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I also have scanned many of these to get transcriptions and historical/geneological significance and will enclose the printout.
US Boston MA 06 JUN 1838 to New Bedford MA. 20c PAID (double 10c rate). Red Boston JUN 6 MS CDS, red PAID, manuscript rate, Charge Merchants Bank. Stampless FL. Merchants Bank to cashier James B. Congdon. Draft collection, post Panic of 1837 banking. This is a clean bank-to-bank FL with a crisp red Boston CDS, a red straightline PAID, and a scarcer “Charge” account notation showing the bank kept a postage account at the Boston post office. Its added interest comes from the recipient, James B. Congdon, a well-known New Bedford banker, antiquarian, and abolitionist, and from its date in the recovery after the Panic of 1837. Bank correspondence of this period is plentiful, so value rests on condition, the markings, and the Congdon connection.
Summary
- Date sent: 6 June 1838 (from the postmark, the same date as the letter)
- Country of origin: United States
- Sent from: Boston, Massachusetts
- Sent to: New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Distance: about 50 miles in a straight line, roughly 55 miles by period post road
- Philatelic details:
- Red circular datestamp “BOSTON JUN 6 MS.”
- Red straightline “PAID.”
- Manuscript “20,” the double rate of 10 cents. Under the 1825 rate act, 10 cents covered a single sheet sent 30–80 miles. The letter was rated double because it enclosed a bank draft.
- Manuscript “Charge Merchants Bank” at lower left. The postage was charged to the bank’s running account at the Boston post office rather than paid in cash.
- Embossed wafer seal impression, faint pencil “2,” and a later collector pencil note “June 6-1838.”
- Stampless FL.
- Sender: the Cashier of the Merchants Bank, Boston. The signature appears to read C. H. Eldridge, Cashier, though this reading is tentative.
- Receiver: James Bunker Congdon (1802–1880), Cashier of the Merchants’ Bank of New Bedford. He was a prominent civic figure in the whaling city, a local historian and antiquarian, an anti-slavery advocate, and a long-time supporter of the New Bedford Free Public Library.
- Other people named: Joseph L. Freeman, on whom the draft was drawn.
- Historical interest: The letter is routine inter-bank business: a draft sent from Boston to New Bedford for collection. New Bedford was then at the height of its whaling prosperity, so this is the kind of financial traffic that linked the whaling port to Boston’s money market. In May and June 1838 Northern banks were resuming specie payments after the Panic of 1837, which makes this a period of anxious banking recovery.
Transcription Inside (printed bank form, completed by hand):
MERCHANTS BANK.
Boston, June 6, 1838.
J. B. Congdon Esquire,
Cashier,
Dear Sir,
Enclosed I forward for collection:
Draft on Joseph L. Freeman, $100.62
Very Respectfully,
C. H. Eldridge (reading tentative)
Cashier
Address panel:
J. B. Congdon Esquire
Cashier,
New Bedford,
Mass.
Lower left:
Charge Merchants Bank
Docketing (written upside down at the lower right by the New Bedford bank on receipt; reading tentative):
Merchants Bank |