new style is remembered, the date 1617 is sufficiently near 1618 to challenge attention, because Henry Burr of Stisted, who married Ann Fisher of Redgrave, had a son, Simon, baptized at Stisted 16 June 1618. When he was born we do not know. Henry Burr had other children, among them Henry, baptized 8 March 1606, and Ester, baptized 16 June 1612. Now contemporary with Simon Burr at Hingham there was an Esther Burr who died 25 Nov. 1644, and a Henry Burr who died 9 February 1646. They were evidently adults, otherwise their father's name would have been mentioned, and the association in the Stisted registers of a Henry, Ester and Simon with a like association in the Hing ham records seems more than coincidence. When we consider, in addition, that Rev. Jonathan Burr's birthplace is definitely known to have been Redgrave (vide Mather's "Magnalia"), and that he was closely connected with the Stisted family, there seems no reason to doubt that it was the Stisted family of Burr, or certain members of it, which settled at Hingham. Simon Burr of Hingham is described as "Yeoman." He received various grants of land in Hingham and Conohasset between the years 1645 and 1670. He was town overseer in 1659, surveyor 1660 to 1662, freeman 1664, juror for the county court 1675.

In the Heraldic Journal published at Boston, Mass., in 1868, the authors state in the Preface:

"We have now only to reaffirm our belief in the genuine-
ness of the older evidences of seals and inscriptions. The
accumulation of examples seems clearly to show that for the
first century after the colonization of New England there
was no fashion of adopting arms, but that the seals and rings
of their ancestors were preserved as heir-looms by the
settlers here."

No instance has been found of the use by Simon Burr of Hingham of a heraldic seal, but his eldest son, Simon Burr of Rehoboth, used such a seal. It occurs on the bond of administration on his father's estate in 1693 and is preserved at the Suffolk County Probate Office at Boston. This seal is a lion rampant. It looks very much as if it might have been taken from the Bures coat of arms. A person not versed

in heraldry would naturally describe the lions as the outstanding feature of that coat, and conceivably might have had a seal cut after this fashion. Be that as it may a heraldic lion appears to have had some association in the mind of Simon Burr of Rehoboth.

Twenty-nine years after its first appearance the lion again appears after Simon Burr's signature affixed to his will dated 14 Dec. 1721 and preserved at the Bristol County Probate Office, Taunton, Mass. This time it is a lion passant standing on a wreath, the whole device having a resemblance to

a crest.

Obviously these seals are not the same, and neither may have belonged to Simon Burr, but it seems to be more than coincidence that on each occasion when he needed a seal he should have been at pains to secure an heraldic lion. This furnishes a basis for the deduction that he had been told that his coat of arms contained a lion or lions as the principal charge.*

* Some account of the descendants of Jonathan Burr and of Simon Burr will be found in Todd's "Burr Family," 4th ed. New York, 1902, at pp. 453 et seq. [Ed.]