Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Clement Coldham
Abt 1625 - 1703 (~ 78 years)-
Name Clement Coldham [1] Alternate birth Abt 1623 [2] Birth Abt 1625 [3] Gender Male Death 18 Dec 1703 Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts 
[2, 4, 5] Person ID I34297 Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of DK Last Modified 15 Apr 2021
Father Thomas Coldham, b. Abt 1602 d. 8 Apr 1675, Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts (Age ~ 73 years) Mother (Unknown first wife of Thomas Coldham) d. Bef 1646 Marriage Bef 1625 [3] Family ID F20186 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Mary Peirce, b. Bef 26 Dec 1625 d. 26 Jan 1704, Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts (Age > 78 years) Marriage Bef 1647 [3] Children + 1. Elizabeth Coldham d. 3 Aug 1711, Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts Family ID F20184 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 15 Apr 2021
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Notes - Like his father, he was a miller; he was also a farmer, a constable, a member of Boston's Ancient Artillery Company, and, according to James G. Dempsey (citation details below), an indefatigable "self-appointed overseer of Gloucester townspeople and their morals." Dempsey's article cited below devotes nearly two pages of tiny type to accounts of Clement Coldham snooping on his neighbors, complaining against them, testifying in court to their perfidiousness, accusing them of disloyalty to the King, suing them for slander, and occasionally being himself admonished in court for telling lies. At one point, he even spied on his own brother-in-law -- from the records of the Essex quarterly court, 30 Sep 1673, "John Pearce and Elizabeth his wife for uncleanness before marriage to be whipped or pay fine of 20 nobles. Clement Coldum aged about 50 years deposed on September 10 last on hearing John Pearce was accustomed to take widow Stanard to his house at night and seen to go away in the morning he went to the house and looked in the window...called Deacon Stevens and both saw enough to complain."
Despite everything we know about human misbehavior in late 17th-century Essex County, most notably the Salem "witchcraft" madness of 1692, the fact that Clement Coldham lived to a prosperous old age instead of being stuffed down a well is a testimony to the equanimity and moderation of these early settlers.
- Like his father, he was a miller; he was also a farmer, a constable, a member of Boston's Ancient Artillery Company, and, according to James G. Dempsey (citation details below), an indefatigable "self-appointed overseer of Gloucester townspeople and their morals." Dempsey's article cited below devotes nearly two pages of tiny type to accounts of Clement Coldham snooping on his neighbors, complaining against them, testifying in court to their perfidiousness, accusing them of disloyalty to the King, suing them for slander, and occasionally being himself admonished in court for telling lies. At one point, he even spied on his own brother-in-law -- from the records of the Essex quarterly court, 30 Sep 1673, "John Pearce and Elizabeth his wife for uncleanness before marriage to be whipped or pay fine of 20 nobles. Clement Coldum aged about 50 years deposed on September 10 last on hearing John Pearce was accustomed to take widow Stanard to his house at night and seen to go away in the morning he went to the house and looked in the window...called Deacon Stevens and both saw enough to complain."
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Sources - [S1668] Vital records of Gloucester, Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849. Volume 1, Topsfield, Massachusetts: Topsfield Historical Society, 1917. Volume 2, Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1923. Volume 3, Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1924., identified in the record of his daughter's marriage.
- [S5453] James G. Dempsey, "Thomas Coldam of Lynn." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 125:24, 1971.
- [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011.
- [S1668] Vital records of Gloucester, Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849. Volume 1, Topsfield, Massachusetts: Topsfield Historical Society, 1917. Volume 2, Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1923. Volume 3, Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1924.
- [S1298] Patricia Law Hatcher, "The Peirce Family of Norwich, England and Watertown, Massachusetts." The American Genealogist 84:177, July 2010.
- [S1668] Vital records of Gloucester, Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849. Volume 1, Topsfield, Massachusetts: Topsfield Historical Society, 1917. Volume 2, Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1923. Volume 3, Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1924., identified in the record of his daughter's marriage.