Black Trenton SEP 5 cds on folded letter to Bath, MA with red "FREE" manuscript from the Treasury Department. The letter is franked by Joseph Nourse, Register of the Treasury Department, datelined "Treasury Department/Register's Office (Trenton)/ Septr. 5, 1799."

During the time Philadelphia was the United States Capital, some of the executive departments would flee to other sites during that city's oppressive summer heat and contagious fevers. As shown in this letter's dateline and the townmark, the Treasury Department was at Trenton, New Jersey in 1799 at summer's end.

Addressed to Bath, Massachusetts, before the District of Maine became a state in 1820.