CSA 7-R, 5¢ blue 2 overlapping singles local print (some gum staining) tied neat RICHMOND VA. JUL 26 (1863) on green all-over advertising cover of Harvey, Armistead & Williams Wholesale Grocers over to M.C. Massie Massie’s Mill, Nelson County, Va. Ex David Burton. $700.

The Massie family forebearers immigrated to Virginia about 1690. The two most important members of the family were Major Thomas and his son, Capt. William Massie. Maj. Thomas served during the Revolutionary War, and after the end of the war removed his family to the wilderness in Nelson County, Virginia. He established a number of large and prosperous plantations, Level Green, Pharsalia, Montebello, and Tyro, from an initial investment in a mill at Massie's Mill. Around 1812. Maj. Massie presented Pharsalia plantation to his son William, also a man of acute managerial judgment. After Thomas' death in 1834, and the death of a brother, William consolidated his holdings to a maximum of 7,725 acres in 1859. After the Civil War, the records of the family became dispersed and most of the landholdings seem to have passed from the family's possession. Photocopies of the William Massie papers from 1749-1931 are housed in the Wisconsin Historical Society. The originals are at the University of Texas.