Two Coats of Arms on Copp's Hill _Not_ Found in the Gore Roll

We've been looking at some of the armorial headstones and tombstones in the historic Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts. The ones we've looked at so far bore arms which are also found in the Gore Roll of Arms, so today, we're going to make a change, and look at two memorials which bear arms that do not appear in the Gore Roll.

The first is the table tomb of the Rev. Francis W.P. Greenwood, the rector of King’s Chapel (just a few blocks away, and which we will be visiting in time to see the armorial memorials erected in that building) in the early 1800s.

The tomb has a Latin cross carved into its top, and a coat of arms (though the stone it is carved into is broken) on the "head" end of the tomb.

The arms show "A fess between three mullets of six points pierced and three ducks." And the crest: "A mullet of six points pierced within a pair of wings conjoined." Burke’s General Armory gives us: “Greenwood (Norwich and co. York, 1594). Argent a fess between three mullets in chief and as many ducks in base all sable. Crest—A mullet between a pair of duck’s wings expanded sable. Motto—Ut prosim.”

So now we know the colors of the arms and crest, having them here "in black and white," as it were.

(Sorry, not sorry. I couldn't resist the temptation of saying "in black and white" for a coat of arms whose colors are, oh, yeah, white and black.

The other non-Gore Roll arms today are on the memorial to "Isaac Dupee, heir to Goodridge." The inscription running around the four sides of the base of the obelisk is: "Erected by Isaac Dupee / Grandson to G. / Aged LXXV / August 31. A.D. 1846"

The Copp's Hill Burying Ground Guide, p. 13, informs us that this monument is "the most elaborate monument in the burying ground," and "demands a level of religious undterstanding few of us have today. It was erected by Isaac Dupee in 1846 and tells little about him or about the Dupee Family. Some were involved with early Boston education and later generations owned mill at Lowell [Massachusetts] and started copper mines in Upper Michigan."

The Heraldic Journal, Vol. II, pp. 81-83, gives the family descent of Walter Gutridge or Goodridge,* naming him as "undoubtedly" the owner of this tomb, and demonstrating that Isaac Dupee was the grandson of Walter through his daughter Mary, who married Elias Dupee.

In addition to the large Latin cross and letter "God Is Love", the four sides of the obelisk each have a Bible verse reference, and those verses were then used to form two couplets. But as the Guide notes, "From our viewpoint today, it is difficult to see how the couplets could be made from the verses cited."

But, of course, it was the heraldry on the front face of the base that is the reason for its being reviewed here.

The arms (untinctured here, obviously) show "a fess and in chief three patriarchal crosses fitchy at the foot." The crest is a bird. Burke’s General Armory cites: “Goodridge (Totness, co. Devon; Walter Goodridge, of that place. Visit. 1620). Argent a fess sable in chief three crosses crosslet fitchie of the last. Crest—A blackbird proper.” So here, too, we now know the colors "in black and white." (Hey, there's no point in using a marginally funny joke if you can't run it right into the ground, right? Right?)

* Spelling was a lot more flexible back then. In working on my own family tree, I have found spellings of the surname now normally spelled "Bigelow" running the gamut from the very short "Biglo" to the very much longer "Biggalough". People wrote what they heard, and spelled it to match. Which is how the good old Scottish surname "Forbes" (which would have been pronounced with two syllables: For-bess) became, upon hearing someone pronounce it with their highlands brogue, "Farrabas". Ain't orthography fun?