Wells Fargo ran banking and express services in the west after the company was started by two founders of American Express, Henry Wells and William Fargo. The company split its express and banking operations into two firms in 1905.
The form below documents express transactions and corresponding one cent documentary tax payments for five transactions for the United States Express Company.
The United States Express Company operated the eastern terminus of the Pony Express for a period.
From the 1897-98 Andover, Massachusetts directory comes the first image of this post and a reference to the Merchants Co-op Express. Not sure how the Blois, Andover, and Lawrence Express relates the Merchants other than the use of an office.
The web is not providing much information on this company. I will keep looking.
Child messengers, Norfolk, Virginia in 1911. Photograph in the public demain. In four of the five cancels shown below the Adams Express herald or logo is identical to that shown in the picture above.
Right arrow and guideline at bottom of this stamp. I should have waited 5 days and posted this stamp on May 19.
I am not completely sure about this cancel. It reads "Adam Ex. Co." and there is sufficient space to accomodate the missing S after Adam; nevertheless it does not say Adams. Also, all the other cancels here use the Adams Express Company logo as their cancel. This is a simple straight line. The other cancels, even with missing letters, would not doubt be those of Adams Ex. due to their design.
1. Upon each sale, agreement of sale, or agreement to sell, any products or merchandise at any exchange,or board of trade, or other similar place, either for present or future delivery, for each $100 in value or fraction thereof;
The 1 cent block of four cancelled by JP Morgan in a previous post is likely example of payment of this tax requirement.
2. Bills of lading, manifests, or other memorandum of shipment for goods shipped by railroad or steamboat company, carrier, express company, or corporation;
The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy printed cancel on a previous post is a likely example of stamp removed from on of these types of railroad documents. The AMEX cancel probably represents a stamp used for this tax as well.
3. Sworn statements to be filed within the first 15 days of each month by persons, firms, corporations owning or operating any telephone line or lines for which there was a charge imposed of 15 cents or more for the previous month;
4. Any telegraphic dispatch or message.
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy RR printed cancel.
Michigan Central RR handstamp cancel.
Just why would the Windsor County Clerk's Office in Woodstock, Vermont need so many one cent documentary stamps that they would order sheet(s?) of stamps with this printed cancellation? If you google J. R. Pember and Windsor County you can find out that his full name was Jay Read Pember.
The Chicago and North Western Railway used this stamp in 1900.
American Express issued its first travellers checks in 1891. This stamp is interesting as it has a printed cancel, a handstamp from the AMEX office in Racine, Wisconsin, and a solid right-side guideline.
I acquired this pair and the accompanying certificate from the Henry Tolman sale. Its pedigree can be established prior to Mr. Tolman, as the pair was sold in the Morton Dean Joyce Sale nearly 15 years earlier. Mr. Joyce put together the single greatest collection of US revenues.
A part rouletted pair of the one cent documentary.
A part rouletted block of four of the once cent documentary. Arrow and guideline runs across the top of the block.
Unused roulette single.
Unused roulette block of four.
Unused hyphen-hole single. I need to touch up the frame around this stamp. The single is torqued a bit in the orginal Vario page and I rotated it a couple of degrees digitally, leaving the white wedges surrounding the frame.
Unused hyphen-hole block of four.
Goodmorning from Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad South Chicago Freight Office for May 9. The LS&MS ran from Chicago to the east, and connected with the New York Central. It was controlled by the NYC and Vanderbilt. By 1900 the quantity of freight shipped by this railroad along the Chicago-New York corridor was enormous.
Above is our first graded revenue stamp. The 1 1/4 cent proprietary has been graded at 100BJQ, the highest grade possible for a revenue stamp. Our team of grading experts, using strict and formal criteria, have combined their skilled judgment with a process that includes high-cost electron microscopy techniques and x-rays at zero-gravity to insure that the stamp, even on the inside, is true to the grade for which it is assigned. Margins are well balanced and wide. The color is bright and nearly fluorescent. The impression is sharp and clear. You are unlikely to find a battleship revenue of this quality in a lifetime (of a fruit fly). 
Not too exciting here. I've got a bunch of G. Rosenblatt cancels on other values. All of these cancels are from companies that can be googled and for which information can be readily found. Old insurance company legal proceedings and news clippings may be interesting to some though. What was Concordia's liability from the Great Chicago Fire? 
The half center was mostly used for paying the tax on low budget insurance policies. Without doing too much research you can tell the above stamp was used by an insurance company. The stamp also has a nice clear guideline running across the bottom of the stamp.
All of these stamps were cancelled in the first year of use of the 1898 series, more than a year before the half cent gray stamp became available. The relative scarcity of the orange stamp in used condition must be a function in part of complete withdrawal from use of the orange stamps as soon as the gray version became available.
