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Auction: 17025 - Bermuda, Crossroads of the Atlantic: A Postal History from 1617 to 1877 - The David Pitts Collection
Lot: 4

(x) Forerunner Period
There was no formal postal service to Bermuda prior to 1806.
There appears to have been no regular or systematic method of dealing with overseas mail or local letters until 1784. The earliest regular postal system in Bermuda was organised in January 1784 by Joseph Stockdale, an Englishman who emigrated to Bermuda and who founded the "Bermuda Gazette", the first newspaper to be published in the islands. In the third number, dated 31 January 1784, he commented that he had fixed a letter box on his gate "for the reception of all letters". Two weeks later he made note that he was prepared to transmit mail overseas
1771 (25 June) entire letter from John Morton Jordan in Bermuda to his wife "Mrs. Jordan at Annapolis Maryland", rated 2d. ship letter + 10d. internal (240 miles) = 1/- sterling = "1/8" New York currency = "3Sh4" Maryland currency, the reverse showing very light strikes of "new/york" handstamp alongside "13/iy" Bishopmark; some damp staining though believed one of only three recorded covers into the American Colonial Post, and hugely important as such. Photo

provenance:
Morris H. Ludington, June 1999

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Estimate
£1,500 to £2,000