Odd Penalty Covers I Found, Info Needed

OK I just scanned 3 random penalty covers that is adorned with cachets relating to the Northwest Territory Celebration Comm. They are all done up like folded letters and even sealed with wax but I have no idea why they was honored in the mail system to begin with? Marion V. Button was a descendent of mine but that's all I know? I'll scan the contents of one or two later as maybe that might help figuring these out? I have almost 80 of them too.

odd penalty covers:

Just to give you an idea of how many of these there actually are I grabbed a handful and snapped a picture because scanning would just be an unrealistic and grueling venture at this point! lol They are all sealed with sealing wax too! I'm quite curious about these? I'm related to that Marion V. Button somehow too so the mystery thickens!

I think I found the key to this mystery-

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clement...or?view=text

Some additional information that may be of interest:



And here's a related postcard (note the reference that the Federal Writers' Project of the WPA in Ohio was involved, since it was a government sanctioned event:

Those covers are a wonderful example of how creative stamp collectors were in the 1930s and 1940s! Can you scan just few more? I would love to see them

I have seen several covers from this group before, but they all had postage on them.

I wonder why these don't? It's quite apparent they went through the mail system but why the penalty cover aspect? It's almost like a soldiers free-frank and a stampless letter all wrapped up in a government style penalty cover? I find it very odd. Henry Button the husband of the addressee Marian Button was a florist and I know that quite a few of my relatives were involved in politics but I don't think these covers are related to that. They all seem to be tied to that re-enactment of the Northwest territory Celebration Commemoration? All appear to be hand drawn and everyone is different. Odd in many ways.

I came upon this one for sale on ebay:



Although it has nothing to do with the subject of the cover, I found the town name "Manns Choice, PA" interesting, so I looked up the fact that not only is the post office is still in operation today but the choice of the name had an interesting history about it as well:




Just goes to show what you may inadvertently find when looking up postal history!

Thank you Bill! I have the same exact one. Thank you profusely for everything!

I was wrong about them having postage, this was my description of the lot at the time for a FeldmanUSA sale:

Northwest Territory Celebration Commission, 1937-38, -- first some background -- in 1937, the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society proposed a national celebration in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided the framework for the government of the Northwest Territory that was established on July 15, 1788 in Marietta, Ohio. One of the two major events of the celebration was a caravan retracing the footsteps of the original settlers who had departed for Marietta nearly 150 years earlier. The caravan started in Ipswich, Mass. and passed through parts of MA, CT, NY, NJ and PA, covering approximately six hundred miles over five months and ending in Marietta on April 7, 1938. This lot consists of 64 folded letters with different cachets at left sent to Mr. George R. McNeil in Hannington West VA with 54 sent between Dec. 12, 1937 and March 31, 1938 from towns in Mass., Ct., NY, NJ, and PA as the caravan journeyed through these states to Ohio, then six were mailed July 21-22 from Marietta Ohio and four are uncancelled, all 64 describe the events and in some cases show illustrations, and were sent stampless with the official business verbage at top right because the event was paid for primarily with federal dollars,

Thank you Revcollector! That makes total sense!

There should be something in the Postal Bulletin mentioning that this outfit had this kind of franking privilege. Has anyone checked the 1936 and 1937 postal bulletins?

I tried, but didn't come up with anything. There is an on-line book summarizing the events of the Northwest Territory Celebration Commission that identifies the towns where these stops were made and the endorsement of the use of Federal monies for the promotion, but it doesn't mention anything about the "Penalty Mail" usage for the covers.

Personally, I would have preferred to use a 3-cent stamp on the covers and had them all postmarked properly with a dated cancellation. Most of the "Penalty Mail" covers had a "mute" (no date) postmark on them, which (in my opinion, anyway) makes the postmark less relevant.

I would like to thank you guys for your efforts. I'm very grateful for it. -Jeff