THE story of the settlement of Hingham and of the struggles, employments, and daily life of her first inhabitants, is one differing but little from that of many other of the older sea-coast towns of New England. Alike in their origin, their religion, and their opinions similar in their pursuits and experiences, menaced by a common danger, and, with the exception of the Plymouth Colony communities, influenced by the same hopes and purposes governed by the same laws, it was natural that in their growth and development the little hamlets forming a frequently broken thread from the Merrimac to Buzzard's Bay, should, for a considerable period, bear a strong resemblance to one another. Yet each, from the first, possessed those peculiar characteristics which differences of wealth, the impress of particular families, and the influence of vigorous leaders inevitably create. This individualism was enhanced by the effects of time, of situation, and of interest, and in each grew up the legends, traditions, and local history peculiar to itself.

   If those of our own town are devoid of the dramatic and tragic incidents which light up the chronicles of Salem, of Deerfield, of Hadley, and of Merry Mount; if no Myles Standish with his martial figure, no Eliot with the gentle saintly spirit, and no Endicott with fiery speech and commanding will, grace our story, and if not battle-banner like that of a Lexington, a Concord, or a Bunker Hill, wreathes about us the halo of a patriotic struggle, there is nevertheless within the pages of our modest records not a little to awaken the absorbing interest which the tales of the grandfather always bear to those of the younger generations. And the local colorings, if not of unusual brilliancy, still glow for us with all the warmth of the home-hearth, and to the quaint pictures of the olden time the mellowing of change and the years only adds a hallowing light. The chapters, of which this is one, treating of the forefathers and their descendants, from the religious, industrial, social, educational, and public relations in which we find them, are mainly for ourselves and our children, for our and their use and pleasure, prepared with little ambition other than to preserve and transmit a fairly accurate account of the birth and growth of our native town,--one which even to this day is typical (VOL. 1-11) of those modern democracies which form the distinguishing characteristic of New England. We cannot however isolate ours from the other settlements which already, two hundred and fifty years ago, formed, like it, parts of a complete commonwealth, with established customs, diverse interests, and self-reliant spirit.

   It is interesting to observe these sturdy and half independent plantations, bound together as they were by the common laws and necessities, re-enacting, each within its own limits, much of the complex life of the province at large. They were truly miniature commonwealths, and the claims of the State and the claims of the Church received as well the consideration of the people of the village as of the deputies at the capital; and the various commercial, religious, and social interests made themselves felt alike in the town meetings and in the legislative and council chambers.

   In each town, too, was the military organization and establishment, demanding and receiving from nearly every citizen active participation in its exacting and stern requirements. Like the civil authority it was, it is true, regulated and controlled largely by the central government, but it nevertheless possessed, from very necessity, much local independence.

   In each town, too, was the military organization and establishment, demanding and receiving from nearly every citizen active participation in its exacting and stern requirements. Like the civil authority it was, it is true, regulated and controlled largely by the central government, but it nevertheless possessed, from very necessity, much local independence.

   To the story of its part in the life of Hingham this article is devoted. And here it may not be inopportune to consider briefly a phase in the history and policy of the colony, and indeed of the other colonies as well, which has perhaps not at all times been accorded its full, value and which is well illustrated in the record and experience of our own town. From their situation and surroundings the North American colonies were necessarily little less than military provinces, whose armed forces were their own citizens. Of them Massachusetts was the most prominent, and her usual condition was that of an armed peace, with many of the incidents of martial law, not infrequently broken by open hostilities with her Indian and French neighbors. For more than one hundred years succeeding the organization of the government, a large portion of the legislative enactments pertained to the arming and disciplining of the inhabitants, to the erection of forts, the purchase of military stores, and to other measures of defence and offence; and no inconsiderable part of her expenditure was for the raising and equipping of troops, and for expeditions against the Indians and against Canada. The laws on these subjects were frequent, minute in their details, and often severe in their requirements; and they affected not only the individual citizen, but reached the towns in their corporate capacity and prescribed their duties as well.

