Early Rural Free Delivery Mail Service Covers

Since the RFD carriers simply delivered mail and picked it up to take to the post office in town, these early letters do not carry postal markings to identify them as RFD mail. However, in August 1900 carriers began marking the mail picked up on their routes with pencil cancels. Within a few years carriers were outfitted with rubber stamps bearing R.F.D. the post office town name and the date plus a bar cancel and a number (known as a Doane Cancel). Use of these cancelling devices was discontinued by June of 1903.