Tombstone Tuesday ~ Dr. Phillip Godfrid Kast, Derry, NH

This tombstone was photographed at Forest Hill Cemetery, Derry, New Hampshire

Virtue & silence

ERECTED IN MEMORY OF Dr. PHILLIP

GODRID ~ KAST

He was a gentleman of extensive

aquaintance & his benevolence was no

less Confined.  His hospitality was without

Ostentation - In a word he was a benefactor

to mankind.  In his last sickness hi pain

was xtream which he endured with a 

truly philosophick spirit without y lest

repining almost beyond Example.  He has

Left an inconsolable widow and five Small

Children join'd by the multitude to 

the loss of a tender husband, an indulgent parent, & valuable friend

He departed this life Sept. 6th 17

[the rest of the year was left blank] 

A close up look at the symbols,
a coffin, a shoe, a book, three candles, etc. 

This unusual tombstone is different from most of the engravings at Forest Hill not only because of the odd symbols on top, but for the sentimental wording.  The slate stone was been encased in concrete for preservation by the Derry Masons in the 1920s.  The year of death was not carved into the epitaph, but Dr. Kast died in Londonderry in 1781 after a fall from his horse while visiting a patient.

Phillip Godfrid Kast, son of Dr. Phillip Godfried Kast of Germany and Jane Gowdy, was born about 1743 and died on 6 September 1781.  He was a member of the fraternal order of Masons, and a pharmacist at Salem, Massachusetts. He married Sarah McHard, daughter of Haverhill distiller James McHard,  on 22 January in Haverhill, Massachusetts.  She died 17 May 1835 in Hopkinton, New Hampshire.

For more information on Dr. Phillip Godfrid Kast, see a story by Richard Holmes, the former Derry Town Historian, at this link: http://www.derrynews.com/opinion/x1232766507/Rick-Holmes-A-Loyalists-grave

UPDATE - 9 January 2013

I posted a link to this blog post on Facebook, and several genealogists and historian friends left helpful comments there.  The best was from my friend and fellow member of the Londonderry Historical Society who sent me these three images from the book "Freemasonry, Its Symbolism, Religious Nature and Law of Perfection" by Chalmers Izett Paton, 1873.  Thanks, Penny!  You can find this book at www.archive.org

Three Candles

The Book

The Shoe

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To Cite/Link to this Blog Post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ Dr. Phillip Godfrid Kast, Derry, NH", Nutfield Genealogy, posted January 8, 2013, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/01/tombstone-tuesday-dr-phillip-godfrid.html: accessed [access date]).