Lot
738 
"Port Townsend WT, Oct 29th 1857", bold manuscript postmark and cross-hatch cancel tie 10¢ green (14), cut in, on cover with manuscript Northwest Boundary "N.W.B. Commission, Semiahmoo Bay, W.T." corner card to Jacksonville Ill.; partial flap, Fine and rare early Washington Territory use. Estimate $400 - 600.
Port Townsend was established on Sept. 28, 1852 in Oregon Territory. Although "Fifty-four forty or fight" was the slogan, the line was drawn at 49 degrees in 1846. However, it was not until the summer of 1857 when a joint American/British boundary commission began to survey the 409-mile line. It took four years, 1857-1861, to survey the entire 409-mile boundary, which crossed rugged and heavily forested terrain between the crest of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast at Point Roberts.
Realized: $280