Maine Post Office??

Hi everyone. I was going to sell this 1870s Maine cover with manuscript cancel, but I am stumped in being able to decipher the postmasters horrible handwriting so I thought I would ask you guys since you are good at this sort of thing.

I am sure of the "Me" at the end and so I know it is Maine, and the date underneath is July 18 and then a squiggle leading down to an illegible word. The town seems to be something link Giecod or Giecord or Gricod or Gricord or ??? The stamp looks like it was torn into three pieces and then pieced together by the sender on the envelope. The postmaster has cancelled it by had with by writing what looks to be the year 1871.

I know that the recipient was a Reverend of some kind who lived in the small town of Whiting, Maine which is in Washington County in the north eastern part of the state so maybe the town from which this letter was sent might not have been too far away from there?

Also, since this is a manuscript cancellation I would expect that the town would have been very small since they did not have an actual cancel made up for it. It could also be a dead post office since I cannot find any town names in Maine that seem to fit the various interpretations of the town name that the post master scribbled on this.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or guesses you might have.

My guess would be Gilead, Maine, a discontinued post office in Oxford County that was in operation from 1823-1955.

Gideon. Maine?

And as for the UL squiggle and word - I'd guess the sender forgot to put his name in the return address space and then as an afterthought put his name: Anseley?

Thanks, these are great thoughts. Gilead might be the town with the "l" being short given the post master's terrible handwriting.

The Ansley return address name is a possible, though I was just thinking that perhaps it could be the recipient writing something like Ansd or such as an abbreviation for 'answered' ?? I am not convinced of either of these interpretations of this squiggle and word yet.

Any more thoughts?