Registered cover from Columbus, Ohio to Paris dated 1917
I was interested in this cover because on the reverse there is a "Registry" postmark of a boarding post office
of the USA. I have seen these postmarks very rarely.
In 1917, there were still only two joint seapost services. The "US British Seapost" and the "US French Seapost".
According to a collector friend, the letter must have gone directly to France, since there was no British censorship.
So the "US French Seapost".
As usual, I began my research in the Library of Congress, looking for departures to France in the New York newspapers.
I found that due to the war, departures to Europe were not reported.
However, dates of arrival in Europe. Name of ship, date and either port, or just "French" or "British Port".
From the literature I knew the names of the ships of this seapost. All only French ships. Furthermore it was
mentioned that the port in France was changed in 1915 from "Le Havre" to "Bordeaux", due to the U-boat
War of the German Navy.
In the French censorship stamp there is the number "372". I found out that this belonged to the censorship office in
Bordeaux. Was still missing the ship.
Briefly: date from New York - March 24, 1917. date from board March 26, 1917. In the New York newspaper "The Sun"
of March 30, 1917, the arrival of the ship "La Touraine", which belonged to this seapost, was reported in a
French port on March 29,1917. Voyage time at that time approx. 5 days, thus departure matches the
postmark of New York.
By the way: War entry of the USA, and thus end of this seapost, was on April 6, 1917. So this was the last
voyage of this seapost.
In the literature (Hosking - 2008) it is noted that until then no registered mails, i.e. with this
postmark of the US board post office, but it is assumed that such must exist.
Resource:
"Seaposts of the USA", Roger Hosking
"United States Sea Post Cancellations - Part 1 - Transatlantic Routes", Booklet No. 54, Philip Cockrill
Archive of the "Library Of Congress", newspaper "The Sun" from New York
https://semeuse25cbleu.net/grande-guerre-2/controle-postal-de-linterieur/le-controle-postal-a-partir-de-juillet-1915/
