Background
Robert was born probably in 1613 in Woburn, England, United Kingdom (and baptized also there), son of William Sedgwick and Elizabeth Howe.
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Robert Sedgwick
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Robert Sedgwick emigrated to Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1636. To increase the efficiency of the colonial militia by creating a "school of soldiery" for its officers, he helped organize the Military Company of the Massachusetts, and was its captain in 1640, 1645, and 1648.
In 1637 he established a "very commodious" brewery, and in 1644 with six others was granted a monopoly of the Indian trade of the colony for twenty-one years. The success of these and other commercial activities enabled him in 1647 to endow Harvard College with a substantial shop in Boston.
He served as deputy from Charlestown to the General Court from 1637 to 1644 and again in 1648, and occasionally as assessor of rates, boundary surveyor, arbitrator of petty disputes, and keeper of the peace. The General Court in 1652 recognized his achievements, especially in fortifying Charlestown harbor, by electing him major-general of the colony.
Late in 1653 he returned to England and received from Cromwell a commission to lead an expedition against the Dutch of Manhattan Island, who had been troubling the New Haven and Connecticut settlers. He reached Boston with four ships and 200 men in June 1654, raised an additional 700, and would have proceeded against the Dutch even after news came of peace with the Netherlands, had not the New Englanders abandoned the enterprise. Though France and England were nominally friendly, he decided to turn his fleet against the French engaged in trading and fishing on the New England coast, easily captured the Acadian forts of St. John, Port Royal, and Pentagoet on the Penobscot, and garrisoned them. Cromwell showed his approval by giving him charge of twelve ships and 800 men sent to reinforce the joint naval and military expedition of Penn and Venables, operating against the Spanish West Indies.
Sedgwick found the English precariously occupying Jamaica, which they had seized after an ignominious reverse at Hispaniola (Santo Domingo). There had been dissensions between Penn and Venables, who had already gone to England to present their respective cases, leaving their starving and shelterless men dying of dysentery. Sedgwick's efforts to ameliorate the condition of the army were frustrated by its insubordination and general worthlessness.
He died in Jamaica, broken-hearted, on May 24, 1656.
Achievements
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Robert Sedgwick was one of the founders of "The Military Company of Massachusetts. " His name is the third in the foundation charter. Sedgwick captured several French ports in the Penobscot region of Maine, participated in a British expedition against Spain in the West Indies, and he was made majör general and governor of Jamaica.
Personality
His secretary in Jamaica described him as "generally beloved and esteemed by al sorts of people a truly religious man, and of the most innocent conversation I ever accompanied".
Connections
Sedgwick had a wife Joanna Blake, who after his death returned to England and remarried, many of their descendants have been prominent in New England life.
