Let's See Your Territorial Covers!

This nice Wyoming territorial came my way today, with a decent Cheyenne cancel. Nothing too special, but definitely a good buy for a buck.

Nebraska City....

Nebraska became a state in 1867 and that card is dated (on the reverse) 1873, so technically this is not a Territorial Cover. It would need to be dated prior to March 1st 1867 to be considered a Territorial Cover, and furthermore the "State" abbreviation would normally be "N.T." for Nebraska Territory, rather than Neb. indicating the state of Nebraska. Still a nice early postal card though.

Fort Buchanan, New Mexico Territory, May 5, circa 1860.

Addressed in the hand of Captain Richard S. Ewell (commander 1st Dragoons, U.S. Army, later a general in C.S.A. Army), to his niece Elizabeth in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Endorsed "Via Washington D.C.", carried by Military Express to Tubac, then by Lathrop's Buckboard Mail to Tucson, and from Tucson to St. Louis by Butterfield Overland Mail.

Fort Buchanan (briefly originally called Camp Moore), was the first Military Post in the Gadsden Purchase. It was established in late 1856, to administer the new land acquired.

Docketing note on back "Relating to child captured from Indians".

In early 1860 Captain Ewell successfully negotiated the release of eleven-year old Mercedes Sias Quiroz, one of two young women abducted by Pinal Apaches. In recognition of his efforts, one of four Arizona territorial counties was named Ewell. It is interesting to note that this area is now "Cochise" County, named after the famous Apache Indian, who actually injured Ewell in one battle.

Great NM cover! I am jealous!

Here a a couple of interesting ones.

Some Indian Territory material.
Many are marked "Ark", for Arkansas, since that state administered the Indian Territory.



Doaksville, Ark., Sep 7 (Choctaw Nation)




Tahlequah, Ark, Feb 28 (Cherokee Nation)




Eagle Town, Ark, June 7, 1860 (Choctaw Nation)
Peter P. Pitchlynn was elected Principal Chief of the Choctaws in 1864 and served until 1866. In 1860 he was in Washington to address national affairs of the Choctaw.

All those Indian Territory covers are quite interesting! I was not aware that these territories extended into Arkansas.

They are part of present day Oklahoma, but for administrative purposes, the Arkansas PO administrated things. You also see I.T. and C.N. - for Indian Terr or Choctaw Nation, for example, as well.

Oklahoma and Indian Territory covers

One of the early collectors of Oklahoma and Indian Territory covers (and almost everything else) was the late Gordon Bleuler of Dallas, Texas.

Unlike many great postal history collections amassed in the 20th century, before the internet, Gordon worked with several collectors who were able to record the bulk of his collection of Oklahoma and Indian Territory covers by photocopying them before they were sold at auction. Three sets of these photocopies were prepared. One was damaged in a flood, and Gordon's copy was disbursed with the sale of his collection, it's current whereabouts unknown.

I was fortunate to know the custodian of the third copy, who loaned it to me and I scanned close to 2000 pages of covers from the collection. These have been hosted on the Stamp Smarter website here....

https://stampsmarter.org/learning/OKLA.html

The photocopies have been organized in much the same manner as Gordon's albums which held his collection. While the pages are in black and white, not color, they illustrated examples of a majority of the known postmarks from this period, and may be of interest to collectors of this material.

Wow, thank you for that link. Very nice.

I attended a talk by Gordon Bleuler about 30 years ago. He was very knowledgeable.

Kansas Territory - Sumner, KT Nov 28, 1859, to London, England.

10c stamps are Ty II, #32, also #26 with centerline, and #24.

Not a cover, but certainly a territorial -- I picked up a very nice USPOD money order form from 1869 Idaho Territory. This has one of the strongest hand stamp strikes I've seen from this era. Stamped and signed by the postmaster of Idaho City, at that time the capital of Idaho Territory. I'm curious to know whether the money order hand stamp would have been the same as the post office hand cancellation.

The town still exists, it's about an hour's drive northeast from Boise. We were there about 10 years back. It's a quirky little town, full of historic buildings, definitely worth a visit.

Postmaster Appointment for Charles L Bahney at the post office in Cocorro, New Mexico Territory, on July 18, 1894. Signed by President Grover Cleveland.

Gold Hill, Nevada Territory, Feb 1864

Wells, Fargo & Co. Virginia City Pony Express, 25c Blue (143L8).
Vertical pair tied by "Wells, Fargo & Co. Gold Hill N.T. Feb. 19" oval datestamps, and Wells Fargo PAID.
It is addressed to San Francisco.

The oversize cover, is opened up for display, showing the back.

The back shows a paste-up 3c Pink entire with Wells Fargo & Co. printed frank and 3c Rose (65), tied by "Wells, Fargo & Co. Gold Hill N.T. Feb. 19" oval datestamp.

Gold Hill, now mostly a ghost town, is nearby Virginia City. These cities were the epicenter for miners of the Comstock Lode of silver ore, starting in 1859.

This item is a very nice example of how a paste-up was used. It is scarce to find paste-ups still fully intact as this one is. Basically, the government tolerated private expresses carrying mail in underdeveloped areas, that the government really couldn't practically service. The caveat was that US postage had to be paid for this, in addition to the postage to the private express. Here, the contents were placed inside the large buff envelope, and two Wells Fargo 25c pony express stamps were affixed, since this letter was overweight and required a multiple rate. A printed Wells Fargo franked envelope on a 3c US government entire, plus a 3c #65 stamp were affixed to the back to show payment of US postage as well. This is the paste-up. Note that the US postage also reflected the multiple rate.

Wells Fargo ran a Pony Express service, I believe from Placerville, CA to Virginia City. It is referred to as the "Virginia City Pony", to distinguish it from the original Pony Express from St Joseph to Sacramento/San Francisco. From Placerville, it connected to Sacramento (I think by stage), and then to San Francisco by Steamer.

Siegel only records 4 covers that are franked with a multiple of the 25c blue stamp. One has a strip of 5 (plus a 6th stamp), two have a strip of 3, and this is the only known pair on cover.

Ex Kramer


On a personal note - I am still stunned that I wound up with this item. Occasionally there are items in sales that I really like (like this one), but I don't seriously consider them since I'm sure they will sell for way more $$ than I want to spend. Such was the case here. Fortunately I was auditing the sale, and in my opinion the price for this was really cheap for what it is so I grabbed it.

I think this may go back to a prior discussion we had, where many people shy away from buying oversized items, since they are hard to store and/or display. That doesn't diminish their philatelic or historical importance, but it may make them sell for less money sometimes, as I believe was the case here.