Tombstone Tuesday ~ A Knight Templar and His Effigy

WILLIAM MARSHAL
first Earl of Pembroke (died 1219)

Believe it or not, the Knights Templar were not a fantasy created for a Dan Brown novel. They were living people in the middle ages.  Thanks to genealogists like Gary Boyd Roberts and William Addams Reitwiesner, I have traced my family tree back to William Marshal (about 1146 – 1219), my 23^rd great grandfather.  He was buried as a Knight Templar in the Temple Church of London in 1219.  Because of this, I have always wanted to return to London and visit the Temple Church, and see his effigy.

I descend from his daughter Eve Marshal (about 1206 – 1246) who married William de Braiose.  This lineage goes down through Judith Lewis (1626 – 1688), my 9th great grandmother, who married James Gibbons (about 1614 – 1692), an early settler at York County, Maine.  This kind of ancestor is called a “gateway ancestor” because they connect you to a noble or royal lineage.  This is the kind of ancestor you can find in books by Gary Boyd Roberts or on the Reitwiesner website.  There are only a few of these immigrants who qualify as “gateway ancestors”, but they fill up books with names like Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans or The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States. This line from William Marshal to James Gibbons was confirmed in the book Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists who came to America before 1700, by Frederick Weis Lewis and Walter Sheppard, 1995.

It’s not often you can go back 23 generations in your family tree. But because noble and royal marriages were (and in some cases still are) so important for legal contracts, political alliances, and family connections they were always carefully documented.  The lower classes often had no record at all of marriages, births or deaths until about the late 1500s when one of the Pope passed an edict on record keeping.  The Protestant churches followed up with records, too, after the Reformation. 

About 1850 a cast was made of the effigy of William Marshal, and it is usually
displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
However, it was on display this year in the Temple Church, right next to the real effigy.
The actual effigy was damaged in 1941 during "The Blitz" when a German
firebomb hit the roof, and molten lead landed on the effigies on the church floor.

detail of the face of William Marshal's cast effigy

The Temple Church, London

 The Temple Church dates from 1162, and is a round church to represent the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  A rectangular chancel was added in 1240.  It was built by the Knights Templar as their London headquarters.  During the crisis that lead to the Magna Carta in 1235, King John took shelter here in the Temple Church.  William Marshal, the First, and his son, William Marshal II are both buried here, and both were at Runnymede for the signing of the Magna Carta.  

In the 14th century the Templars were suppressed, and James I gave all the Templar land including the church to the societies of the Inner and Middle Temple, which are two of London's famous Inns of Court.  It was interesting to learn about the Templar's connection with the Magna Carta, and the current legal system in London which is centered in this area of the city. 

The Temple church was restored after World War II after extensive bombing damage destroyed the roof, and molten lead heavily marred and broke the effigies. It is still a working church with a community of parishioners.  This church was featured in Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code, in a scene where Langdon is searching for clues left by the Templar Knights. 

I was not aware of the damage done to William Marshall's effigy until I visited the Temple Church last month and saw the displays, including this information board (above).  The bomb damage to the effigy is heart breaking.  Fortunately it was skillfully repaired, and I cannot explain how wonderful it was to see the cast of the original effigy made in 1850.  I can only compare it to finding an LDS microfilm of a church register for a congregation that had burned and lost or damaged all its documents! 

More information on William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke
"The Greatest Knight That Ever Lived!"

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~  A Knight Templar and His Effigy", Nutfield Genealogy, posted November 7, 2017, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/11/tombstone-tuesday-knight-templar-and.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ LEWIS of Saco, Maine

The Saco River in Maine

LEWIS

Thomas Lewis (1590 – about 1640), my 10^th great grandfather, was a draper and a wine merchant, educated at the Shrewsbury School between 1600 and 1605.  On 12 February 1629 in London the “Council for the Affairs of New England in America” granted him and Capt. Richard Bonython land north of the Saco River. Thomas Lewis came to Maine on the ship Elizabeth in 1631.  His wife and children came from England to Maine in 1637.

In 1640 the executors of his estate left his daughters Judith (Lewis) Gibbons of Saco, Maine and Elizabeth (Lewis) Haywood of Barbados, part of the estate originally held by Richard Bonython and Thomas Lewis.  Judith Gibbons is my 9^th great grandmother.   She inherited 32 square miles of the great Saco patent.  Her husband, James Gibbons acquired another 100 acres of the Biddeford side of the Saco River in 1642.

There is a book The Ancestry of Charity Haley, 1755 – 1800, by Walter Goodwin Davis, 1916 that describes Thomas Lewis, his property in Maine, and Judith’s descendants.   The English ancestry of the Lewis family at St. Chad’s church in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England was published in the New England Historical Genealogical Register Volume 101, 1947, pages 3 to 23 in the article “Ancestry of Thomas Lewis and his Wife Elizabeth Marshall of Saco, Maine” by Walter Goodwin Davis.  There is a great sketch of Thomas Lewis in The Great Migration Begins, by Anderson, Volume II. 

