Shipcards  

 

Sadly, the Steamer "Sea Foam" was wrecked in 1931 at Point Arena. Here's some photos of the wreck:

I searched long and hard for both of those postmarks, until one day while communicating with an eBay seller whom I had bought a small lot of Humboldt county covers from, and mentioned that I also collected Mendocino county covers, she asked if I also collected postcards and then told me of her mother's and aunts postcard correspondence, most of which came from Salsig.

Actually two of the above cards are from Salsig, the log train is also from there, mailed 19 days earlier than the Sea Foam card.









Here's another Sea Foam card mailed from Salsig, this time leaving Mendocino Bay, followed by it's postmark.









More Salsig postmarks.









This is my earlist Salsig postmark, 4 months after the earlist known use of Salsig's Doane cancel, used as a reciever here.





And heres my only Manzanita postmark, minus a stamp. I have to wonder about the date, to me that sure looks like 1910, but Salsig became Manzanita on Sept. 9, 1912 and remained open until June 15, 1915. While there is only the bottom half of that final number visible, it doesn't match any of the 3 years Manzanita was open. Postmaster set the year date slug wrong?





Alan H. Patera's compulation California Poatmaster Compensation lists only the odd numbered years of operation.
Salsig...
1905...$38.58
1907...133.00
1909... 93.00
1911...190.00
Oddly, the book does not list Manzanita

Very nice postmark collection! As for Manzanita, CA I suspect the postmark may read 1913.

One other thought: Manzanita, CA had for awhile (after the post office was discontinued) Steamboat Service (according to the Postal Bulletin). Could the postmark have been used on mail traveling that route even after the post office was discontinued?

Slasig/Manzanita was up in the coastal mountains, at the headwaters of Elk Creek. It was about 12 miles south east of the town of Elk, which was the shipping point for the lumber milled at the L.E. White Lumber Co. who owned the Elk Creek Railroad. The ECRR had laid down approxmatly 27 miles of track, branching up each canyon they came to before thay could go no further. After the last load of logs was brought down to Elk, L.E White had his crew remove the track, which he then sold. In all my reading on the history of Mendocino County, I haven't came across any mention of a stage road to Salsig, only the ECRR. Of course, I'm nowhere near as good as you are at researching these things. I've also not read anything about Steamboat service in Mendocino County, all mail was transported by stage, except Wells Fargo mail.

While scanning postcards earlier today, I came across this card offering for sale the Steamer that carried the Wells Fargo cover that I posted above. Notice the capacity on the back of the card.









I was scanning the cards while I was looking for the other Steamer Sea Foam card I knew I had. After I found the card, I noticed that it was a bit different than the other two cards. All three were published by Richard Behrendt, San Francisco. The first two I posted in reverse of their stock numbers, 1132 and 1133 both printed for The Toggery in Mendocino, Cal. The last card 1111 was printed for F. C. Peirsol of Mendocino, Cal. Evidently Mr Behrendt had a little trouble with parentheses.





Here the trouble with the parentheses, in the same order I posted the card in.





And here is the last Steamer on Mendocino Bay card I have. Whomever named this ship must have been feeling witty, as the majority of lumber these steamers shipped was redwood or Sequoia semperviren.

British Cruiser HMS Grafton at Acapulco Mexico.

Here are a few ship cards from my collection. These are cards that I still have to mount in my albums. Once in my albums, they have write-ups on the history of the ship, where available.

The first one of a liner shows the MS Lurline of the Matson Line.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Here's a few more Lumber ships from the Mendocino coast.












I've posted cards of these two ships before, the Sea Foam and the Point Arena tied up at the Little River wharf. These two ships stayed very busy in the 'coastal trade'. Everything came on these ships as there was no major roads to the coast until the 30's








Further north we find the Steamer Brunswich leaving Fort Bragg, and the Steamer Yakimia being loaded at Union Lumber Company's pier.

Here are a few more cards.

My favourite ones out of this group are the steamers in the Yukon Territory.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Returning to the redwood coast, we find the Sequoia being loaded fore and aft at the same time by the cranes on the Union Lumber Company's pier at Fort Bragg, card mailed there Apr 20 1909, missing stamp.









Albion, Cal sent this card picturing the Steamer Hamburg, the Steamer that ex President Roosevelt and party sailed for Naples where the party borded the Steamer Re Umberto for Mombasa, through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea ans down the east coast of Africa. Its also missing its stamp









Up north at Fort Bragg, tied up to Union Lumber Co's pier are two familar Coast steamers. Doesn't identify them on the card, but look like Sea Foam & Point Arena as seen at the Little River Wharf earlier in this thread.







Union Lumber Co ran another shipping point about 2 1/2 miles north
of Inglenook, Cal called Newport, it was on the north point of the Abalobadiah Creek cove.








Up North in Humboldt Bay, is the Monitor Monadnock.









The red type below the stamp is a possible new Williams Calif town postmark number. No record of this CDS.

I love the Monitor Monadnock card, a scarce Naval ship card to find.

Thanks, that card is a double treat for me. A scarce navel card with an unrecorded Eureka CDS to Hardy, Cal who used their CDS as a receiver. I'm really fond of card with multiple postmarks!

Lovely cards! Thank you, posters!

Re USS Arizona: Look at the angles & supports of the superstructures. Hard to believe that flag officers looked at the plans and approved something that seems so ungainly.

Re SS Princess Anne: what a design! Norman Bel Geddes would be proud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Helvetia The PS Helvetia was a paddle steamer that operated on Lake Zürich in Switzerland between 1875 and 1958. She had a capacity of 1200 passengers.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The MV Coonawarra on the River Murray, Australia

And, its famous!

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9799241 ... the book

http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegri...ta/794905273 ... more pictures

https://www.flickr.com/photos/71914...photostream/ ... by tourist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_River

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

A US Canal Zone card with all of the postal elements (place name, slogan cancel, and stamp) nicely tied together with the picture side (picture and SS "Ancon" Panama Line Posted On The High Seas marking.