   These enactments, with frequent experience in actual service, produced not only a hardy, disciplined, trained citizen soldiery ready for the emergency of the hour, but, continued as they were through the legislation of a century, they created the military tradition, knowledge, and discipline which were of such inestimable value in the opening days of the Revolution; and into that struggle sprang, not alone the embattled farmer, but with a value far greater to the cause, the alert minute-man who had been at the taking of Louisburg, the trained-band men who, like their able officers, had threaded the forests around Fort William Henry and Frontenac, and the sturdy regiments whose leaders had climbed the heights of Quebec with Wolfe, and see the fall of Montcalm. It is well for us not to forget that the troops of Great Britain were met in 1776, not by undisciplined levies, but by an American army, whose great commander was a soldier of many years' invaluable experience in that best of military schools, service in the field; that the hard lessons learned by the young colonel of twenty-one at Fort Necessity and Braddock's defeat made possible the general of Valley Forge, Trenton, and Yorktown; that Putnam, with his English commission, attacking the Spaniards in 1762 was preparing for the sturdy old Continental commander of 1776; that Stark, the intrepid leader at Bennington, was but the Stark of 1756, grown a little older and more experienced; or that old Seth Pomeroy, fighting in the ranks, and old Richard Gridley, pushing on with his artillery at Bunker Hill, had both heard the roar of French guns in the campaigns which made them veterans. These, with scores and hundreds of others, both officers and privates, now enlisted in the ranks of liberty, gave to a large force the true character and discipline of an army.

   One of the earlier of the settlements, situated upon the very border of the Colony and adjoining the frontier of that of Plymouth, Hingham was peculiarly liable to suffer from the differences which might at any time arise between the governments of either province and their Indian neighbors. A realization of this danger, and consequent thorough preparation, probably accounts for the remarkable immunity from attack and depredation which was so long the good fortune of the town, notwithstanding the fact that the Indian trail to Plymouth led directly through its southern part along the shores of Accord Pond.
   The Indians of Hingham formed a part of that great division among the red men known as the Algonquins. This mighty race comprised many powerful tribes, and occupied nearly the whole territory of the northeastern United States. The strength of the New England, and especially the Massachusetts nations had been greatly reduced by a great pestilence shortly before the settlement of Plymouth. For this the good King James was duly thankful, and he gratefully says in his charter--

"that he had been given certainly to knowe that within these late years there hath by God's visitation reigned a wonderful plague together with many horrible slaughters and murthers committed amongst the savages and brutish people there heretofore inhabiting in a manner to the utter destruction, devastation, and depopulation of that whole territorye so that there is not left for many leagues together in a manner any that doe claim or challenge any kind of interests therein."

   These disasters were probably in 1617 or thereabouts. Only a little earlier, in 1614, Smith says; "The sea-coast as you pass shows you all along large corn-fields and great troupes of well proportioned people." Others computed the number of warriors at from eight thousand to twenty-five thousand. They were divided into a number of nations, and these again into tribes. Of the former, some of the principal were the Wampanoags, ruled over by Massasoit, a life-long friend of the English, and whose dominion lay between Cape Cod and Narragansett Bay; the Narragansetts, who lived in Rhode Island upon the western coast of the bay of that name, and whose chiefs were Canonicus and Miantonomo; the Pequods, under Sassacus, whose territory lay between the Mystic and the Thames, then the Pequod River, in Connecticut; and the Massachusetts, under Chickatabut, who occupied the territory to the south of Boston and extending as far as Duxbury. In 1633 Chickatabut was succeeded by Josiah Wompatuck. In addition to the above there were the Pawtuckets north of the Charles River, and Chur-Churs and Tarantines in Maine. All played a part more or less important in the history of the New England settlements. Hingham, it will have been noted, lay within the land ruled, until just about the time the first settlements were made here, by Chickatabut; and it was his son and successor, Wompatuck, together with Squmuck and Ahahden, who joined in 1668 in conveying to the English the territory now comprised in the towns of Hingham and Cohasset. For many years the intercourse between our forefathers and their red neighbors seems to have been peaceable and agreeable.

