New York Mills County Postmark

One of the more interesting areas of research and collecting is post office cancels with the name of the county in the cancel. In a large state such as New York, adding the county name in the cancel would aid the recipient to add the name of the name of the county in any reply. This was helpful to postal workers who depended on their knowledge of counties to decide which mail bag a letter would go ito.

These were mainly used in the 1870s and 1880s just before the Post Office Department began to try to standardized postal cancels.

But there are some examples from the earlier part of the 19th Century.

Here is the discovery copy from the Oneida County village of New York Mills. New York Mills is just south of Utica and was established on December 8, 1832 and is still in operation today.

The stampless letter is dated January 1, 1833 very early in the operation of the post office. The rate is 12 1/2c for postage to Auburn, NY. This is the rate for 80 to 150 miles under the postal act effective May 1, 1816 which remained in effect until June 30, 1845.