Another Armorial Headstone in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts

Our next armorial headstone in Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston is another coat of arm also found in the Gore Roll of Arms, that of Gee, where they are impaled with Thacher or Thatcher.

I recommend that you click on the image above to go to the full-size version, where the shield and its charges are a little easier to make out. They were less obscured when we last visited Boston in 2008, as you can see from this image taken then.

Of the bearer of these arms, the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Guide, p 22, says: "Joshua Gee, wealthy shipbuilder, whose son [also Joshua] was pastor of 2nd Church 1742-48, once had the only privately owned family plot in the burying ground. His wife 'wanted to be laid away from the multitude,' instead of the helter-skelter way the other graves were arranged."

Joshua Gee of Boston was a freeman in 1675. He married (1st) Elizabeth Harris, 25 Sept. 1688, by whom he had several children besides Rev. Joshua Gee, a colleague of Rev. Cotton Mather.** He married (2nd) Elizabeth, daughter of Judah Thacher, December 7, 1704. (Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692)

The arms are blazoned: Azure on a chevron Argent between three leopard’s faces Or three fleurs-de-lis Gules. The crest is difficult to make out here, being more than somewhat obscured by the growth of lichens on the tombstone, but is given in the Gore Roll as A wolf statant reguardant Ermine.

Dr. Harold Bowditch ("The Gore Roll of Arms," Collections 29 (1-4) of the Rhode Island Historical Society),* says: "The 'Gee' arms turn out to be those of Gay, Guy or Gye. Identified through Papworth, they are found in Burke under Guy of Oundle, Northamptonshire, and of Wiltshire, but with this crest: A lion's head azure with a collar partly azure and sable, between two wings gold. Under the name of Gye of the Cellar they appear in Glover's Ordinary, a compilation by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. By giving the name Guy its French pronunciation it is easy to see how it became spelled Gee in England."

I must say, it always gives me a bit of a thrill to see in real life a coat of arms that has appeared in one (or more) of the books that I own.

* We noted two other publications in our previous post where Dr. Bowditch's full review of arms in the rediscovered Gore Roll of Arms can be found, along with additional information.

** Cotton Mather, and his father Increase, and other Mathers, are also buried in Copp's Hill Burying Ground. I make it a point every time I visit Copp's Hill to stop by their table tomb to execrate Cotton, because of the nasty things that he said about my 10th great-grandmother, Susanna (North) Martin, during the Salem witch trials of 1692. Yes, I know that more than 300 years is a long time to carry a grudge, but while she was an old widow with opinions, she was no witch, and Cotton called her a "rampant hag," described her as "one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world," and said that Satan himself had promised her that "she would be the Queen of Hell." So, yeah, I take it a bit personally. We now return you to your regularly scheduled post on heraldry.