   The earliest known settlement of Hingham was made sometime in the year 1633, and the first houses were probably located upon what is now North Street, and near the bay which the erection of tide gates has converted into the Mill Pond. This little arm of the sea although fordable at low tide was still of sufficient depth to float craft of a size considered respectable in those days; and many a fishing smack has ridden out in safety the gales of winter under the lee of the protecting hills which surrounded it, and upon whose sunny southern slopes were perhaps the first cleared lands in the town.

   Up it, too, sailed one day in the summer or early autumn of 1635, the Rev. Peter Hobart and his company; they landed, as we are told, on the northerly shore about opposite to where Ship and North streets intersect, and here in the open air, the first public religious services were held. Not far from this spot, and but a few rods in front of where Derby Academy now stands, and upon a part of the hill long since removed, was erected the first meeting-house. This was a plain square building, low and small as compared with modern churches, but constructed of hewn logs and undoubtedly very substantial. It was surmounted by a belfry containing a bell, and around was a palisade for defence against the Indians.

   Here then our Military History commences, and the church erected for the worship of Almighty God was in truth a fortress of the Lord against the heathen enemies of the body, as well as against the beguilers of the soul. Nor was the worthy pastor apparently less fitted to command in a temporal than to lead in a spiritual capacity. Of its actual use as a defensive post we have no lack of evidence. In June, 1639, according to the "Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England" (from which the authority for much here given is derived), "Hingham had liberty to use their meeting house for a watch house;" and again, December 1640, "Hingham Meeting house for the present is allowed for their watch house."

Already, in 1636, the delegates in General Court had ordered "that the military men in Hingham [with other towns] be formed into a regiment of which John Winthrop, Sen. Esq., be Colonel, and Thomas Dudley, Lieut.-Colonel." This indicates the existence here at a very early period of at least a part of a company, and our ancestors certainly had eminent commanders in two such remarkable men as Governor Winthrop and Governor Dudley. Among the interesting orders from the central authority about this time was one providing that captains be maintained from the treasury, and not from their companies; it was evidently passed for the purpose of giving greater independence to the officers, and was manifestly in the interest of the strict discipline towards which all legislation constantly tended. It was also enacted that musket-balls of full bore should pass current for a farthing apiece; which, although pertaining to the finances and currency rather than to the military, is a fact of sufficient interest to justify its mention in this connection. In 1635, it was ordered that no dwelling-house be built above half a mile from the meeting-house, and in this order Hingham had the honor of being specially included by name; indicating perhaps that she had already shown a tendency to exceed that limit and to stretch herself out along the main street, towards the neighboring colony with which her people had later so much in common.

   Acts passed in 1634, 1635, and 1636 required towns to provide at their own charge a place in which to keep such powder and ammunition as the military authorities should order them to take from Boston, and fixed a penalty for neglect; commanded all persons to go armed with muskets, powder, and ball, to all public assemblies, and forbade any one going unarmed at any time above a mile from his dwelling-house; and specifically directed "that the military officers in every town shall provide that the watches be duly kept in places most fit for common safety, and also a ward on the Lord's day, the same to begin before the end of the first month and to be continued until the end of September, and that every person above the age of eighteen years (except magistrates and elders of the churches) shall be compellable to this service either in person or by some substitute to be allowed by him that hath the charge of the watch or warde for that time, with punishment for disobedience." The settlement of 1638, then called Bare Cove, was in July, 1635, erected into a plantation, which carried the right of sending deputies to the General Court; and in September of the latter year the name was changed to Hingham.

   House lots were granted to some fifty individuals in June and September, and other lands for the purposes of pasturage and tillage. The former were situated mainly upon Town, now North Street, but during the year the settlement was extended to Broad Cove Lane, now Lincoln Street, and in 1636 the grants were upon what is now South Street and upon Batchelor's Row, now the northerly part of Main street. And these early beginnings of our modern streets comprised the whole of the little town, with its two hundred odd inhabitants, when in 1637 it first became a duty to furnish a quota of her sons for the public defence.

