Henrik Mouritsen's pages

Stamps and postal history of Haiti

Try to click on the stamps on these pages!

C59-cancel used at the British Post Office in Jacmel

I collect used stamps and covers of Haiti from approx. 1865 to 1920. I am very interested in the period just before Haiti became a member of UPU on 1 july 1881. Before this date they did not have their own stamps. Instead stamps of Great Britain and France were used on the island. For my collection I especially seek french stamps used in Haiti! Do you have such stamps/covers for trade/sale or anything else that you think might interest me, please send me an e-mail (mou@psyc.queensu.ca). I also seek a nice cover franked with the 1881-issue.

E53-cancel used at the British Post Office in Port-au-Prince

Letter send via the British Post Office in Jacmel
showing the C51-cancel of St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies

This letter send from the British Post Office in Jacmel is not canceled "C59" as expected, but shows the C51-cancel of St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies. Below the stamp "1/-" is written with blue chalk. Probably the British Post Office in Jacmel had run out of one shilling stamps, and the mail was sent to St. Thomas with a note explaining the situation. Here, the letter was franked with a one shilling stamp and cancelled with the C51 of the British Post Office in St. Thomas. The rate was one shilling for prepaid letters to England from 1840 to 31 june 1881.

Recently, I got hold of a small collection of British stamps used in Port au Prince before Haiti got their own stamps. This collection consisted of 20 loose British stamps and one cover all showing the E53 numeral cancel of the British postoffice in Port au Prince. If you click here, you can see some of the items.

Palm-tree issue of 1896 with double perforation

Mute cancelers of St. Thomas of the Danish West Indies

The left and right stamp are interesting examples of double perforations, whereas the central stamp shows a prime example of the mute four ring canceler used for ship mail at the postoffice of St. Thomas, the Danish West Indies.
Read the story of the cancel here.

On 1 July 1881 Haiti became member of UPU. This led to the closing of the British and French Post Offices on the island, and Haiti got their own postal authorities and their own stamps. The first issue was the imperforated Liberty Heads

In the autumn of 1888, a revolution took place in Northern Haiti. The postal history of the République Septentrionale (illustrated) is one of the most interesting parts of Haitian philately.

If you have interest in the stamps and postal history of Haiti, you should visit the home page of the Haiti Philatelic Society. The society has a Journal called Haiti Philately. Here you can find a lot of useful articles containing valuable information on the stamps and postal history of Haiti.

Back to my Stamps and postal history - introductory page

Henrik Mouritsen
henrik.mouritsen@uni-oldenburg.de