Page 30 - Demo

According to the philatelic literature, the Vincennes Post Office utilized three First-Day-ofIssue cancellation dies on July 4, 1950. It also mentions that some First-Day cancellations were made by the Railway Post Office, but they weren%u2019t common. So, when I came across eBay listings for the two Indiana Sesquicentennial First Day Covers mounted on the next page%u2014one with a Railway Post Office cancel, the other a Highway Post Office cancel%u2014I bought both. Not long after the covers arrived, I mentioned my new purchase to First-Day-Cover aficionado, and friend, Mark Goodson, in Ellettsville. He said my Highway Post Office cancellation was only the second he%u2019d seen in over 50 years of collecting, and it was %u201ca real gem.%u201dMark was very curious as to who had originally owned the covers. I was intrigued as well, but someone had erased the addresses. To try to decipher them, I scanned each one, then increased their contrast in Photoshop. This allowed me to read what looked like %u201cJ.L. Williams, 910 Merchant Bank Bldg, Indianapolis, Ind.,%u201d which I relayed to Mark. To my surprise, he had heard of the guy!He said it was J. Lester Williams, who had been a prominent member of the Indiana Stamp Club many decades ago. He then related a story from February 25, 1929, which was the First Day of Issue for the 2-cent George Rogers Clark stamp, which was also released in Vincennes. On that day, Lester, along with some other collectors, (the Rev. Lemuel Johnson, Floyd Shockley, Carl Plock, and possibly Harry Ioor) drove to Vincennes to get a number of First Day Covers cancelled. The group arrived as early as they could (Mark guessed it could have been one minute after midnight) to buy the new stamps. They needed all the time they could muster, so it had to be early, because they were not just after Vincennes cancellations Because Lester worked for a railroad, the group was able to ship batches of stamped covers by train to all the capitals of the Northwest Territory, as well as other towns of interest, to be cancelled on the Clark stamp%u2019s First Day of Issue. Then, because they had travelled to Vincennes in more than one automobile, they took different routes back to Indianapolis in order to get additional First Day cancels at other Post Offices they passed on the way home.Because these additional covers were processed on the First Day of Issue%u2014but not in Vincennes%u2014they were all considered %u201cunofficial cancellations.%u201d But that was precisely what they were after, and their efforts to acquire them were so unusual, that these particular covers became legendary. Interestingly, with the evidence of my two covers addressed to Lester, it was apparent he was still going after unofficial cancelations in 1950%u201421 years later.by a Group of Dedicated Indianapolis Philatelists.