In an earlier message Paul Drake wrote:

> I seem to have missed the early discussions re headstones, and so can =
> but add that there was no native stone throughout most of Tidewater VA =
> and the Carolinas, hence they had no stone available for markers of any =
> sort.  The result was that only those wealthy enough to import stone =
> from the Northern Colonies or bring it east from the Appalachians had =
> any raw material from which to carve any grave markers whatever.

A few early Virginians imported stones from England.

"Beale Family Genealogy 1399-1956" by Frances Beal Smith Hodges
(1956): "Capt. Thos. Beale died in 1679 and was buried at Chestnut
Hill, on the Rappahannock River, where his tomb of black English
marble, bearing the Beale coat of arms with an elaborate epitaph, is
in a perfect state of preservation. As was the custom in those days,
he was buried in the garden (about 100 feet from the cellar of the old
house), now a grove in a lonely field on a bluff overlooking the
river, which is two miles wide and about 2 miles distant. The grave
. . . is on a farm now owned by Sydney [sic; s/b Sydnor] Belfield, 2
or 3 miles north of Warsaw, VA. . . . several hundred yards to the
west of Mr. Belfield's house . . . in a lonely field partly surrounded
by woods. Right near the grave is a depression in the field, which
Mr. Belfield says marks the location of the old residence. . . . The
stone was removed by Mr. Belfield . . . and replaced [on top of 2-foot
brick walls]. Mr. Belfield said that he saw the bones of Thomas Beale
while this work was being done and that they were all intact with the
exception of one leg which was missing; nothing remained but the
bones. The body had apparently been placed in one side of the grave,
indicating that they expected later to bury his wife beside him....

"Here lies the body of Capn Thomas Beale, Junr, gent.", who tooke to
wife Ann the Daughter of Coll. William Gouge [Gooch], and had by her
two Sones [sons] and two Daughters, he departed this life [on] the
Sixteenth day of October An D Mi [Anno dom] 1679-- Aetatis suae 30."

WPA guidebook on Richmond Co, p. 87: "Captain Thomas Beale and his
wife Anne Gooch (Gouge) were married in 1671; her father was Major
William Gooch whose tomb is believed to be the oldest tombstone with a
perfectly preserved coat-of-arms in America. Captain Thomas Beale II's
tombstone is thought to be the oldest man-made [evidently the writer
meant "white-man-made"] relic in this county. Its dimensions are about
30" x 70" x 4". Dated 1679, it bears the Beale coat-of-arms; it has
been called 'black English marble,' but looks like a conglomerate
stone. The inscription is weathered, about one half is now legible."

The ledger (flat tombstone) was moved to Menokin Baptist Church some
years ago, but Capt. Beale's bones probably stayed in the
field. Thanks to Dr. W.M. McCarty, who shepherded the process, a few
of us contributed to the protection of the stone by a Lexan shield, in
hopes that weathering would be minimized from now on.

I suspect that Capt. Beale's wife placed the stone in imitation of her
father's from 1655.

Wm & Mary Quarterly, vol. 2, pp. 15-16: "Within the enclosure [of old
York Church, situated at or near the old York plantation] were several
defaced and broken tombstones of which only one, ornamented with the
Gooch arms, is now legible, placed there 55 years before Spotswood
come [sic] to Virginia in memory of Major Gooch, a member of the
Virginia Council. . . . Gooch arms: Per pale, ar. and sa. a
chev. between three talbots pass counterchanged, on a chief gu. as
many leopard's heads ar.  Crest--A talbot pass, per pale, ar. and sa.
Motto--Fide et virtute.  For inscription see Va. Hist. So. Coll.,
vol. xi, p. 102.  Major William Gooch's dau. Anne m. Capt. Thomas
Beale, son of Col. Thomas (and Alice Beale) of the Council."
P. 141: "On page 81, it is inadvertently stated that the arms agree
with Mr. Brock's description.  While the Editor spoke from his
personal knowledge as to all other matters, he had not seen the Gooch
arms at 'Temple Farm.'  A copy has been recently furnished him, and
the arms correspond exactly to Gooch of Norfolk Co.: Paly of eight
ar. and sa. a chev. of the first betw: three greyhounds of the second,
spotted of the field.  Crest--A greyhound pass ar., spotted and
collared sa."

Letter to Bishop Meade from Dr. William Shield, who once owned Temple
Farm, "I found heaps of broken tombstones. . . . There was one
tombstone, however, entire and unbroken, with the following singular
inscription on it . . .: Major William Gooch, of this parish. Died
October 29, 1655. Within this tomb there doth interred lie, No
shape, but substance, true nobility. Itself, though young in years,
just twenty-nine, Yet graced with virtues moral and divine; The Church
from him did good participate, In counsel rare, fit to adorn a State."

Dr. Lyon G. Tyler wrote in a newspaper clipping quoted in WMCQ: "The
oldest tombstone in Virginia is at Westover. It is that of
Capt. William Perry, who died in 1637. The next oldest is that of
Alice Jordan at Four Mile Tree, Surry County, who died in 1651.
"Next in apparent age is that of Maj. William Gooch (1655)."

Kathleen Much
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