Help With A Town On A Postmark Please?

Nice cancel, but I'm wondering if anyone can take a look and is familiar with the city/town/place:

It's ......ON'S DEPOT, and there is also a problem with the State.

Thanks in advance for the help, Ray

From Jim Forte's website, these Post Offices fall within the 1865 window:

North Carolina
Faison's Depot (1838-1883)

New York
Pierson's Depot (1847-1847)

Tennessee
Johnson's Depot (1857-1868)

Virginia
Mason's Depot (1859-1876)

Virginia
Wilson's Depot (1852-1884)

Virginia
Thornton's Depot (1860-1872)

Virginia
Stephenson's Depot (1846-1883)

I suspect the state is "Minn."

[edit] Corrected to indicate the state is "Tenn."

Thanks guys.....Doug, I've been using Forte's site all evening, and I tried the string search for all states just once and it didn't work, so I thought it wouldn't work for all states. Just tried again and it worked-- so thanks, this was good information.

Still am stymied by this one.....Ray

I'll correct my previous post and suggest that the State name is, in fact, "Tenn." as in Tennessee.

Upon reviewing the list doug2222 provided, it would appear that Johnson's Depot, Tennessee is the answer to your puzzle!

(As you may or may not know, Johnson's Depot eventually evolved into Johnson City, Tennessee, a city of some 60,000 people today.)

Here's a rather interesting story reprinted from 1922 about Mayor Henry Johnson and Johnson's Depot (later Johnson City), Tennessee:

http://www.johnsonsdepot.com/henry.pdf

Part of the "string search" strategy was to include the apostrophe in "ON'S" -- you get different results with/without the apostrophe. The "list" was originally much longer, but I removed everything that didn't include the year 1865.

Found when I just google "Johnson's Depot":



That's it! I think the confusion comes in because the image shows that the state was abbreviated as "TEN", not "TN".

This is a really nice find for me, since I try to key on the Tennessee cancels, living here in the Nashville area-- appreciate all of the help!

Ray

Actually, the postmark reads "TENN." (with two "N"'s), which was typical for that State back in the day. Most two letter State abbreviations are relatively new to postmarks only having been adopted in the mid or late 20th century.

Here's a USPS history of State abbreviations that might be useful for future reference:

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/po...viations.pdf

One older abbreviation I've seen often, and not on the USPS list, actually had 5 letters: PENNA. for Pennsylvania.

I can't remember if I've seen it in postmarks. I've also seen Iowa with "Ioa."

You're right! In fact, I looked on the internet and found a couple of examples of "Penna." used in postmarks:

In this case, an RFD:



Here's a scarce cover showing a Ketner, Penna. postmark. Ketner was a DPO that was only an active post office for a mere three years:



If anyone's interested in some history on the now defunct town of Ketner, Pennsylvania, checkout this link:

http://www.jonestownship.com/History/ketner.htm