   It was the second year of the Pequod War, and Massachusetts--which had already been acting with Connecticut-- was to raise an additional force of one hundred and twenty men, to be placed under the command of Capt. Israel Stoughton; this number was subsequently increased to one hundred and seventy. Of these, six were men from our town. We unfortunately know the names of none of them, but we can follow in imagination the toilsome march of the little army of which our forefathers formed a small part, as it slowly and painfully made its way through the virgin thickets, almost impenetrable with the stiff, unbending, knarled scrub oak, the matted masses of luxuriant-growing and lacerating horse-brier, beautiful in its polished green, and the almost tropically developed poison-sumac, seductive in its graceful form and rich coloring; through the great forests, dark with the uncut forms of the towering pines; and through the swamps of the country around Narragansett Bay, with the rich, black soil of the bottoms, and the majestic white cedars rising, like great sentries of the red man, far into the air; and thence up towards the Mystic, spreading widely over the country between. We need not rehearse the details too minutely here; we know the story,--the Indians defeated, their tribe destroyed, and a day of thanksgiving appointed; this time October 12, when it was also ordered that the various towns should "feast" their soldiers,--an injunction doubtless faithfully obeyed, here at least.

   From the time of the Pequod War, apprehensions of renewed trouble with the natives, and the necessary precautions against it, continually grew throughout the colony. Among the enactments was one passed March 13, 1638, directing "that Hingham have a barrel of powder, to be paid for by the town," and from 1640 to 1644 frequent orders regulated the time for training the train-bands, and prescribed punishments for neglect. In the former of these years, an interesting town record informs us that the following vote was passed, "That from the date hereof thenceforth there shall be not tree or trees cut or felled upon the highway upon the pain of twenty shillings to be levied for the use of the town because all good trees are to be preserved for the shading of cattle in the summer time and for the exercising of the military." The desirability of preserving the trees "for the exercising of the military" arose from the benefit to be derived from training the latter in the practical methods of Indian warfare, wherein every savage placed the protecting trunk of a tree between himself and the enemy; a situation giving him a distinct advantage over troops in regular order. It was ignorance or neglect of this fact that led to the destruction of the brave Capt. Pierce of Scituate and his company in 1676 and to the defeat of Braddock nearly eighty years later. "Garrison houses," so-called, which for the most part were probably private dwellings of unusual size and adaptability for defence, were constructed, and stringent laws passed for the enforcement of military discipline. The location and appearance of such of the former as were then or afterwards erected in Hingham, it is not possible to fully determine. Among them, however, was what is now known as the Perez Lincoln house standing on North, and a little east from Cottage Street. It was erected by Joseph Andrews, probably in 1640. He was the first constable and first town clerk of Hingham. From him it passed for a nominal consideration, in 1665, to his son Capt. Thomas Andrews, and was then known as the Andrews house. It is the best authenticated "garrison house" that we have. Doubtless during many an alarm its massive timbers and thick log walls gave a sense of security to the settlers who, with their wives and children, had gathered within. A peculiarity of this building, now perhaps the oldest in town, is that, excepting its first transfer, it has never been conveyed by deed, but has continuously passed by will or simple inheritance for some two hundred and twenty-five years from one owner to another. Although now clapboarded and plastered, it is still one of the most interesting of the old landmarks, and its sound old ribs as seen within seem capable of defying the inroads of another century. Another of these primitive defences stood near what is now the easterly corner of Hersey and South streets, and on the site of the Caznean house,--formerly belonging to Matthew Lincoln. Another was the house of Capt. John Smith, on the Lower Plain, about where the store of Mr. Fearing Burr now is. John Tower's house near Tower's Bridge was also a garrison house; and yet another, at South Hingham, was Capt. John Jacob's house, situated in the pass between Massachusetts and Plymouth. There were doubtless others, of which the record is lost.

