His will, dated 26 May 1712, in his own handwriting, calls him "Practitioner in Physick" and contains a long preamble, beginning: "I, ye said Gershom Bulkeley, having much more than twenty years walked upon ye very mouth of ye grave, under so great infirmity, yt I cannot but wonder how I have all this while escaped falling into it, have not been wholly mindfull of yt wch nature and common prudence calls for in such cases. But in ye meantime sorrowful changes from ye right hand of ye most High have passed over me, and some yt I had hoped would have survived me have prevented me and left me behind them, whereby, with some Incident considerations I am moved to alter some things wch otherwise I should not have done. And therefore, remaining still, though very weak in body yet of sound mind and memory, I do now make this (I hope) my last will and testament, hereby revoking and annulling all former wills whatsoever made by me: In ye first place, Casting myselfe upon ye Riches of Sovereign Grace, (if God have wrought any truth in my most deceitfull heart,) I committ my sinfull soul into ye mercifull hands of my most Gracious Lord & savior Jesus Christ, whom God hath exalted by & at his own Right hand, to be a Prince & savior, to give Repentance and Remission of sins unto Israel. To him therfore I fly for both, with ye humble and comprehensive Petition of ye Publican, God be mercifull to me a sinner. And my body I commit to ye dust, as it was, to be (as near to my late dear wife, as conveniently may be,) decently but obscurely buryed without much cost or Ceremony. I neither deserve nor desire those things, yet desire a part in ye first & better Resurrection of ye Just (Jacobus, D.L. Peter Bulkeley; an account of his career, his ancestors, & ancestors of his two wives, & his relatives in England & New England with a genealogy of his descendants. New Haven, Conn., 1933, pg. 116).