Peter "the Fisherman" Gee

From In America before 1631 - Gee roots

Robert E. Gee, a researcher on the Gee family branch in New York, believed that during the 1600s there were four separate migrations of the Gee family from England to America ("The Gee Family: The Line from Peter the Fisherman (1614-1682)", The American Genealogist, 55, No. 2, April 1979, pp. 100-107). He identifies them as:

(1) Peter Gee, the first of the Boston family line. This branch contains some fascinating characters. Peter--Isles of Shoals. Possibly related to the early New Hampshire Gee's. His son Joshua was kidnapped by the Barbary pirates and held for six years until ransomed. Back in Boston he used his shipbuilding knowledge to open a shipyard.

Joshua Gee's shipyard appears on the first printed map of Boston the Bonner Map. It was located on the southwest side of Prince Street, and his mansion stood on the corner of Salem and Prince streets, known then as Gee's Corner. The adjoining lands were also in possession of the Gees. Here is a link mapping the Bonner Map to today's Boston: http://www.xefer.com/2006/11/bonner.

He owned one of the first plots in and is buried in the Copp's Hill Burying Ground. His son, also named Joshua, was Cotton Mather's co-pastor at the Second Church. (There is some confusion between this and the Old North Church.)

Notes

From http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=1505&p=surnames.gee

There is mention of Peter Gee, fisherman, reportedly in Massachuttes as early as 1653, who came from the county of Devonshire and the town of Newton-Rerrers. No published genealogy of Peter and his decendants, various accounts in public records refer to Peter Gee, himself, his son, Joshua, who became a shipwright and owner of a shipyard in Boston, and to Peter's grandson, Joshua, who was ordained at Boston Second Church and later a colleague of noed Cotton Mather. Robert E Gee who dientifies Peter's fatheras John Gee although no futher info apprently is known to this family in England. That is in the Solomon Gee decendents book.

From The History of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts: Town annals (Google eBook) Charles Edward Banks. G.H. Dean, 1911 - Dukes County (Mass.) page 70

'There was a Peter Gee, fisherman, who was living at the Isles of Shoals in 1653, and was of Boston in 1667, who may have been a brother of our settler. (N. H. State Papers, XVIII, 151. Comp. Savage Gen. Diet. art. Gee.)

Links

• http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/NewtonFerrers/#History