Tombstone Tuesday ~ Edward Paige of Boston, buried in Leyden, Holland, 1680

HERE LIETH BURIED EDWARD PAIGE
ONELY SON OF NICOLAS AND ANNA PAIGE
BORNE AT BOSTON, IN NEW ENGLAND,
FEB. 20, 1662 DIED IN LEYDEN NOV. 1
1680, N.S.

I photographed this unusual tombstone on the floor of the St. Pieterskirk in Leiden, The Netherlands in October when I was on the General Society of Mayflower Descendants Historic Sites Tour.  This church is of great interest to Americans and to Mayflower Descendants because Rev. John Robinson (1576 – 1626), my 10^th great grandfather, ministered here to his flock of English Separatists.  Many of these members became known as “The Pilgrim Fathers” when they left Holland and went to Plymouth in New England on board the Mayflower in 1620.  Rev. Robinson stayed behind to tend to his congregation and is buried under the floor of St. Pieterskirk, along with some of the children and family members of the Pilgrims.

In another corner of the church we found this tombstone in the floor.  Since it mentioned that Edward Paige was born in Boston, I was intrigued and took the photograph so I could look him up for a Tombstone Tuesday blog post.  This is what I have found.

In the book Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley, by Cuyler Reynolds and William Richard Cutter, 1914, Volume 3, page 1362, “Nicholas Paige, of Rumney Marsh [now the city of Revere, Massachusetts], colonel of the Second Suffolk County Regiment, and commander of the artillery company (Ancient and Honorable).  He was not traceable in this country before 1660, when he was at Boston.  He married Anna Keayne (widow of Edward Lane), daughter of Benjamine Keayne, first commander of the artillery company, 1638, and freeman, 1639.  Benjamin Keayne married Sarah, daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, and about 1645, returned to England and never came back.  During some repairs which were made in 1863 upon the University Library building, standing between the klog-steeg and the Sheepmakers-steeg, on the east side of the Rapenburg, in the city of Leyden, Holland, six memorial stones were found, about two feet under the wooden floor of the room on the basement floor, which had formerly been occupied as a chapel.  The stones had probably formed a part of the original pavement of the chapel. In position under the stones and near to them were found parts of twelve bodies. On one of the stones was carved: “Here lieth buried Edward Paige, onely son of Nicolas and Anna Paige, born at Boston, in New England, February 20, 1662, died in Leyden, November 1, 1680”.”

In the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal, 1869, Volume XXII, pages 266 – 269,  there is an article “Six Memorial Inscriptions of Englishmen, buried in the chapel once occupied by the Scottish Church in Leyden, with Notes” by Rev. Henry M. Dexter, DD., which describes the chapel in the university and the six tombstones.  It doesn’t explain how the tombstone was removed to St. Pieterskirk in Leiden.

There is another article which describes Edward Paige of Boston’s tombstone in The Bay State Monthly, 1889, “The Pilgrims in Leyden” by Rev. Henry M. Dexter in The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, pages 49 – 61. 

------------------------

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ Edward Paige of Boston, buried in Leyden, Holland, 1680", Nutfield Genealogy, posted November 21, 2017, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/11/tombstone-tuesday-edward-paige-of.html: accessed [access date]).