The John Birkinbine II Collection of of Arizona and New Mexico Postal History continued...

FINE. THE EARLIEST RECORDED MILITARY EXPRESS COVER FROM CAMP MOORE IN ARIZONA.

On October 19, 1856, Major Enoch Steen led a military caravan west from Fort Thorn for the purpose of establishing a military camp near Tucson. The caravan reached San Xavier Mission, nine miles south of Tucson, on November 14, 1856, but Major Steen, dissatisfied with the area, decided to locate the camp on the site of the old Calabasas Ranch on the Santa Cruz River. On November 27 he established Camp Moore, but within a week to ten days most of the troops had moved from Camp Moore north to establish Camp Calabasas. The few remaining at Camp Moore were cutting and finishing timber used at Camp Calabasas. Troops were housed in wooden structures without roofs. When it rained, the dirt floors became sticky mud and breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Other troops were in tents. A curving stream ran around and through the grounds, creating marshes where mosquitoes bred. At one point the entire fort had malaria, except for the African-American servant to Major Ewell. Sutler Brevoort and his employees were on higher ground where the rain waters ran off into the fort, and none contracted malaria. Due to unbearable climate conditions and constant malaria, troops moved north to establish Fort Buchanan on May 29, 1857.

This cover was carried by the Second Dragoon Express (Dragoon Orders No. 15, Department of New Mexico, November 3, 1856) from Camp Moore to Santa Fe via Fort Thorn. (Image)

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FINE. REPORTED TO BE THE EARLIEST EXAMPLE OF CIVILIAN MAIL FROM GADSDEN PURCHASE AREA.

This cover from Charles D. Poston was carried in a military express pouch to Santa Fe via Fort Thorn and entered the regular mails there. The 10¢ Nesbitt entire was used by Poston from a supply he carried and used for the over-3,000 miles rate. This is the only recorded civilian way-mail military express cover from Tubac (Image)

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VERY FINE. AN EXTREMELY RARE COVER FROM THE CAMP MOORE SUTLER AT CALABASAS.

Elias Brevoort, who sent this cover to his father, resigned as Tucson’s postmaster to serve as sutler to the new post. The caravan reached San Xavier Mission, nine miles south of Tucson, on November 14, 1856, but Major Steen, dissatisfied with the area, decided to locate the camp on the site of the old Calabasas Ranch on the Santa Cruz River. On November 27 he established Camp Moore. Brevoort appropriated a stone, adobe and wooden structure on an elevated hill in Calabasas, just east of Camp Cameron, and made improvements to house his large sutler’s inventory. Soldiers called it The Castle.” (Image)

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VERY FINE. THIS IS THE EARLIEST RECORDED UNITED STATES POSTMARK FROM ARIZONA.

Mark Aldrich was a wealthy Arizona merchant who facilitated the mails even before he was officially appointed postmaster. Before Aldrich settled in the West, he lived in Illinois. He was one of five tried and acquitted in the murder of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith in 1844. After becoming very wealthy as a merchant, he became Tucson’s unofficial first mayor and served as the postmaster (he was officially appointed November 11, 1857). (Image)

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Estimate (Image)

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A few words on the subject of the Great Rail Road to the Pacific Ocean. It will be of great National interest... I would say start at some point on the Mississippi River near the mouth of Red River or at some point on Red River as high up as good & safe Steam boats navegation. Thence up said River to near its head–thence west to the southern boundary of New Mexico to the Rio Gila–thence down said stream to the Colorado of the West. Thence West to San Diego on the Pacific Ocean. This route I have been over as fare as the Rio Gila–its all most a level plain and four degres of Longetude shorter than the route from St. Louis by the South Pass... I am still suffering considereble from a wound I receved in a battle I had with the Apachys Indians on the 16th August. I had 26 Dragoons... We fought about 200 Indians and for a few minutes it was allmost a hand to hand fight. The Indians gave way–we persued them... about five miles whare we took their camp–a number of their horse & mules and distroyed all their provisions pots kettles &c &c. We kild about 12 & wounded 20...I had my 1st Seargt mortally wounded– one corporal kild and 2 others Privats slightley wounded...I rec'd a ball about 2 inches below the navel. The ball lodged near the spine whare it still remains and strang to say the wound is nearly healed up...”

Ex Risvold (Image)

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FINE APPEARANCE. THE ONLY KNOWN COVER FROM ARIZONA CARRIED ON THE JACKASS MAIL” ROUTE.

The San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line route included a hundred-mile stretch across the Colorado Desert between Fort Yuma and San Diego. This trek utilized mules to carry the mail, giving rise to the derisive misnomer, Jackass Mail.” Covers carried on the muleback portion of the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line route are rare, and this is the only one known originating in Arizona. The letter writer states: This place is in the Gadsden Purchase or Arizona. This place speled Tejon sometimes by pronounced Tuson...”

In response to demand for a through-mail route to California, Congress passed three important legislative acts. The first (August 18, 1856) authorized a route between San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, California. The second (February 17, 1857) authorized the construction and improvement of the road from El Paso to Fort Yuma. The third (March 3, 1857) authorized stage service between the border of western settlements and California--this last piece of legislation led to the creation of the overland mail route. After reviewing contract proposals for the overland mail route, Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown, former governor of Tennessee, notified James E. Birch that he was awarded the San Antonio-to-San Diego mail contract (Route 8076). The four-year mail service contract with Birch was signed on June 12, 1857 (effective ten days later), and service was set to begin in less than a month, on July 9.

Birch’s contract required two trips per month along the 1,476-mile route between San Antonio and San Diego, in 30 days or less, and it paid $149,800 per year. Departures were made from San Antonio and San Diego on the same days--the 9th and 24th of each month. The stage between El Paso and San Antonio made round trips, while mail carriers started in San Diego (eastbound) and El Paso (westbound), met midway at Maricopa Wells, exchanged the mail, and returned to each starting point. The first trip departed San Antonio on July 9, 1857, and the first eastbound trip left San Diego on August 9.

Birch perished in the wreck of the S.S. Central America in September 1857, and the stage line was sold to George H. Giddings in March 1858. Only 40 trips were made over the entire route with gross postal receipts of $601 before the line was gradually deconstructed” and absorbed into the overland mail route, which Postmaster General Brown had awarded to John Butterfield’s consortium (see Deconstructing the Jackass Mail Route,” Frajola-Risvold, Chronicle 220, and https://www.nps.gov/nhl/news/LC/spring2013/ButterfieldOverlandTrail.pdf ). (Image)

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