   In 1642 military officers were empowered to punish neglect and insubordination by fine, imprisonment, corporal punishment, the stocks, etc., and every town was obliged to provide a place for retreat for their wives and children, and in which to store ammunition. The meeting-house answered for this double purpose in Hingham, although the military stores were often distributed among the commissioned officers of the town, thus securing greater safety and availability in case of surprise. Every smith was directed to lay aside all other work, and "with all speed attend the repairing of the ammunition of the several towns, fitting them for any sudden occasion, and shall receive country pay for it." In every town there was a council of war, consisting doubtless of the military officers, the selectmen,--generally including in their number these same officers,--and perhaps other prominent citizens. This council seems to have had certain advisory powers, and perhaps even of direction in emergencies, but in the event of its failure to act, the commander of the company was specially authorized to use his own discretion both for defence and offence. The General Court directed, too, the manner in which alarms might be given in case of danger. Any inhabitant was empowered to distinctly discharge three muskets, to continually beat the drum in the night, or to fire the beacon, or to discharge a piece of ordnance, or to send messengers to adjoining towns; and every soldier was to respond at once, under a penalty of five pounds. The captains of the three towns nearest that in which the enemy should be discovered were to proceed thither with their companies. The watches throughout the country were posted at sunset at the beat of the drum, and discharged at sunrise drumbeat. From this arose the custom of payments which we find made to many individuals through a long series of years for "maintaining the drum." Thus among the "disbursements paid out of the Towne rate for the Towne's use" in 1662, are the following:--

   "To Joshua Beals for maintenance of ye drum, £01 00 00.
   "To Steven Lincoln for maintenance of ye drum, £00 10 00."

   And again,--besides many other similarly disbursements,--"John Lincoln to be paid ten shillings a year for drumming, he to buy his own drum;" this in 1690.

   Increasing rumors of Indian conspiracies induced greater vigilance and more careful preparation from year to year. In 1643 the military officers were placed in charge of the arms brought to public meetings, and the care of ammunition in the farmhouses was given to them; and in 1644 all inhabitants were compelled to keep arms ready for service in their houses. At a town meeting, June 24, 1645, it was voted to erect a palisade around the meeting-house "to prevent any danger that may come into this town by any assault of the Indians." Previous to 1645 Hingham appears to have had not captain, and it is probably that for purposes of military organization and discipline the soldiers of Hull and Weymouth were joined with our own in forming a company, and that they were commanded by a captain residing in the latter place. Winthrop says that in 1645 Hingham chose Lieutenant Eames, who had been the chief commander for the previous seven or eight years, to be captain, and presented him to the council for confirmation. For some reason not now known, the town became offended with Eames before his new commission could be issued, and a new election was held, or attempted to be held, at which Bozoan Allen was chosen captain; whom, however, the council refused to confirm. A bitter controversy lasting several years ensued. The town became divided into partisans of the two officers, and the quarrel occupied much of the time of the deputies and magistrates until 1648. In it the Rev. Peter Hobart, together with many leading citizens, became deputy involved, and the issues soon came to relate to civil and religious, rather than to military interests. The details of this most unfortunate affair, which cost the town many of its best families and much of its prosperity, would seem to belong more properly to the chapter on ecclesiastical history, and there they may be found at length.

