Lot
1143 
"Cimarron NM, July 8th" (Colfax), manuscript postmark with matching pen cancel on cover bearing 3¢ rose (65), tiny tear, to Barnard, Vermont; cover with some lightened ms. and reduced slightly at right just affecting 3c, F.-V.F (Type 1, Rarity 9). Estimate $300 - 400.
Cimarron was the center and headquarters of the Maxwell Land Grant. Lucien B. Maxwell came to New Mexico from Illinois in 1849. A hunter and trapper, he married Luz Beaubein, one of the heirs of the Beaubein-Miranda Grant. After Carlos Beaubein died in 1864, Maxwell bought out the rest of the heirs. The grant included parts of southern Colorado and much of Northwestern New Mexico, totalling 1,714,765 acres, the largest personal landholding in the Western Hemisphere. Maxwell was postmaster of Cimarron from opening Sept. 3rd 1861 to Set. 18th 1870, and of Fort Sumner from Jan. 17th 1873 until his death on July 25th 1875.
Realized: $280