Forwarded by Hale & Co. from
Courier & Enquirer New York. Red oval handstamp and matching Collect
box on Dec. 3, 1844 folded letter from Birmingham, England, to Hartford
Conn., "Forwarded by John A. Newbould New-York" black oval handstamp on
flap, Very Fine, scarce transatlantic usage
(Image) 
Hale & Co., (5c) Blue, Street
Address Omitted (75L5). Neatly cut to shape, tied by red Collect box,
matching "Forwarded by Hale & Co.'s Great Eastern Mail Co." oval handstamp
on October 1844 folded letter from Bradford Mass. to Annapolis, Nova
Scotia, via Hale's St. John, New Brunswick, office, entered regular
mails at St. John with ms. "7" -- 7d currency rate for 61 miles distance
between St. John and Annapolis -- and "St. John N.B. No 1 1844" backstamp,
letter dated first on Oct. 19 and again on Oct. 26, the writer states
"Must finish this letter intending to put it in at Haverhill this
afternoon"VERY FINE. THE ONLY RECORDED COVER BEARING AN INDEPENDENT MAIL STAMP THAT PAID FOR SERVICE FROM THE UNITED STATES TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY.
Service to Eastport Me., St. John and St. Andrews, New Brunswick, was announced by Hale & Co. in an advertisement appearing in the July 4, 1844, edition of the Morning Courier and New York Enquirer (source: Michael Gutman). The rate to St. John was advertised as 12-1/2c, which is double the value represented by the stamp on the cover offered here. The difference may have been paid in cash or disregarded. The markings applied at the St. John post office indicate it was put into the mails there and was not received as a ship letter. Therefore, Hale & Co. carried the letter from the United States to New Brunswick, rather than placing it on an outbound vessel from Boston or Eastport.
To the best of our knowledge, there are only two usages of Independent Mail stamps to foreign countries. One is the Hale cover offered here. The other is a cover-front to Liverpool, England, with two pairs of Pomeroy's stamp paying for conjunctive service from somewhere between Buffalo and Albany (Pomeroy's route) and from Albany to Boston (Hale's route), where it was put onto a packet sailing for Liverpool (Robson Lowe sale, Mar. 15, 1972, lot 1196). Both are important postal history artifacts, but there is a significant difference between the two. The Pomeroy-Hale service carried the letter only as far as Boston, at which point it entered the regular mails to cross the Atlantic. The Hale cover offered here represents actual service beyond the borders of the United States. As such, it stands alone to represent the use of an Independent Mail stamp for service to another country. Other expresses carried mail to offices on foreign soil, but they did not issue stamps, as far as we know.
This cover probably represents the earliest use of a stamp to pay postage for service from the United States to a foreign country. (Image)