Placed on sale on July 14, 1845, this was the nation's first provisional stamp to be issued by a local post office in response to the congressional postal reform act that had taken effect two weeks earlier.

[2] That law, passed on March 3, 1845, standardized nationwide mail rates, with the result that the use of stamps became a practical and reliable method of postal prepayment.

[2] Creating a design around Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, the firm produced an engraving plate that printed forty stamp images; experts originally believed the number of stamps to have been fifty or one hundred, but the plating efforts of philatelist Abraham Hatfield in 1921 ultimately proved the sheet to be eight horizontal rows of five.

In February 1842, a New York carrier, the City Despatch Post, had printed a rather crude 3¢ Washington issue for use by its customers (the first adhesive postage stamp produced in the Western hemisphere); and the service offered a second version of that Washington stamp with modified lettering several months later when the U. S. Post Office purchased the company as a subsidiary for continued local mail pick-up and delivery.

The New York Provisional was available only at the city's post office, and to guarantee authenticity, the Postmaster or one of his representatives initialed every stamp in red ink.

Morris's RHM is present on only a small percentage of the stamps; most of this secretarial drudgery fell to the younger of the two brothers-in-law he had hired as his Assistant Postmasters: 23-year-old Alonzo Castle Monson, whose ACM became ubiquitous.

In all, Rawdon, Wright & Hatch made eighteen shipments of the Provisionals to the New York Post office, the last of which — on January 7, 1847 — brought the total of stamps delivered to 143,600.

New York Postmaster's Provisionals exist in a welter of collectible varieties which differ widely in value on the philatelic market.