B.d. Boston? And Boston Carrier Postal Markings

Still working through the last lot of covers I acquired. I believe this cover was sent from Newbury Mass to Boston.
I wonder what the pen written 79 is about? Then there is the B.D. Boston Apr. 14 7PM hand stamp on the front. Is anyone familiar with that and what it represents. On the back is the Boston Mass. Carrier marked 2 hours later.

I cannot find a hint of these markings online. My research skills are... well....lets just say, lacking. I would have thought the Carrier back stamp would have been easy.

Your BD marking is mentioned and illustrated in Maurice Blake and Wilbur Davis' "Boston Postmarks to 1890" published in 1949 and reprinted by Quarterman Publications in 1974, on pages 298-299 (plate 127), among the listings for carrier, carrier department, carriers division, general delivery, and BD markings of 1869-1879. They indicate a use range for your mark as 2/26/1879-3/27/1879 and apparently associate it closely with carrier mail. I suspect the "79" on your cover is a year date written by a later collector as they separated the contents. Unfortunately, Blake & Davis do not provide any explanation for what the BD initials stand for. My own example is dated just a few days later than yours, and clearly from 1879.

Thanks John. I'll have to look into adding that book to my 'library'.



Pretty short period of use.
I wonder why it would be stamped on the front? Are there other B.D. markings listed?

Love postal history. Need to be a forensic historian...

There is a second type of BD marking listed - one in a triangle with a listed range of Dec 5, 1878 - Feb 4, 1879. Nice that this example is from Christmas day of 1878, despite the poor condition of the card

Ah, the triangle is excellent also. Obviously, now I would like to find one.

At the risk of hijacking this topic, I have a small collection of these carrier backstamps and have had very little luck getting information about them. I would love to find a book or article devoted to them.

Although this doesn't help with postal markings, I find it fascinating to explore the history of 19th century covers both in the person and in the address of the recipient.

The first scan in the previous post was addressed to a Mrs. Benjamin Perkins at the Hotel Pelham in Boston, Mass.

Here's a link to what the Hotel Pelham looked like back in its day along with a present view of the same location today:

http://lostnewengland.com/2014/09/h...lham-boston/

As for Mrs. Benjamin (Jane Lawrence) Perkins, a memorial biography of her and her family can be found here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=w...ston&f=false

John,does that triangle postcard have a carrier backstamp?

The triangular BD-marked card does not have any postal markings on the reverse side.

For literature references, it appears one will have to piece the story together from many sources. Most of the city postal history studies (Blake & Davis' Boston, Mahoney's San Francisco) tend to show tracings of carrier markings without much text beyond the known dates of use. Baker's Indiana has a chapter on city delivery service with considerable detail on the acts extending service to smaller and smaller cities, but very few Indiana cities used carrier markings (Evansville, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and in a manner, South Bend). Piszkiewicz's Chicago also has a detailed chapter on carrier markings. Interestingly, Allen's Cleveland and Cohen's Louisville booklets show no carrier examples for those cities, so is must have been an optional practice. The Feb 1983 issue of "Postal History Journal" has James Leonard's description of the inception of free delivery service in Des Moines, Iowa, but does not show any carrier cancels. Cushing's 1893 volume "The Story of Our Post Office" has a general chapter on city carriers also.

For government documents, as examples, the 1877 Postal Laws & Regulations volume has Chapter 8 covering "carriers, free delivery, and branch offices, and street mail boxes". The 1887 PL&R volume has Chapter 19 "Free-Delivery Service". The "Official Register" volumes would list the carriers and their salaries for each city. I suspect the various annual reports of the Postmaster General (or his sub-assistants) in the post Civil War years cover the successes and pitfalls of carrier service.

Many thanks! Very helpful information and I'll be checking some of these resources through my philatelic library.

One more question -- here's a non-descript DC cover from 1888, I believe. It's got a time-date backstamp in violet. I've always housed it with my other carrier cancels, but I'm not really sure what it is. What think you?

Another thread recently posted on a Washington DC carrier marking may hold the key to the BD stamp. The cover posted there is backstamped with both carrier and box department cancels. I would bet BD stands for Box Department, but I don't know what that department was for.

Tenn to the Financial Office cover: I would interpret the magenta handstamp on the back to be a "received in the financial office" marking without really saying that. Clearly there was no need for a carrier in the traditional sense for mail that never left the post office.


BD = box department? I have strong doubts. Why would mail with street addressing have any connection to a box department? Unless one can demonstrate the addresses above are to postal stations (and omit a box number) rather than individual businesses or residences. Even then, it seems the sorting clerks at the main PO would have a pigeon hole for each station and handle the mail for the stations in bundles - and not get any carrier marks, but perhaps rather a receiving mark at the destination station.

BD could stand for most anything. Another possibility could be Boston Delivery? Or perhaps it refers to a particular area in Boston such as Brookline, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, or Brighton. Or the B might be for Boston and the D might be an area in Boston such as Dorchester?

And yet those don't make much sense either - the mail is already addressed to Boston, so the "B" would be redundant. And for an area of the city, we have only "BD" and not a gaggle of other similar abbreviations, although I have not tried to map the destinations to see if they cluster. And remember the two devices are used within a total span of less than 5 months - so perhaps some trial that was short-lived and abandoned.

If you follow the chronology, the BD marking was placed first, then the carrier stamp. So if the the Box Department was where mail was sorted into boxes for various purposes -- including one for carriers -- then it might make sense.