   Lieut. Anthony Eames, the first local commander of the town, was one of the first settlers, coming here in 1636, in which year a house lot was granted him on the lower plain. He seems to have been an able officer and a leading and trusted citizen, being a deputy in 1637, 1638, and 1643, and frequently holding positions of responsibility and honor in the town. Together with Allen, Joshua Hobart, and others, he was chosen to represent the town's interests in Nantasket lands, and in 1643 he with Allen and Samuel Ward had leave from the town to set up a corn mill near the cove. From Lieutenant Eames, through his three daughters,--Milicent who married William Sprague, Elizabeth who married Edward Wilder, and Marjory who married Capt. John Jacobs,--many of the people of Hingham are descended. Pending the settlement of the trouble in the company, the General Court ordered, August 12, 1645, that "Lieutenant Tory shall be chief military officer in Hingham, and act according as other military officers till the court shall take further orders." Lieutenant Tory was from Weymouth, and was undoubtedly appointed as a disinterested party to the controversy. He was succeeded in the care of the company in May, 1646, by Ma. Edward Gibbons. The same day that Lieutenant Tory was assigned to the charge of the company an important order was passed by the General Court to the effect that the commander of every company should select thirty men out of every hundred in their command who should be ready for service at half an hour's notice; and further provided for the thorough arming and equipping of every man, with penalties for neglect. Provision was also made at the May session of the General Court for the training of youth between the ages of ten and sixteen years of age, by experienced officers, in the use of arms "as small guns, pikes, bows and arrows" but excepting such as parents forbade. This order was renewed in nearly the same form in 1647. Another order provided that any man not having arms might be excused from the usual penalty by bringing to the company clerk corn to one-fifth greater value than the cost of the articles in which he was deficient. "But if any person shall not be able to provide himself arms and ammunition through mere poverty, if he be single and under thirty years of age, he shall be put to service by some; if he be married or above thirty the constable shall provide him arms, and shall appoint him with whom to earn it out." How indicative are all these orders, both of the constant dangers which necessitated them, and of the efficient and untiring provisions against surprise and ruin. The distaste for temporary officers from other towns, and the danger from farther delay apparently led the people to seek a settlement of the military trouble, and we find in the State archives the following petition:--

   The Humble Petition of the Soldiers of Hingham to the Honorable Court now sitting in Boston, Sheweth That we acknowledge ourselves thankful to you for many favors; especially considering how little we have deserved them, either from the Lord or you his instruments. Yet your bounty does encourage us and our own necessities forces us to crave help from you that so we may be provided for the defense of ourselves, wives, children, and liberties, against all oppressors. Therefore we crave this liberty, as the rest of our neighbors have which we take to be our due, to choose our own officers, which if granted it will be a great refreshment. But if we be not worthy of such a favor for present as your allowance herein, then that you would be pleased to set us in a way that we may be able to do you servis and provide for our own safety and not be in such an uncomfortable and unsafe condition as we do. So praying for the presence of our Lord with you, we are yours as he enables us and you command us.

   In answer to this it was ordered that Bozoan Allen be lieutenant, and Joshua Hobart, ensign. Three years later at the request of the town both these officers were promoted, and Allen obtained at last the rank for which he had vainly striven six years before. He was a man of much force and considerable pugnacity. On at least one, and probably two occasions he was compelled to humbly beg pardon for disrespectful words spoken of Governor Dudley, and in 1647 he was dismissed from the General Court for the session. He held, however, many positions of honor in Hingham, being repeatedly elected a deputy, serving often with his friend Joshua Hobart. He came to Hingham in 1638, and as already mentioned was, with Lieutenant Eames, one of the owners of the mill. He removed to Boston in 1652 and died the same year. Joshua Hobart, a brother of the Rev. Peter Hobart, succeeded to the command of the company in 1653. He was a man of great strength of character and one of the most distinguished citizens the has had. In 1641 he was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery company,--then a military organization,-- was a deputy more than twenty-five times, serving with Allen, Lieutenant Houchin of Boston,--who, according to the custom of the time, on several occasions served on behalf of Hingham,--and with other prominent citizens. In 1670 he was on a committee to revise the laws, and in 1673 was chosen to audit the accounts of the treasurer of the colony. In 1672 Captain Hobart and Lieutenant Fisher presented their report upon the boundary line between the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth which they had been appointed commissioners to determine. In 1674 he was speaker of the House of Deputies. He was frequently a selectman and held other town offices. Besides holding the position of commander of the military of Hingham during many years when unwearied vigilance, strict discipline, and constant preparation were of the first importance to the welfare and preservation of the town,--for it must be remembered that suspicion, fear, and at times open war succeeded the defeat of the Pequods, and that at no time was the danger of destruction absent from the minds of the colonists,--Captain Hobart is said to have commanded a company in active service in Philip's War. His house lot was on Main Street and included the spot upon which stands the Old Meeting-house, and here, in 1682, after having been Hingham's chief officer for nearly thirty years, he died full of honors, at the age of sixty-seven years. Notwithstanding the uneasiness succeeding the Pequod War, peace generally prevailed between the colonists and the Indians for a quarter of a century thereafter; settlements multiplied and the older towns not only grew in numbers, but began to prosper with the development of agriculture, the pursuits of the fisheries, the birth of manufactures, the trade in lumber, and the commerce which was already springing up with the West India islands. In the general prosperity Hingham shared, although her growth was not rapid, and, as has been said, the military and ecclesiastical dissensions at one time led to a serious loss in population, and consequent injury to the material advance.

