Camp Of Instruction

Can anyone help with with this postal cancel. I know what the Camp of Instruction was (a precursor to the ROTC), but can find no mention in literature about the cancel. The Camp was in Plattsburgh, NY.

I have two examples of the cancel. There is no year date in either, but is probably either 1915 or 1916 before the US entered World War I.

Putting it under a UV light might make the year date legible enough to read.

Nope, there is no year date. The other copy that I have clearly shows a "PM" where the year date ordinarily would be.

There was a significant Air Force Base in Plattsburgh. Would this have been sent from the base?

No it was not sent from the Air Force Base since the Air Force Base was only created in 1955. However, the Air Force Base was on the same site as the Camp of Instruction. I know what the Camp of Instruction was. I'm asking if anyone has seen this cancel other than me and, if so, has anyone seen any literature where this cancel was referenced.

Congressional Series of United States Public Documents
https://books.google.ca/books?id=fEhHAQAAIAAJ
1891

A camp of instruction has been established this year on the military ... enjoys a daily mail, with a post-office and a teleraph station at the post;

Thank you for the reference to the US Public Documents. However, this is not what I'm looking for. Once again…..I'm looking for information about the cancel. I live about 30 minutes from the site of the Camp of Instruction and have read the newspaper put out by the camp etc. There has been a good deal of local writing about the camp. But nothing really about the post office station, which eventually became "Military Branch" of the Plattsburgh PO and then just "Military, NY" which then changed to ACUNY, NY and then finally to Plattsburgh AFB, NY before closing in 1994.

This is cleary a non-standard postmark style. Yet, there would be little or no reason to document the cancel in some special way at the time - they were just doing their job with the equipment they had. Have you tried Randy Stehle and Doug DeRoest's "A Catalog of Non-Standard US Postmarks 1900-1971", published in 2009 by LaPosta?

It is quite possibile this is not an official postmark at all, but rather a rubber stamp used in the office for forms and other documents, which was used provisionally on your card as a convenience.

I wonder how official the Camp of Instruction post office was? I do not see it listed in the Postal Bulletins or Postal Guides. Do you have other mail in/out of the camp from the period before it became a military branch? As a tangent example, Ft Harrison in Indy hosted annual National Guard training beginning about 1906. I have a c1910 postcard of a tent there labeled "Post Office" - not much more than a "mail-call" tent it seems. All mail I find with any connection to the camp (mostly postcards and letters from the trainees) is postmarked with Lawrence or Indianapolis postmarks. So Ft Harrison did not have any postmarking device of their own until later.

Sorry, I thought it was a military camp first that then started this training camp on site.

I think that John's idea of this not being a postal marking and instead being just a rubber stamp that was used to mark paperwork in the administrative office of the camp and that someone decided to use on the cards at some point sounds reasonable.

Although this doesn't answer the question at hand, I thought these photos might be of interest:





http://nyheritage.nnyln.net/cdm/ref.../supl/id/194

I agree it's definitely a non-standard cancellation, but based on my examples, it was accepted by the post office and mailed without further canceling. I have contacted the Military Postal History Society and was told that there was nothing in their records about this cancel.

To elaborate a bit more on why I suggest an office-stamp was used here - perhaps as a courtesy to speed up the mail by having it ready to sort/case. A postal mark should have been struck in black ink and have a year-date. I can also see how the PO would not add any additional marking, since the stamp was cancelled with a device providing a date (mostly) and a place. Coincidentally, it also provided a semblance of a return address to cards so frequently lacking a return address. Any additional postmark would not have really added anything. It may be completely wrong, but that is how I would lean - and I would look for official camp documents.

I know your 1891 reference says there was a "post office", but I wonder if this was only an internal camp mail-room where trainees could go to get their mail, buy stamps second-hand from the base, and drop off mail to be taken to the actual PO.