A Rate Puzzle AND A Merry Chase
Postal History Sunday #215
It’s a love/hate relationship - the one I have with postal history covers that are a bit more difficult to decipher and successfully pin down their story. I do enjoy a good puzzle more than many people. That would explain the “love” part of the relationship. But I think everyone can also relate to the opposite side of the equation.
It takes more energy, more time and just more resources (brain space among them) to take on a good puzzle. And when it comes to writing about these puzzles, I have to add on the difficulties that come with explaining and simplifying the solution so everyone has a chance of following along.
Then there’s that silly perfectionist side in me that doesn’t like to share things that I am not fully comfortable with sharing. And that’s exactly why I force myself to do just that sometimes. It motivates me to keep pushing to the solution and it reminds me that it is okay to reveal that I have more to learn.
Now that I am talking about learning something new I can officially announce that it is time for Postal History Sunday!
Let me introduce you to today’s “Rate Puzzle” and “Merry Chase,” all wrapped into one cover. The brief description is that this piece of letter mail was initially put into the mail stream at Clyde, New York on July 19th, 1862. It traveled via New York, England and France on its way to the islands off the coast of Portugal. I am guessing that it arrived in early September.
The letter has two postage stamps (a 24 cent and a 5 cent) paying 29 cents in US postage. There is an additional marking that tells us the recipient had to pay 80 reis in additional postage when they picked up the letter.
It is possible that we could be happy with that much explanation since the advertised postal rate for letters from the US to Madeira was 29 cents at the time. That rate did not fully pay all postage costs to deliver the letter to the recipient and it was understood that local postal charges could not be prepaid.
But there are several oddities that make the story for this cover more complex. Some of it has to do with the Rate Puzzle and some is related to the Merry Chase. But all of it is interconnected.
It will probably help to set the stage by providing a quick geography refresher. The Madeira Islands are located southwest of Portugal and straight west of Morocco. The portion of the period map shown above illustrates prominent shipping lanes of which a few can be seen to go through the area. Madeira was a stopover for ships from Southampton (England) and Lisbon (Portugal) on their way to South America or points south in Africa.
Madeira is an archipelego of islands with Madeira being the largest. Funchal, the largest city and capital, is located on this island, which is home to about half of the population for the archipelego.
In modern times, Madeira was uninhabited until it was discovered by Portuguese explorers in the 1400s. Not long after discovery, they became a place where Portuguese farmers and fishermen willingly came to live. Farmland was largely under control of the nobility in Portugal, making Madeira attractive for the farmers. And, the aftermath of the Black Death in Portugal may also have contributed to people’s willingness to move.
When this letter arrived in 1862, Madeira was under Portuguese administration. It was known for its wine production, as a travel destination, and as a stopover for ships on their way to South America and Africa (and sometimes North America). Many travellers visited the islands seeking relief from ailments that the climate was purported to be able to ease.
The Rate Puzzle
Did you notice two Clyde postmarks? I sure did!
We’re going to start our journey by pointing out something that is very easy to miss. There are two city-datestamp (CDS) postmarks for Clyde, New York - the origin of this letter - on the cover. Two CDS on one cover is certainly not unheard of. Sometimes there are reasons for it and sometimes it’s just because the postal clerk had some extra ink on the handstamp and they felt like hitting the cover with it a second time.
It turns that there was a reason this time around.
The first Clyde marking is on the left side of the cover. The date is July 19, 1862 - which is the date that this letter initially entered the mail stream.
The second Clyde postmark is dated August 6, 1862. This is eighteen days later than the first marking, which presents us with our first mystery. What in the world was going on? Did the letter get misplaced by the Clyde postal clerk and they found it a couple of weeks later? Did the postmaster in Clyde just forget which day it was and randomly chose the wrong one before figuring out the correct day? Was time travel involved?
It turns out that time travel was not involved. But the letter itself did travel to New York City. Apparently, the author of this letter tried to send it unpaid to its destination in Madeira. This was still not unheard of at the time, even though postal services were trying to push the idea of prepaying letter mail.
Unfortunately, Madeira was one of a few destinations where sending a letter unpaid was NOT allowed. The New York Foreign Mail Office clerks knew that was the case and they applied the marking “Returned for Postage” in red on the lower left of the cover. Then, they sent the letter back to the Clyde post office where it probably waited until the sender came in and paid the postage that was due. I am guessing the letter was back at the Clyde post office fairly quickly - maybe a few days - so it probably sat there for a time until the sender got around to paying.
Twenty-nine cents in postage stamps were applied on August 6 to show prepayment of the proper rate, 29 cents for a simple letter weighing no more than 1/4 ounce (Jul 1859 - Dec 1867). If you look just to the left and the right of the stamps, you can see that either a clerk in New York or Clyde wrote something to the effect of “Due postage 29 c” on the front of the cover. The stamps were strategically placed over that notation so that future clerks would not think postage was still due after the sender paid on August 6.
A natural question that you might be asking now is “why was Madeira one of those few places where an unpaid letter was not acceptible?” And since you brought it up, I’ll give you a little more context.
The bold “80” on this cover tells us that the recipient had to pay the Madeira (Funchal) post office 80 reis upon receipt of the letter. It turns out there was no way for foreign letters to prepay that postage. And, apparently, there wasn’t a way for the whole postage to be collected in Madeira because the postal agreements had no mechanism for the exchange of postage costs between Madeira and other postal systems.
