The Courant reported that George Reay had attempted to claim the stamped envelope contract with the post office department

The article then reported that Marshall Jewell had granted Plimpton ten additional days to honor the terms of the contract.

1. The sequence of events that followed Plimpton’s submission of their executed contract is not entirely clear, as the two dispatches from Washington lack dates beyond the Saturday deadline, which was October 3, 1874.
2. The dispatch re-printed by the Courant on October 5, 1874, reported that G. H. Reay had “entered a formal protest” against Plimpton because the work was “really being done by the Morgan envelope company of Springfield, Mass, in violation of the terms of the contract.”
3. The dispatch re-printed by the Courant on October 6, 1874, reported that G. H. Reay had claimed the contract as his due to the violations he cited, which included that Morgan was actually doing the work.
4. The October 6 re-print also reports that Marshall Jewell had granted Plimpton the extension, but it isn’t clear if that was from the New York Republic or something added by the Courant. In either event, the extension, which effectively rebuffed Reay’s claim, probably came on October 4 or 5 as well.

1. On September 18, 1874, George Reay (or his representative) announced his willingness to sell his equipment to the winning bidder.
2. The Plimpton Manufacturing Company learned that it had been awarded the stamped envelope contract on September 23, 1874.
3. The Courant that Plimpton would be using machinery sent by the Morgan Envelope Company to fulfill the contract on September 29, 1874.

On October 8, 1874, it will be reported that the contract still belongs to the Plimpton Manufacturing Company.

1. “If this last allegation [that Morgan was doing the work] is sustained, an undoubted violation of the contract will be proved.”
2. “Mr. Reay has had the contract for many years, and gave the government satisfaction in every particular.”

Reay had held the contract for stamped envelopes since 1870.

Unattributed.  “The Plimpton contract,” Hartford Daily Courant, October 5, 1874, page 2.

Unattributed.  “The stamped envelope contract,” Hartford Daily Courant, October 6, 1874, page 2.