WHO WAS GENERAL SEDGWICK? 19 



The testimoney of Clement Coldum* aged 56 5'eares or thereabouts, 

 testifieth and sayeth that about 25 years agoe, I was at St. Johns vnder 

 the coniand of Major Sedgewick and did heare Capt. Lothrop begg a 

 Bell of ye said Major: whoe answered lie had disposed of that Bell 

 aready but if they took ever an other bell, he sliouid iiave it: after- 

 wards wee took port Royal! and there hung a bell in the new frierye. I 

 being there with Capt. Lothrop in port Koyall court yard did heare 

 Capt. Lothrop againe renew his request to Major Sedgwick for that 

 bell then hanging in the new frierye. The sd Major Sedgwick gave 

 the bell to Capt. Lothrop for Basse River meeting house and bid tiiem 

 take the bell downe. That being done Capt. Lothrop with niyselfe and 

 some others put that same bell abord Capt. More with an order to 

 deliver the aforesaid bell to Bass River men and the said More prom- 

 ised that hee would and told Capt. Lothrop that he had noe need to 

 trouble hiniselfe any further about the bell and further to my knowl- 

 edg Capt. Lothrop sent home a letter to his wife by the said More* in 

 which letter he ordered Basse River men to fetch the bell from Capt 

 More, which bell I have seene and heard in Bass River meeting house 

 as I Judg furtlier saith not. 



17 : 10 : 79. 

 Sworne by Clem : Coldum before us : 



Tho: Danforth, Dephj Govr. 



J. Dudly, Assist- 



Major General Sedgwick, who was thus invited in 1654 

 by his son-in-law John Leverett, afterwards Governor, in 

 the hearing of Dixey, to name the town, was every way 

 worthy of such an honor. ^ Johnson has said of him that he 

 was "nursed up in London's Artillery Garden," and was 

 "stout and active in all feats of war," while Carlyle calls him 

 "a very brave, zealous and pious man." He died May 24, 

 1656, a sad loss both to the colony and tq the home govern- 

 ment, and must have been kindly remembered as often as 

 the warning tongue of the friary bell made itself heard from 

 the belfry of the new meeting house ; and especially when, 

 three years later, the agitation began which resulted ulti- 

 mately in town autonomy and a town name. If he made 



» Clement Coldum was afterwards a witness in the witchcraft prosecutions. 

 'Sedgwick and Leverett reached Beverly before Capt. Lothrop's letter. 

 ' He had attained the highest military rank possible in New England. 



