March 15 (1849) to Indiana - manuscript town, date and 40, representing the unpaid transcontinental 40 cent single rate. Letter datelined “St. Frisco, California, December 11, 1848.” Postmarked for the expected departure of Peruvian bark Callao, (actually departed March 19).
Only known privately held example of the first eastbound US contract mail from SF via Panama.
May 1 (1849) to Massachusetts - manuscript town, date and 40, representing the unpaid transcontinental 40 cent single rate. Carried by the PMSS California on May 1 which arrived in SF February 28 and most of her crew deserted to the gold fields! It took two months to find a new crew and make necessary ship repairs before she was ready to go into service on the Panama contract route, this sailing was her maiden voyage out of SF.
The earliest
contract mail out
of the SFPO was postmarked on
March 15, 1849 (the anticipated sailing date). It was
supposed to leave on the Pacific Mail
Streamship (PMSS) California
(which arrived on February 28), however
nearly all her crew deserted to the gold fields upon her arrival in San
Francisco and given the ship was badly in need of repairs from the long
journey, it sat idle in the bay for weeks (the PMSS Oregon and PMSS Panama
had yet to arrive). Ironically, the very first contract mail
out of San Francisco actually left on the Peruvian bark
Callao on
March 19, 1849 and not on a PMSC steamer at all (this was actually a
contracted sailing by William VanVorhees the special mail agent who
arrived on the California,
just not contracted with the PMSC). A very rare
surviving example (the only privately held example known, a second
item was recently found in the Oregon Historical Society) from this
first sailing is shown
above and is also SF MS1 below
(reference a Western Cover Society article in the April 1986 Western Express
Volume XXXVI,
No.2 (page 17) for additional information on this cover).
The San Francisco manuscript 1849 cover dates are
March 15, April 9
(the first PMSC contract mail, carried by the Oregon
which
actually
left April 12), April 17 (incoming from Hawaii), May 1 and June
20. The marking is known in black and red/magenta (June 20
only) ink,
with covers including an associated manuscript rate (40 cents for the
transcontinental rate, with one example showing 42 cents including ship
fee incoming from Hawaii). Only a small quantity of manuscript
covers have been discovered to date, they are all shown in the census
table below, they
are scarce. This is somewhat surprising given the
three month period of use and what must have been a large backlog of
mail at the time.
The last use of the manuscript postmark was June
20, see last entry in the table
below for an example. An interesting note on these covers, each was
obviously
delivered to the SFPO before the postmark date of June 20, as this is
when the straightline cancelling device began being used. This is proof
of the postmaster pre-marking the intended sailing date and not the
date of receipt at the PO.
