ARCH GR SE OU E P BRITISH COLUMBIA R POST OFFICE B POSTAL HISTORY R I A IT B ISH COLUM NEWSLETTER Volume 26 Number 2 Whole number 102 June 2017 Two-cent Admiral cover to Victoria, dated Oct 4, 1928, by machine cancel. No backstamps. New Westminster provincial exhibition covers are envelopes have been noted from 1900, 1902-05, very popular with collectors. The exhibition itself, 1919, 1921-26 and 1928-29. Were they issued before held in Queens Park, got its start in 1890 and ex- 1900? How to explain the big gap between 1906 panded over the years. In 1929 the main buildings and 1918? It’s understandable that fancy stationery burned to the ground and the festival ceased. might not have seen much use during the war Several different cover designs were used, and years, but what about before that? covers from individual years can vary also, depend- The cover above has an interesting addressee. ing on which businesses issued them. Some designs Besides being a philatelist, Charles Hill-Tout are rather plain, others are quite fancy. Many covers (1858-1944) was BC’s leading amateur ethnologist. have elaborate advertisements on the reverse. He surveyed the famous Marpole midden and I doubt if any collector has a complete set of exhi- wrote numerous books about BC’s indigenous bition covers. Examples from some years seem very groups, especially the Salishan people. Hill-Tout scarce. It’s not even certain, for instance, when the was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in practice of printing special covers began. Illustrated 1913.—Andrew Scott In this issue: • By boat to Brownsville p 1003 • Favourite cover: Provincial Exhibition p 995 • Drowned post offices, part II p 1005 • The adventures of John Bastedo p 997 • What’s new under the MOON p 1009 • Updating the “BRIT COL” cancels p 1000 • Recent BC post office markings p 1010 BC Postal History Newsletter #102 Page 996 eight days after opening. The Sayles catalogue From our readers number is D1602.” Study group member Jim White writes: Incidentally, Peter, who writes the “Study Group “The new issue (#101, March 2017) of the Centreline” for BNA Topics, gave the BC Postal newsletter is full of gems—as usual! My copy of History Newsletter a nice review in issue #550 (Vol 74, Bear Creek (see pp 987-88) is also on a postcard, No 1, Jan-Mar 2017, page 70). He particularly singled as a weak receiver. Mine comes from Rossland out Glenna Metchette’s article on the “drowned” with a date of Feb 27, 1915. The card is a glossy post offices of the Columbia Basin (in issue #99), and sepia scene of Rossland. My mother was born in commented favourably on the special 100th issue. Rossland, and when I showed her the card, she “This is a newsletter,” he concluded, “that exudes pointed to a house and said ‘that’s where my wet passion for the hobby. It should be made available to nurse lived’! Ah, the history! all BNAPSers as an instrument of encouragement.” “The card is addressed to: ‘Rifleman L W Peplar, Our newsletter also got reviewed in Canadian Stamp 102 RMR Decoy, Raspberry Creek, Nr Bear Creek, News (Mar 7, 2017, page 8), in Everett Parker’s BC.’ Raspberry Creek was renamed Sturdee Creek; “Philatelic Journals” column. Everett discussed the Bear Creek was renamed Connaught Creek. ‘RMR December 2016 100th issue and seemed to enjoy Decoy’ is short for the Rocky Mountain Rangers the wide range of articles. He took a special interest Depot Company. Headquartered in Kamloops in Bob Forster’s Wells Fargo Pony Express stamp during WWI, it offered local protection services— postmarked Victoria in 1861. including at internment camps. “Could it be that Rifleman Peplar was providing guard duty against sabotage on the Subscription renewal time CPR? If so, it must have been a lonely outpost! Print subscriptions are now due, at the annual rate I can remember seeing sentry boxes at bridges of $15, in Canadian funds for addresses in Canada, on the KVR, probably from WWII. They were and in US funds for addresses south of the border. maintained during the Freedomite days of the late Please send cheques to the editor at the address 1950s and early 1960s. below. Please keep in mind that emailed digital “Nice to see the McCuddy. What an eBay find!” subscriptions continue to be free. (You can, of Peter McCarthy writes, referring to the “favourite course, have both types of subscriptions.) cover” on page 979 (issue #101, March 2017): If you decide to shift to the digital edition, “Received your newsletter and am in the process please make sure we have your email address. You of writing it up for the Centerline. can also download the newsletter from our file- “ I just wanted to let you know the MPO sharing site (see below). We will honour paid 2016 registration box you say is not listed in Bailey print subscriptions through this issue and the next. & Toop is listed on page 150 of the Sayles If we have not received your renewal by then, we catalogue. It was proofed in October of 1944 and will shift your subscription to digital (if we have has a rarity factor of E, which is described as rare your email address). with less than ten examples known. You could Finally, we are happy to accept donations (and possibly have the earliest known, seeing it is only we thank those who donated last year). The British Columbia Postal History Newsletter is Editor: Andrew Scott published quarterly by the BC Postal History Study email: [email protected] Group, an affiliate of the British North America Associate Editor: Tracy Cooper Philatelic Society (BNAPS). email: [email protected] Annual subscription fee for printed and mailed Study Group Chair: Tim Woodland newsletters (four issues) is $15, in Cdn or US funds. email: [email protected] Dues are payable to the editor: Andrew Scott Editor Emeritus: Bill Topping 5143 Radcliffe Rd, Sechelt, BC, Canada V0N 3A2 Newsletter submissions may be sent to the editors at Individual print issues sell for $2.50 each, post paid. the addresses above. Free digital newsletters can be downloaded as PDF files at the following websites: for issues 1 to 59, go to www.bnaps.org/hhl/n-bcr.htm; for later numbers, visit https://spideroak.com/browse/share/Andrew_Scott/Backissues. Issues 89 to present are in full colour; earlier newsletters are in b&w. File size is approximately 2 Mb/issue. BC Postal History Newsletter #102 Page 997 In the footsteps of gold-seeker John Bastedo by Andrew Scott The envelope below has no dispatch markings but must have been mailed some time in late spring or early summer 1860. It is one of the earliest known covers franked with the colony’s first postage stamp, which paid the obligatory 2½d (5c) colonial tax. John Bastedo, a miner, sent it, unpaid, to his wife in Princeton, Canada West. From 1859 to 1864 the rate to Canada was 15 cents per ½ ounce, and two “15” marks indicate the payment due. The small rectangle was applied on July 30, 1860, at San Francisco, the curved “U STATES” at the Canadian border. But where was the cover sent from? Most letters accepted by the Victoria post office at this time were not franked with the 2½d stamp. Postal patrons paid the colonial tax in cash. Corrupt postmaster John D’Ewes franked the customer’s envelope with an old postal handstamp to show that the tax had been paid and then pocketed the cash. He also sold pre- franked envelopes. D’Ewes was more or less in charge of Vancouver Island mail between December 1859 and September 1861. It was a time of great confusion and lack of oversight in the postal service, of which he took full advantage. The cash nature of his transactions, which the government had no way of checking, Unpaid 1860 cover to Canada West, likely mailed from New Westminster or further upriver. The “FP not paid” notation is in the handwriting of Victoria postmaster John D’Ewes. allowed D’Ewes to set aside substantial sums without accounting for them to the Treasury. On Sept 20, 1861, the postmaster absconded not only with the funds described above but also with other amounts he had been entrusted with—several thousand dollars in total, an immense blow to the fledgling colony’s precarious finances. In his history of the BC&VI postal system, Alfred Deaville writes: “Certainly very few of the Colonial postage stamps appear to have been sold in Vancouver Island during [D’Ewes’s] term of office.” The handwriting of John D’Ewes can be seen on the cover above: “FP (foreign postage) not paid.” Most covers with 2½d stamps dating from early 1860 were pen-cancelled, probably at New Westminster or further upriver. Few examples are available for comparison (see references: Wellburn, pp 56-57; Dale- Lichtenstein, pp 38, 42; Philatelic Foundation #260685; Forster). The 2½d stamps are believed to have arrived at Victoria in March 1860. BC’s numeral “grid” cancelling devices, while ordered from England at the same time as the stamps, may not have been delivered until later, as grid postmarks have not (yet) been seen on covers dated before September 1860. This would explain the pen-cancelled 2½d covers. No record exists, unfortunately, of exactly when either the stamps or cancellers were issued. BC Postal History Newsletter #102 Page 998 John Bastedo continued In an attempt to pin down the starting point for this letter, I did a little research on its sender.