Queer Places:
Lincoln Cemetery, 44 Lexington Rd, Lincoln, MA 01773, United States
Thomas Newbold Codman (May 17, 1868 - March 13, 1963) was born on May 17, 1868, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Ogden Codman and Sarah Fletcher Bradlee
Codman. He grew up alongside his siblings Ogden Jr., Alice, Hugh, and Dorothy. Much of his early life
included time spent abroad, and as a boy, he attended the Collège de Saint-Servan in Dinard, France, where he formed formative bonds, including a
schoolmate friendship with Harry Thorndike.
Codman cultivated a lifelong habit of meticulous record-keeping, preserving his extensive personal correspondence across eight decades, beginning when he was just seven years old in 1875 and continuing until 1958. This voluminous archive captured a rich tapestry of social history, featuring vivid accounts of late-nineteenth-century Boston from Harry Thorndike, family gossip from Europe, and decades of correspondence with high society figures, artists, and architects. His brother Ogden Codman Jr., a prominent architect and interior decorator, shared letters detailing high-profile dinners with figures like Edith Wharton and Cole Porter, as well as updates on international estates such as Château Grégor and Villa Leopolda. Another brother, Hugh Codman, contributed years of insights into Boston’s musical world spanning from 1922 to 1939.
A deeply civic-minded and philanthropic individual, Codman served as Treasurer of the American Fund for French Wounded (AFFW) and later as a Director of the American Memorial Hospital in Reims, managed under Dr. Marie Lefort. During and after World War I, he maintained active connections with French war prisoners, orphans, and relief workers, generously sending care packages and financial support. His papers document decades of support for war orphans, including the Lecoublet sisters and Sister Visele Boschel, as well as managing the family trust and personal accounts for his siblings.
Alongside his conventional philanthropic and social papers, Codman was an amateur photographer and music critic whose personal archives hold profound significance for LGBTQ history. His collection includes an extensive and intimate correspondence with Adrien Yaouang, a young Breton friend known as "Didi," featuring roughly 650 letters documenting concerts, shared parties, and financial assistance, alongside letters returned during the German occupation and a $50,000 bequest left to Adrien in Codman's will. Furthermore, his preserved papers famously house a notable collection of male erotica and explicit visual material, including lithographs, limericks, cartoons, photographs, and a 1797 edition of the Marquis de Sade's Justine which he carefully concealed within a hollowed-out account book.
Codman lived a remarkably long life, passing away on March 13, 1963, at the age of 94 in Lincoln, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, where he is buried in the Lincoln Cemetery.
Adrien Marie Yaouang, born in Lambézellec on May 21, 1901, died on May 17, 1979 at the age of 77.
References:
 Improper Bostonians Lesbian and Gay Histor Paperback – January 1, 1998 by The History Project |
Other references:
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