally known as "Hayward's", then as "Haywood", later as "Haywards", and eventually as "Hayward".

It remained "Haywards" until 1910 when the "s" was officially dropped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayward,_California

An interesting item, especially when the reason for a mis-sending is apparent, however,


"Officially dropped" by whom? The Wikipedia article does not specify, thus the pitfall of over-reliance on Wiki articles. From a postal history standpoint, the USPOD did not make it official until April 1, 1911:

(Postal Bulletin # 9467, dated March 17, 1911)

John, Thanks for official citation

Don't know; maybe the people who lived there decided to call it that before the PO officially changed it.

That is a problem with Wiki, anyone can add or edit. I've never done before. Maybe I'll update the entry (if I can figure out how).

pat

Wiki ....short on volunteers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02...tors/4515928

Today I will share a postcard I recently bought at an antiques store in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA, scanned below, for the topic. The picture side shows the ship USS Iowa (BB-4) which saw action in the Spanish-American War and was in service up through WW1. Notice there is glitter highlighting the ship, which I thought was illegal to send in the mails.

The address side is rather 'busy." It appears that this postcard was sent without the Iowa town name of Dubuque (pronounced: duh-BUKE). The sender just had Iowa US originally on it, mailed it in Yonkers, New York, and it made it as far west as Cleveland, Ohio before the Post Office there sent it back to Yonkers, and back to the sender, Willie Morris. He then wrote Dubuque, Iowa on it and mailed it again in Yonkers and it finally made it to Dubuque.

The auxiliary marking reads:

Returned from Cleveland, Ohio,
NOV 20 1906
FOR BETTER DIRECTIONS

I enjoy finding postcards such as this one,

Linus

Interesting!

I agree mostly, although this is the way I would interpret it .... Looks like the card was originally mailed Nov 18 and sent toward Iowa, the NY&CHI RPO clerk found the address to be lacking on the 19th, sent it off the westbound train at Cleveland. The Cleveland PO did not solve the address on Nov 20, so sent it back to Yonkers where it arrived Nov 21 (the machine cancel), where it was finally corrected by a clerk on Nov 25 and sent back to Iowa where it was received Nov 27.

I do not believe it went back as far as Willie Morris, whose address is absent from the card, and "Dubuque Iowa" is in a different hand.

Tony W. did a nice article on NYC Directory Assistance in Readdressing Misdirected Items here
https://stampsmarter.org/learning/I...istance.html
Don

Thanks for the reply to my post, John.

I also noticed the handwriting was not quite the same. My only question, how would the Yonkers postal clerk know what city in Iowa to send this card to? Could the clerk figure it out, back in 1906, without asking Willie Morris?

Just wondering,

Linus

Linus, good question.

Before phone books (remember those?) and not everyone had a telephone for some time anyway, there were city directories. These listed businesses' and individuals' addresses with most directories published annually. So Yonkers (assumed to be the main PO there) had a library of these for consultation. With no city indicated, you might start with the largest city and work your way down. By contrast, Cleveland certainly gave up early.

City directories preceded phone books by many years and lasted for years after phone books became common. Some have been digitized and are a good online resource for finding people and businesses. Local main libraries would have hard copies tucked away. All bets are off for a complete run if there was a disaster back in history. For example, the San Francisco city library system was missing one or two before the 1906 Earthquake, last I heard. The SF Examiner had a complete set, but the earlier part was reported to have been thrown out(!).

Ahh yes...city directories was the answer. Thank you hy-brasil for the explanation, and also thanks Don, for the excellent link with lots of good information.

Linus

"Interesting U.S. Auxiliary Markings"

Unless there is a separate area for censor marks........will put this here.

(One year after)
Going over some censored covers, finally noticed the Dec. 7th date.

I used to know what "OVO" referenced, now can't find. (Anyone?)

Thanks,
pat

OVO = civil censorship at Honolulu
The various letters, stars and dashes are illustrated and ID'd in Lawrence Sherman's wonderful book "The United States Post Office in World War II"