In short, the US postal service wasn’t about to send an unpaid letter to Madeira because they knew they weren’t going to get paid.
So the US postage rate of 29 cents to Madeira paid all postage costs from the US to the port on Madeira Island. The US surface mail, the trans-Atlantic crossing, travels on the European continent and more steamship travel to Madeira were covered. But, the Madeira local postage was not.
And that’s our Rate Puzzle in a nutshell.
The Merry Chase
We already know the first part of the Merry Chase. This letter traveled from Clyde to New York City to Clyde to New York City before it was finally accepted by the New York Foreign Mail Office as being eligible for further travel. This is confirmed by a New York exchange marking dated August 9 on the right edge of the envelope.
For the slueths among you, I’d like to call attention to the different red inks on this cover. If you look carefully, you might notice that the ink color for the New York Exchange marking and the “Returned for Postage” marking are similar. This makes sense since both were applied at the New York Foreign Mail Office. There is also a red London marking and two red French markings on the cover. Once again, the two French markings (the boxed PD and the octagon in circle marking) have a similar shade of red ink, while the London marking is slightly different than both.
Unfortunately, if your eyes are not particularly good at distinguishing colors, that last paragraph might have been frustrating - and I apologize. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it and we’ll move on!
The New York exchange markings were typically given the departure date of the ship that would carry the letter across the Atlantic Ocean. Once the marking was applied, the letter was put into a mail bag or mail packet and sent on its way.
The HAPAG steamship line’s Saxonia (remember that ship?) departed on the 9th and arrived at Southampton (England) on August 21. And it’s here that the Merry Chase gets interesting again.
There were actually a couple of routes that this letter could have traveled to get to Madeira from Southampton. One route was to travel overland through France, Spain and Portugal - to get to Lisbon. It would then take a ship to Madeira from Lisbon.
The next dated marking on this cover was applied on a train traveling from Calais to Paris, in France (shown above). It is dated August 22, which is consistent with an August 21 arrival in Southampton.
The back of the envelope even includes an incomplete Paris receiver marking for August 22 (shown above). This is also consistent the letter probably took the morning train from Calais and it would easily have gotten to the Paris post office the same day.
Now, if all went well, the letter would have been forwarded on via Irun and Badajoz, Spain on its way to Lisbon, Portugal. But things apparently were not going well and the letter was returned to London.
I mentioned earlier that there were two routes to Madeira. One was from Lisbon and the other was by ship from Southampton. Apparently, the Paris post office was aware that sending the cover on to Lisbon was not the best idea to get the letter to where it was supposed to go. As for the reason why this might be the case, the letter writer actually gave us a clue.
A docket at lower left reads “via England if ship has gone forward.”
The letter writer was apparently aware of the two possible routings and that ships ran on sailing schedules. They were hopeful that the letter would be able to take the Lisbon ship, but the Paris post office determined that it was too late for that route. Instead, it was sent back to London where it made up mails on the 23rd of each month for Madeira to be taken by the African Steamship Line departing from Liverpool.
Maybe if they’d been as aware of the postage requirement as they were mail route options, they would have gotten the letter to Lisbon on time.
The Merry Chase - Summarized
It’s not hard to get lost with all that was going on, so I thought I’d provide everyone with a simplified Merry Chase itinerary!
Clyde, New York - July 19, 1862
New York City Foreign Mail Office - probably July 19 or 20
Clyde, New York - probably July 21 or 22 until August 6
Clyde, New York - August 6 - postage paid
New York City Foreign Mail Office - August 6 or 7
HAPAG’s Saxonia - August 7 - August 21
Southampton, England - August 21
Train from Calais, France to Paris - August 22
Paris - August 22
Train from Paris to Calais - August 23
London - August 23
Liverpool - August 23 or 24
African Steamship Line
Arrival at Funchal, Madeira
You’ll notice I have not yet worked out the dates for the last two portions of the trip. I did warn you that this is still a work in progress and sometimes time makes a fool of me and I can’t get it all done.
There are no additional dated postmarks on the cover to help us with dates once the letter leaves London. The only additional postal marking is the 80 reis due marking* applied in Madeira, which is our evidence that it did arrive at its destination.
Of course, if someone out there knows where I should look for that information, let me know. Otherwise, we’ll all just have to wait until I find the time to hunt down the final leg of this Merry Chase.
* Some might notice that the “80” marking is very bold. And, in fact, someone, at some point in time, seems to have enhanced the marking with additional inking. There is no doubt the marking originated, but someone helped it to stand out at some point in time. Perhaps it was a doodler or it was a postal historian who didn’t think it was strong enough so they thought they’d help it out.
The back of this cover also has offset of some “80” markings. So, that seems to indicate that the inking of that marking was probably fairly heavy to begin with. It’s a thing we’ll probably never know the answer to.
Thank you for joining me today. Have a fine remainder of your day and an excellent week to come.
Postal History Sunday is featured weekly on this Substack publication. If you take this link, you can view every edition of Postal History Sunday, starting with the most recent publication. If you think you might enjoy my writing on other topics, I can also be found at the Genuine Faux Farm substack. And, some publications may also be found under my profile at Medium, if you have interest.
Thank you, Rob. I am amazed that this letter ever got to Madeira. Fascinating as always.