LETTER: W. Sanford Gee to Harld Gee Monroe Co., KY --------------------------------------------- Contributed for use in USGENWEB Archives by: Jemima Gee Morse Date:Sun, 7 May 2000 20:33:32 -0400 --------------------------------------------- **************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free genealogical information on the Internet, data may be freely used for personal research and by non-commercial entities as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format or presentation by other organizations or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for profit or any form of presentation, must obtain the written consent of the file submitter, or his legal representative and then contact the listed USGENWEB archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net. ***************************************************************************** Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Jemima Gee Morse Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 20:33:32 -0400 From: "Jemima Gee Morse" morse@shentel.net GEE HISTORY IN GEE-BIGGERSTAFF LETTER, 1906 Joyce Stover transcribed the following letter, which gives the legend of the early Gee family, and tells of the migration of Jesse and James Gee, sons of Neavil Gee and Unknown Lucas, from Virginia to the Cumberland River area of Kentucky in the late 1700s. A copy of the letter is in the possession of James Gee-Lucy Bugg's descendants in Monroe Co. Ky., and Va. "William Sanford Gee, "Letter to Harlan Gee, a nephew, July 8, 1906", with updated notations by Mattie B. Biggerstaff: "The following is in substance a letter written by W. Sanford Gee to Harld Gee, a nephew, 8th of July, 1906." The family name is Gee, the letter G making its sound or sound of the letter J. By its inference, seeing the name written in print, it would be called Gee- Ghard, or McGee, but this is erroneous. The name does not come from either Irish or Scotch _____. The family is of French lineage or extraction. We are descendants of the French Huguenots, or Protestants, the noblest and best French people of four hundred years ago. Our ancestors in France suffered and died for freedom of conscience, being persecuted in a merciless manner by the Roman Catholics. You will recall the culmination of these rebellions as history presents it in the massacre of Bartholomew in Paris, a three hundred and fifty year war with Coligne, leader of the Protestants, as he and sixty to seventy thousand more were cruelly, heartlessly murdered. About this time ancestors of ours fled for protection. In England the family was characterized by the traits in civil and religious life as it had been in France. A prominent member of the family there was Richard gee, D.D., who devoted his life to preaching and teaching, having been the Dean of a prominent Protestant Cathedral and School. The head and first representative in our family in this Western world was Sir William Gee, who as I understand sailed and settled with Capt. John Smith, helping a distinguished gentleman to make his settlement at historic Jamestown in the colony of Virginia. At this point it is due time I say that this particular information was furnished me by the Rev. Virginius O. Gee, an Episcopal minister, at the time in charge of a parish at Bowling Green, KY. He was a native Virginian, cultured, fine looking and prided himself much, though in a modest way in our family history. That part of the Gee family of which you and I are descendants emigrated from Virginia in the year 1790, going into the then wilds of KY. The head of this family was JESSE GEE, your great, great grandfather. His body sleeps at a little place called Center Point on the Cumberland River, up in the foot hills of the Cumberland Mountains near to the old Gee homestead located about 1790 in what was then known as Barren County. This old homestead I am pleased to say is held by LIEUT. L.W. Gee and his brother, scions of the family. It is located about sixteen or eighteen miles from Glasgow, KY. JOHN SANFORD GEE, the son of JESSE GEE, was your great grandfather. He died (at) about 84, and about the year 1853 or 1854. His remains lie buried in a little family grave yard on the old Gee homestead just referred to and over from Glasgow. He married a Tudor- MISS SUSAN TUDOR. From this union there resulted a large family. The sons were NEAVILL, JESSE, WILLIAM, JOHN SANFORD, LUCAS. HENRY another son died in his youth. JOHN SANFORD GEE, your great grandfather, was in many respects a remarkable man. He was above the average man of his day in intelligence; he was a sort of dynamo as to energy. He was a little below the average height, but was alike stocky and wiry. He started in life with a chopping axe and good name, and the best strain of blood in the Cumberland river region, as his capital is stock. He became a farmer, a teacher, a surveyor, a Justice of the Peace, the proprietor of a still house, and the owner of a landed estate, amounting perhaps to 1300 or 1400 acres. Some of this land was purchased with money received from a high grade of apply and such brandy and sold at twenty-five cents per gallon. He owned slaves. And it is due in this connection that reference be made to "Aunt Charlotte:, a patient and faithful negress who helped him and his good wife to rear their children, and who after the emancipation made her home with her master's children. Honesty, industry, and modest self-respect are the salient traits of character with the family. In temperament they are impetuous and sensitive; but peaceable and companionable. French and Virginians by ancestry, they naturally are susceptible to much feeling over a subject in which they are interested and therefore they are ardent patriots, ____ionists, professional or business men as the case may be. Our first ancestors out of Virginia came on the flat boats of their own constructions. They floated to Pittsburgh, Penn. Thence they drifted leisurely down the Ohio river to the mouth of the Cumberland and which they ascended to Center Point, a little place already named. Somewhere below Pittsburgh they anchored their bark to trees, disembarked and went into the woods and camped for several weeks in a sugar orchard where they made tree sugar and tree molasses, supplying themselves thus with sweetening for some months in the future, and then resumed their journey to the wilds of Boone's country. The family is much distributed from Virginia and Kentucky, but is mainly in the Southern states. WILLIAM GEE father of JOHN A., ISAAC GOODNIGHT, M. DUVALL, WILLIAM SANFORD, and HENRY GEE, who died in early life, emigrated to Illinoise in 1852. Aunt Lucas, this WILLIAM GEE is Mrs. Van Hildeth's uncle and WILLIAM SANFORD GEE is her cousin. Her father's name was JOHN SANFORD GEE called "Jack Gee". Do you know what relation they are to your mother. With lots of love, Mattie B. Biggerstaff"