Coffin Plate - George Benham M.D.

Coffin or Casket Plate/Plaque

George Benham M.D.

I have had this item in my possession for many years and never gave it much thought. This is a coffin plate for George Benham M.D. Died April 9th 1887, aged 47 years. (Aug. 1840 - April 9, 1887).
He was the husband of Calista Emery Kipp January 30, 1846 to June 13, 1911. [My 1st cousin twice removed. Descended from Richard Titus Kipp, a brother to my great grandfather Benjamin Kipp]
They lived at Princeton, Ontario.

Coffin plates are decorative adornments attached to the coffin that contain genealogical information like the name and death date of the deceased. Generally made of a soft metal like lead, pewter, silver, brass, copper, zinc or tin. The different metals reflect the different functions of the plates, or the status and wealth of the deceased. For a basic funeral, a simple lead plate would be lettered with the name, date of death and often the age of the departed, and nailed to the lid of a wooden coffin.

In the late 1840s the first machine made coffin plates began to appear. At first they were simple shapes stamped out of a flat piece of metal. The industrial manufactured coffin plates of course had no names on them. They were in fact just blanks that were intended to be engraved by someone in the local community such as a jeweller or undertaker. As such the quality of the engraving varies wildly.

In North America the same time that the use of coffin plates was increasing in popularity the practice of removing the plates from the coffin before burial increased. Often the Coffin Plates were never attached to the coffin but displayed on a stand or table next to it. The coffin plates were removed to be kept as mementos by the loved ones of the deceased.

The Thorne-Wilkins Burying Ground

New York Researcher, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, Vol. 28, No. 4, Winter 2017. Pages 5-8.

This article is about the Thorne-Wilkins Burying Ground at Fort Totten on Willets Point in Bayside, New York.

This is of interest to me as I am a descendant of William Thorn(e) Sr. He is supposed to have landed at Boston about 1629. He was admitted as a freeman at Lynn, Massachusetts Bay Colony on May 2, 1638. He left Lynn early in 1643 for Long Island as one of the followers of Lady Deborah Moody (Gravesend, LI). He was one of the patentees at Flushing, LI in 1645. He was one of the signers of the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657.

I am descended through his son Joseph Thorne (cir. 1642-1727), who married Mary Bowne. Mary Bowne was a daughter of John Bowne (1627-1695) and Hannah Feake (1637-1677). Quakers or the Society of Friends.

Research Sources for your Palatine Ancestors

Research Sources for your Palatine Ancestors

1)   Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, by Walter Allen Knittle. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1965, reprint of 1937 edition.

2)   Palatine Roots: The 1710 German Settlement in New York as Experienced by Johann Peter Wagner, by Nancy Wagoner Dixon. Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1994.

3)   The Palatine Families of New York: A Study of German Immigrants Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710, by Henry Z. Jones. Camden, ME: Picton Press, Third printing 1995. http://www.hankjones.com/

4)   More Palatine Families: Some Immigrants to the Middle Colonies 1717-1776 and their European Origins, plus New Discoveries on German Families Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710, by Henry Z. Jones. Privately published 1991. http://www.hankjones.com/

5)   Even More Palatine Families: 18^th Century Immigrants to the American Colonies and Their German, Swiss and Austrian Origins, by Henry Z. Jones. Privately published. http://www.hankjones.com/

6)   The Palatine Families of Ireland, by Henry Z. Jones. Privately published. http://www.hankjones.com/

7)   The Book of Names: Especially Relating to The Early Palatines and the First Settlers in the Mohawk Valley, complied and arranged by Lou D. MacWethy. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1985.

8)   Palatine Heads of Families from Governor Hunter’s Ration Lists, June 1710 to September 1714, by Boyd Ehle. See the following website:  http://threerivershms.com/nameshunter.htm

9)   Mohawk Valley in the Revolution: Committee of Safety Papers & Genealogical Compendium, by Maryly B. Penrose. Franklin Park, NJ: Liberty Bell Associates, 1978.

10)   The Palatines of New York State: A complete compilation of the history of the Palatines who first came to New York State in 1708-1722. The Palatine Society, 1953.

11)  Pages from the Past, No. 4, Palatine Historical Background. Palatines to America, 1993.

12)  The Simmendinger Register. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1984.

13)  The Palatines of Olde Ulster, by Benjamin Myer Brink. Saugerties, NY: Hope Farm Press, 2000.

14)  The Irish Palatines in Ontario: Religion, Ethnicity, and Rural Migration, by Carolyn A. Heald. Gananoque, ON: Langdale Press, 1994.

15)  Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, Vol. 31, N.4, October 2008.  A tri-centennial celebration of the Palatine Migration of 1708/09.

https://www.lmhs.org/research/lmhs-publications/pa-mennonite-heritage/articles-list/

16)  Palatines to America German Genealogy Society.   http://palam.org/

17)  Montgomery County Department of History and Archives, Old Courthouse, Fonda, NY.  

https://www.co.montgomery.ny.us/web/sites/departments/historian/default.asp

Annals of Old Manhattan 1609-1664

Annals of Old Manhattan 1609-1664. Julia M. Colton. New York. 1901.