   The soil was however fair and in many places rich, and its successful cultivation led to the rapid increase in the number and area of the "planting fields" which were granted from time to time. Our almost, circular harbor surrounded and protected on all sides by hills clothed with a noble growth of oak, pine, and cedar, and guarded at its entrance by the three beautiful islands which like faithful sentinels stood as bulwarks against the storms of the open ocean, early turned attention to Hingham as an advantageous point for the construction of craft of various description and size, and the development of a prosperous foreign trade.

   Shipyards and wharves soon dotted the shore and multiplied with astonishing rapidity; and many a stately vessel received her baptism and commenced her perilous life in the little bay which washes our coast. The commerce which subsequently was one of the chief sources of local wealth began, too, almost with the birth of the town, and in 1679 we read of the loss at sea of a vessel in which Joshua Hobart, one of Hingham's stalwart mariners, was a part owner. Before this Winthrop mentions the overturning off Paddock's Island of a small shallop of ten tons, in which was John Palmer, whose house lot was on Broad Cove, and two others. This was in 1639, and the shallop was perhaps one of the fishing smacks forming the advance guard of the fleet which lined our wharves and enriched many of our citizens, and which only finally disappeared within a very few years past. But while this town and her sisters grew and prospered and pursued their peaceful vocations, the shadow of a coming struggle lengthened, and the inevitable contest between the white race and the red race neared yearly and daily its culmination. In 1665 the town "Lyd out for powder, bullets, and match, £11,"--a very considerable sum for the time, and indeed a very large proportion of the total expenditures for the year. The following quaint order passed July 20, 1668, is interesting because of the glimpse it affords of the customs and vigilance of the period:--

   It is ordered by the Selectmen of the town that all such p's's as are app' & warned to watch on the constables watch shall from time to time appear at the meeting house half an hour after sunset to receive their charge; and the constable is hereby ordered to meet them there at the said time or soon after to give them their charge according to law; and we do also order that after the new watch is come about as far as the meeting house that then the 2 constables shall take their watches to give the watch in charge, that is, one constable 1 watch & the other another & so by turns till the time is expired which the law sets for the keeping up the sd watch.

   A generation had reached manhood since the extermination of the Pequods; the town and the colony alike had attained to strength and confidence born of prosperity, and a feeling of security resulting from unceasing vigilance and preparation pervaded the settlements. Nevertheless fear of the French, jealousy of the Dutch, and suspicion of the Indian kept the weapons of preparation bright. A rumor now and again of some forest outrage, an actual barbarity, and possibly a self-consciousness of not being without wrong on their own part, kept the colonists alert and active. The military enactments of the General Court grew more specific, more frequent, and more stern; the co-operation of the towns and their own watchfulness became more marked. A successful expedition against the French on the Penobscot in 1653, and another to Niantick to suppress a Narragansett conspiracy in 1654, afforded valuable experience, although accompanied by little or no bloodshed. Suddenly the long anticipated conflict opened. An Indian was found drowned in Assawanset Pond near Middleborough. He was a friend of the whites; three Wampanoags were arrested, tried, and executed for the murder. On the 20th day of June, 1675, several houses were burned at Swansea, and the greatest of New England's native warriors opened the first of the two campaigns which only ended with the death of Philip at Mt. Hope August 12, 1676, sealing on that day the fate of a mighty race, and after the most extreme suffering and cruelty on both sides.

