Gee Family Cemetery in Rush City, Minnesota

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Get directions Rush City, Minnesota, USA

Coordinates: 45.68869, -92.91992
Cemetery ID:

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About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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The Gee Family was a pioneering family from the east coast who came to Minnesota and established a farmstead on the SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 13, Rushseba Township, Chisago County, MN.

Early history is sketchy of family patriarchs, Stillman and Roxanna Atilda (Richmond) GEE. They are both listed in the 1857 MN Census, although in each case their given names were misspelled in that index.

There are likely to be six burials on the farmstead, a common practice during the early settlements in this area. Today (2010) there is no evidence of grave sites or markers on this private property.

The burials have been reported to be located east of Rush City 1-1/2 mi. on the north side of Rush Creek near a grove of pine trees.

Also, descendants of this GEE couple will be found in the nearby William Taylor cemetery. Click here for the listing.

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Additional information arrived via email on 21-Jul-2011 from Marion Gee Larm of Washington state, great-grand-daughter of Stillman Gee. In part, she recalls the circumstances of the farm burials in this message:

"As far as the burials on the Gee farm that you asked about, the family story that I heard was that Stillman Gee and Roxanna Atilda Richmond Gee, my great-grandparents, were buried on the farm in an area that later owners built a pig sty over. You certainly can't get much more disrespectful than that, can you?

I was always under the impression that they were the only ones and never heard who else might be buried there (although now I've heard both 4 and 6 as a total # of burials) but it would stand to reason that it could be the children of Llewellyn and Elizabeth that didn't make it to adulthood. They included Benjamin Stillman Gee who died in 1870 at age 1, George Abisha Gee who died in 1883 at age 10 (playing in the log pile and was killed when a log rolled on him), and Llewellyn (presumably Jr.) who died in 1880 when he was one day old. All of these would have been prior to the establishment of Taylor cemetery where most future burials took place.

I see death dates listed at Find A Grave but my daughter [Ed. Shelley Larm Erbes] hasn't been able to confirm that information yet. I do know that Stillman and Roxana were still alive in 1880 because my daughter found them on the US census living across the river in Grantsburg, WI (the other end of the "Blueberry Special" short line train that I would sometimes catch a ride on to high school in Rush City for 25 cents - it had one coach with red velvet upholstery).

One of those listed as buried on the farm is "Louis Edward Gee" - since he was a nephew, I'm not sure why the site lists the Gee Family Farm as his burial site. It would seem more likely that he was buried on his own parents (Edward and Mary) place.

As a side-note, at least a portion of the Llewellyn Gee farm was acquired by Jack Hanley who was my Dad's close friend and whom I remember living there."

This letter from Marion Geen Larm sheds light on the ambiguity regarding the Gee Family Farm burials. These non-cemetery burials were commonplace among the early settlers in the frontier areas of America.

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