1 Cent Strip Of Three

The Plate 8 stamps on this cover and month of use: FEB, narrow down the date of use to be one of: 1858, 59, 60 or 61.

I'm not nearby my ASCC to look up the town postmark to see if that helps further.

Thanks again.

The date therefore couldnt be later than 1861 since that year the Union
demonetised all postage stamps issued prior so the Confederate
States could not use them.

Correct.

You may be able to establish a range of year dates the originating CDS was used. Or the years Judge Beck was at Fort Madison.

I did inherit the collection from a cousin, no relation to the gentleman on the cover. As I've been going through a few of the other covers I have, I'm realizing that my cousin(that I inherited the collection from) was collecting covers from politicians/ doctors/engineers, etc. I love the history I've been digging up. And yes I do hope my boys find an appreciation for the album I'm making! As for the date on the cover, I did find a few similar stamps listed in the postal history section on Siegel Auctions. I believe it to be from 1856-57(may be wrong since I'm still learning).

I will also try to post some of the covers in a thread for covers!

See my post above. Plate 8 did not exist then.
I outlined the possible years of use already.

I haven't been able to figure out a date. I tried looking into the Cazenovia circular stamp to see which years it was issued but couldn't find an answer. I did discover that most of my covers seem to be "topical" in that they all are going to or sent by politicians etc of the time!! Here is another of my favorites(sorry not a 1 cent)Sent by the attorney general of Missouri to his wife!

The double transfer is instantly visible throughout the word postage on the left stamp, I'm jealous too. :-)

I see the outline now, sorry my feed didn't seem to update for a while...