ne 4, 1915 
‘of Salem, commonly called Bass Riuer,” praying for 
ain privileges belonging to town government. At the 
ral court session of the seventh of November in that 
e year, the vote of the town of Salem consenting to 
the separation was presented and the Court grant that 
“Bass Riuer be henceforth a towneship of themselves... . 
nd that it be called Beverly.” 
Leaving the realm of prosaic court records for the 
more interesting fields of tradition and history, we must 
xo back a little in the history of Bass River to the build- 
ng of the old meeting house, which was also used for 
sch 901 and church purposes, before the taking of Port 
The building was in sad need of a bell and Major- 
neral Robert Sedgwick came to the rescue with one 
h he had captured at St. John that same year, 1654. 
metime between Major-General Sedwick’s taking of 
Port Royal on the sixteenth of August and his departure 
from Boston for England in November, he and his lieu- 
tenant, John Leverett, stopped at William Dixey’s tavern 
the supposed location of which is the high ground at 
the junction of what are new Cabot and Davis streets) 
in Beverly and sat long refreshing themselves. The fol- 
owing excerpts from the documents used in the trial for 
" 
oh 
the possession of the meeting-house bell in 1679 seem to 
throw some light on the naming of the town, ‘They are 
aken from the testimony of William Dixey. 
“Among other things, Major Leverett asked mee 
what our town’s name was: I answered him that wee 
wear no town as yet; then sayd hee you may doe well to 
et Major. Sedgwick have the honor of nameing the town 
when it is made a town, for hee hath given Captain 
Lawthrop a bell for your place.” 
__In those old days when soldiery counted for every- 
‘thing in our rough, new country, and of all the brave 
‘men of the time, none was more worthy to have the hon- 
or of naming one of the most promising settlements in 
Massachusetts than was Governor Sedgwick, who attain- 
ed the highest possible military honor in New England, 
Johnson said of him that he was “nursed up in London's 
Artillery Garden” and that he was “stout and active in all 
feats of war,” and Carlyle called him “a very brave zeal- 
ous and pious man.” 
' Amethyst gleams in a mist of gray 
On Beverly shore, 
While April breezes murmur at play 
Their deep sea-lore, 
And ships that go sailing over the sea, 
Keep beckoning white wings to the soul of me,— 
Still chanting their foam-tossed melody 
To Beverly shore! 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 4 rn i) 
Granting, then, that Sedgwick was a man dear to 
the hearts of the colonists and generally respected, what 
more natural than that Bass River would be proud to 
have such a man bestow a name upon the newly inde- 
pendent community? His suggestion would carry great 
weight with both Lothrop and Dixey, both of them 
soldiers of the highest order, and Leverett was his son- 
in-law and a man of some importance, having been 
deputy for many years, Speaker of the House of Depu- 
ties, Assistant to Governor Bellingham, Deputy Gov- 
ernor under that magistrate, and his successor as Gov- 
ernor. | 
If, indeed, Major-General Sedgwick was singled out 
for this honor there appear many reasons why he should 
have chosen the name of Beverly. He was of fine old 
Yorkshire stock, and his family. once intermarried with 
the Percys of that neighborhood, among whose family 
titles was that of Earl of Beverly; Barbara, daughter of 
Robert Percy of Scotton, married “Robert Sedgwicke, 
gentleman,” who may have been the grandfather of our 
Sedgwick, his namesake. The Borough of Beverly has 
ever been conspicuous in the history of Yorkshire, parti- 
cularly as a refuge to Charles | in his waning fortunes, 
and at Pately Bridge, near Ripley in the West Riding of 
Yorkshire, where there are numerous Percy and Sedg- 
wick families, there was a fine old place, Beverly or Bav- 
erly Manor. The name may well have become further 
endeared to Sedgwick through association with a certain 
beautiful Beverly Park under the shadow of the 
Cathedral at Canterbury, where he once lived, and with 
Beverly Bridge near Cambridge, to which the University 
crews take their evening pulls in boating. The name is 
one of old-time dignity and in history and in beauty, Bev- 
erly has ever borne it well. 
Thus it is the length of the Shore; each town and 
beach and island has its legend or its history more or 
less authentic, more or less interesting. Some of them 
are fast passing into that oblivion from which no man 
nay rescue them and it has been my task and my pleas- 
ure to almost literally “dig them up.” In a later issue we 
shall continue up the coast to the Tip of Cape Ann, find- 
ing many a half-forgotten story in the names of the old 
places. 
Beverly Magic 
The evening shadows gather fast 
On Beverly shore, 
The cold, dark waves come rolling past 
With vibrant roar; 
I sit and see them come and go, 
I watch the great tides ebb or flow, 
And breathe the mighty winds that blow 
On Beverly shore. 
What wonder that the hearts of men 
To Beverly shore, 
Turn back through storied years again 
-And still adore! 
The spell thy dawning beauty cast 
Grows strong with Time. 
binds fast !— 
Holding our love—while life shall 
To Beverly shore! 
Thy charm 
last— 
—DorotHEA LAWRANCE MANN, 