On p. 157, in the footnote, Hendrick Hendricksen Kipp is mentioned as one of the Council of Nine Men,  appointed by the Honorable Peter Stuyvesant from a group of the "most notable, reasonable, honest and respectable men" chosen by the residents of Manhattan, Breuckelen, Midwout (Flatbush), Amersfoort (Flatlands), and Pavonia.

Books Read or Partially Read in 2017

Books Read or Partially Read in 2017

Origin, by Dan Brown. 2017

Turing’s Cathedral, The Origins of the Digital Universe, by George Dyson. 2012.

The Story of Physics, by Anne Rooney. 2011.

The War Scientists, The Brains behind military technologies of destruction and defense, by Thomas J. Craughwell. 2011.

The Illustrious Dead, The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon’s Greatest Army, by Stephen Talty. 2009.

Lavoisier in the Year One, The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution, by Madison Smartt Bell. 2005.

A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. 2004.

Murder as a Fine Art, A True Story of Fraud, Betrayal and Murder Across Two Continents, by Alan J. Bytheway. 2015. [The murder and trial took place near my home town of Princeton, Ontario, Canada.]

Partially Read

The Great Migration Directory, Immigrant’s to New England, 1620-1640, by Robert Charles Anderson. 2015.

Elements of Genealogical Analysis, by Robert Charles Anderson. 2014.

New York Family History Research Guide and Gazetteer, by NYGBS. 2015.

Loyally Yours, 100 Years of the UELAC. Compiled by Frederick Hayward. 2014.

Happy New Year and may 2018 be a great year

Some fireworks from early in December on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada. Light Across Canada.

It is to cold to actually go down to Parliament Hill tonight at midnight to see the real fireworks.

As one of my cousins pointed out recently, no matter what happens keep moving forward.
As a matter of fact that is really what the Kip Family motto means. I translates as Never Go Back.

A brief look at 2017

I have not posted much in 2017 for various reasons.

I am stepping down as Editor of The Ottawa Genealogist (Journal of the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society) and as Treasurer of the Branch.

Elizabeth and I were co-treasurers for the 2017 Conference for the Ontario Genealogical Society which was held in Ottawa the second weekend in June.  That particular job occupied an enormous amount of our time in 2017.  The job did not end with Conference as there were bills to pay and the books to reconcile.  It was early November before we officially closed the books.

Hopefully I will now have more free time to work on my family lines.

We had been planning through the winter and spring for the Folkins Family Reunion in Sussex, New Brunswick.  Ed’s 2x great grandmother was Margaret Folkins and this family has had a continuous reunion for more than 70 years.  We attended back in 1993 and decided this would be the year to go once again. We took our time driving there stopping to see Grandby Zoo just south of Montreal the first day and then processing across Quebec into New Brunswick taking a couple of days and finally arriving at Sussex in time for the Reunion.  The first day was a bus tour of the area which included actually being on the Farm land where the Folkins family had come just after the Revolution in the United States.  They were United Empire Loyalists.  More than 200 people attended the Reunion and I enjoyed meeting many of my cousins.

I am on the left with my hand up.

Being in the Maritime Provinces we took the time to visit family on P.E.I.  Leaving Sussex we traveled to Parlee Beach.  Always an interesting adventure as I am also descended from the Parlee family (John Casey Parlee married Margaret Folkins).  We visited two of the lighthouses on Prince Edward Island, Point Prim and  Wood Islands, plus a tour of Fanningbank, home of the Lieutenant Governor, and All Souls’ Chapel. We have visited Prince Edward Island a number of times in the past so have seen a good deal of the Island already.

We headed home stopping at Riviere du Loup where we had a whale watching tour the next day.  The day was, unfortunately, cool and foggy but we did see some whales.  It was interesting just traveling up and down the St Lawrence River.  We had never done that before.  Home again and our trip had been for 12 days but we managed it very well.

A few weeks of rest and we were off again to southwestern Ontario this time to visit with my cousins in Woodstock and Brantford and to attend the annual Schultz-Kipp Reunion (Ed’s grandmother was Ida Wilhelmina (Schultz) Kipp whose parents Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Schultz and Wilhemine Fredericka Johanna Niemann who had emigrated to Canada from Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Fredericka in 1850 and Wilhelm in 1866).  All of the people at the Reunion are double second cousins or greater because Ida married William Henry Kipp and her brother Charles married the daughter of a brother of William Henry Kipp (Alfred).  This Reunion dates back 49 years although we have only attended the last nine years.  A bench was installed in the park at Princeton to commemorate the reunion. Plaque: Donated by Schultz-Kipp Reunion 49 Years 2017.

In 2018 we will have a week in Florida going to Disney World.  In the summer there is a reunion of the Rathbun family on Block Island (off the coast of Rhode Island).  Once again we will try to attend. Ed’s great grandmother was Mercy Ann (Rathbun) Link.  His 4x great grandfather William Rathbun, by family lore, was said to have an itchy foot which took him to southwestern Ontario in the 1830s.  It must have stopped itching though as he stayed on in the Oxford/Brant area for the rest of his life!

Happy New Year to all of my followers and family.