Help With This Civil War General's Cover

Okay, what I do know is what I can find on General Ripley on Wikopedia and they have a bunch on him. What I don't get is why the five cent rate? Centre Rutland is a Vermont DPO and it is where he resided after the war. It is a small envelope and shows no sign of having anything overweight in it. Even so, five cents would have been the rate to go overseas. It should have been six cents if it was overweight. I guess my knowledge on rates is limited, but I don't think I have seen a five cent domestic rate in the 19th century before. It is pretty odd for people to put too much postage on an item back then.



Any Ideas?

Edward H. Ripley was born in Rutland, Vermont on November 11, 1839.[1] He was educated locally and at Troy Conference Academy in Poultney (now Green Mountain College).[2] He attended Union College from 1858 to 1862, and was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.[3][4]

During the Civil War started as a Private in 1862 by 1865 lead the union troops into Richmond as a Brevet Brigadier General.

From Wiki


What are the dates on the post mark?

Another interesting piece: It seems quite an elaborate gravestone was erected for he and his wife:

I have all the stuff I found on Wikopedia. My question was more on rates. In typical fashion I can't find a year. The date is September 1.

Wt1
Nice! Where do you find all this stuff?
Pat

Actually, that gravestone is much more ornate, the previous picture shows just the engraved text of the deceased. Here's the grave in its entirety:



By the way, its always interesting to find progressive photos of the person, so here are three different pictures showing General Ripley during three different time periods:

What is the date and year of this cover?

September 1, 18??. I obviously don't know the year.

I don't know if this would help, but the postmark on the posted cover does not seem to contain a year (or it could just have been smeared and unreadable). However, I have a similar (not exact) cover with a New York "F" postmark on it as shown here:



Thanks to a backstamp at the receiving office, the postmark must be December 31, 1886, as it is backstamped January 1, 1887 at Rondout, NY. In my example, the year does appear as two digits between the duplex cancel, but it is very hard, if not impossible to read, were it not for the backstamp that verifies the date.

It would be reasonable to assume that the cover in the initial post was probably around the same time period. The date looks to be either February 3 (or 9) at 10 AM.

A subscription to Ancestry.com is a good resource if you are wanting to find a lot of info on covers. But while it has a lot of good information be aware that it also contains incorrect data too.

You only have to go back a few generations before you get into a time period where people 'covered up' a lot of information concerning true biological parents, marriages and divorces.
Don

Wt1,
I love covers that cross over years. I have a "mini" collection of them. My favorite is one that was postmarked Dec 31 1899 and the receiving cancel was Jan 2 1900. That one got to cross centuries.
I also have one from Japan that the sent date is after the receiving date. I need to find that and post it, because it also crosses years so it was sent in 1951 and received in 1950. Those are not the years, just an example. I bought it within the last year and I am not sure where it is, but I know I still have it in my hoard someplace.

March 3, 1863 through March 3, 1883 the rate was 3 cents for the first half ounce plus 3 cents for each additional half ounce, except it was two cents for each additional half ounce for mail put in drop boxes. I would guess that your cover falls in this date range, weighed between one-half and one ounce, and was mailed in a drop box.