My LEWIS genealogy:

Generation 1:  Thomas Lewis, son of Andrew Lewis and Mary Herring, born about 1590 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, died before 28 April 1640 in Maine; married 29 August 1618 at St. Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury, Shropshire to Elizabeth Marshall, daughter of Roger Marshall and Katherine Mytton.  Eight children.

Generation 2: Judith Lewis, born 1626 in Shrewsbury, died 1699 in Saco, Maine;  married about 1646 in Saco to James Gibbons.  He was born about 1614 in England and died after 1692 in Maine. Eight children.

Generation 3:  Hannah Gibbons m. Robert Mace

Generation 4:  John Mace m. Sarah Frost

Generation 5:  Ithamar Mace m. Rachel Berry

Generation 6:  Abigail Mace m. Simon Locke

Generation 7: Richard Locke m. Margaret Welch

Generation 8:  Abigail M. Locke m. George E. Batchelder

Generation 9:  George E. Batchelder m. Mary Katharine Emerson

Generation 10:  Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen

Generation 11:  Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ LEWIS of Saco, Maine", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 25, 2016,  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/surname-saturday-lewis-of-saco-maine.html: accessed [access date]).

Surname Saturday ~ MACE of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine

The Isles of Shoals

MACE

The Isles of Shoals are a group of islands six miles off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire.  Both states have wrangled over the state line which now makes the border between Appledore Island, Smuttynose and Cedar Island in Maine and Lunging Island and Star Island in New Hampshire.

The island were used for fishing by the native Americans and the first European explorers in the 1600s.  It was “discovered” by Captain John Smith in 1614, and there is a monument with his map in Rye Harbor, New Hampshire that overlooks a nice view of the isles.  Fishermen first resided on Appledore and Star Island, where they formed a little town called Gosport.   The town was evacuated during the Revolutionary War, and the island remained more or less abandoned until the 1800s when a hotel was built by Thomas Laighton and Levi Thaxter. 

Robert Mace (1652 - ?) my 8^th great grandfather, was a resident of Gosport.  He appears in several court records testifying in cases involving his neighbors in Gosport who were accused of wife abuse, defamation and other crimes.  He was probably a fisherman, and he owned a pew at the meetinghouse in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1700.

Robert’s son, John Mace (1693 – 1737), my 7^th great grandfather, was born on the Isles of Shoals.  He married his wife, Sarah Frost in Gosport, and was taxed in Rye in 1724.  According to the Essex County, Massachusetts Probate, he was a mariner.  His estate was administered in Newbury, Essex County on 5 July 1737. 

Ithamar Mace (1729 – 1806), my 6^th great grandfather, was born in Gosport and named after his maternal grandfather, Ithamar Frost.  He enlisted in the French and Indian War and was taken prisoner for nine years.  He married Rachel Berry in Rye, New Hampshire and had three children born in Rye.  Their daughter, Abigail (1767 – 1803), my 5^th great grandmother, married Simon Locke, a descendant of John Locke and Elizabeth Berry, first settlers at Locke’s Neck in Rye.

For more information on the MACE family, please contact Jan A. Koso.  I previously published a blog post about Jan’s Mace Genealogy Project (the link to Jan’s website is no longer valid, please contact him at jakoso@gmail.com or at mace-genealogy@comcast.net  ) :

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/01/jan-kosos-mace-genealogy-project.html

I'm also descended of Rev. Joseph Hull, an early minister at Gosport on the Isles of Shoals.  You can read my blog post about my HULL lineage (and the updated information on the HULL family) at this link: 

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/12/surname-saturday-hull-update.html

Click here to see the Capt. John Smith Monument in Rye Harbor
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/01/400th-anniversary-of-john-smiths.html 

My MACE lineage:

Generation 1: Robert Mace, born about 1652 in England; married first to  Hannah Gibbons, daughter of James Gibbons and Judith Lewis, and had three children; married second to unknown and had two more children.  Hannah was born about 1669 in Saco, Maine. 

Generation 2: John Mace, son of Robert Mace and Hannah Gibbons, born about 1693 in Gosport, died before 5 July 1737; married about 1726 to Sarah Frost, daughter of Ithamar Frost. Three children. 

Generation 3:  Ithamar Mace, born about 1729 in Gosport, died before 9 November 1806; married to Rachel Berry, daughter of Jotham Berry and Mary Bates.  She was baptized on 3 July 1743 in Rye, New Hampshire and died 9 November 1806 in Rye, New Hampshire. Three children. 

Generation 4:  Abigail Mace, born 1 February 1767 in Rye, died 18 February 1803; married on 14 February 1792 in Greenland to Simon Locke as his first wife.  He was the son of Richard Locke and Elizabeth Garland, born in September 1770 in Rye, and died 31 July 1863 in Rye.  Seven children (he had eight more children with his second wife, Elizabeth Locke Allen, the daughter of Jude Allen and Dorcas Marden.)

Generation 5: Richard Locke m. Margaret Welch
Generation 6: Abigail M. Locke m. George E. Batchelder
Generation 7:  George E. Batchelder, Jr. m. Mary Katharine Emerson
Generation 8: Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen
Generation 9: Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~  MACE of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 4, 2016,  ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/surname-saturday-mace-of-isles-of.html: accessed [access date]).