   Thirteen towns had been wholly destroyed, and many more sustained severe loss, while six hundred of the colonists lay dead upon the battle-field. On the other hand, the power of the red man was at an end in New England. Their wigwams had been burned, their wives and children sold into slavery, their warriors slain, and the tribes almost swept out of existence. The history is not a pleasant nor a wholly creditable one; its detailed relation fortunately belongs elsewhere. Into the struggle, however, the men of Hingham entered bravely, and within her borders at least one incident in the great tragedy was enacted. Before telling the story of her contributions in men and money, the honorable part she took, and the loss she sustained, let us make a sketch of the old town as it appeared in the summer of 1675, relocate and repeople at least some of the houses, remap the old roads, glance at the occupations and characteristics and appearance of the inhabitants, and catch as we may in the gloaming some tracery of the homes and the lives of our forefathers.

   Away back in 1645 a dam had narrowed the entrance to the inner bay, then a beautiful sheet of water, undivided by the street connecting Main Street and the harbor. Tide-gates had finally closed the passage, and the friends Eames and Allen had set in motion the busy wheels which now for two hundred and fifty odd years, in the self-same spot, have sung their music in the starry midnight and the merry sunlight alike, grinding the corn and the grain of the settlers and their descendants for eight generations. Here, then, in this opening year of King Philip's war the little mill stood as now, not far from the public landing-place at the Cove. Built of stout logs and hewn planks, with jolly John Langlee, the miller, in the doorway, the rush of a foaming stream beneath, a gleam of blue waters to the north, and in front the dancing ripples of the glassy pond reflecting in the morning light the giants of the forest which clothed the surrounding hills and crept down to the very water's edge, it was indeed a pleasant place; and here the farmer with the heavy oxcart and pack-laden horse, the sailor back from some West Indian port, the bright-eyed school-boy, the idler from the town, the squire, the captain, and now and again even Parson Hobart him-

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church, and a man of no little consequence. The house in its modernized form still remains, and is the first one west of St. Paul's Church. Directly in its front is Thaxter's Bridge, Spanning the brook, and diagonally across the street, as already mentioned, was the abode of Samuel Lincoln, weaver and mariner, and of his son Samuel, who served in the war as a cornet of cavalry. Opposite the General Lincoln place, Broad Cove Lane, now Lincoln Street, branched off, passed a low, marshy thicket, which, cleared and filled, has become Fountain Square, climbed the gentle slope beyond, and then descended again until it reached the broad, and then deep arm of the sea from which the lane was named. Beyond this point it continued for perhaps half a mile, and terminated in pastures and planting fields beyond. From it another lane running nearly at right angles led, as does the wide avenue which has succeeded, to the deep water at Crow Point and to Weary-all-Hill, since called Otis Hill, where, through other lanes and by deep ruts and numerous bars the rich lands granted as planting lots were reached. Upon Lincoln Street were located the homes of the Chubbucks, of John Tucker, and perhaps a few others; and on the corner, and fronting on Town Street, we should have found Benjamin Lincoln, great-grandfather of General Lincoln. He was a farmer, with a young family, and on his lot stood the malt-house given him by his father, Thomas Lincoln, the cooper; here was carried on one of the primitive breweries of our ancestors, and here doubtless was enjoyed many a glass of flip. Mr. Lincoln's next neighbors to the westward were his brothers-in-law John and Israel Fearing, who occupied the family homestead nearly opposite to the site of the Universalist Church; while just beyond, and extending for a long distance up towards the West End, were the domains of the Hobarts, a very prominent family at the time. Here was Edmund the younger, but now a venerable man of seventy-two years, a weaver by trade, prominent in town affairs, and a twin brother of the minister. His house was near Hobart's Bridge, where with him lived his son Daniel, who followed his father's occupation and succeeded to his influence. John and Samuel, elder sons, and both just married, had their homes with or near their father, while just beyond, and opposite Goold's Bridge, the Rev. Peter Hobart occupied the parsonage, which for forty years had been the centre of social and intellectual life in the town. It may be well to mention here that the brook, which in general occupies nearly its original bed for the greater part of its length, has had its course materially altered in recent years between the site of John and Israel Fearing's house and Hobart's Bridge. It formerly flowed quite up to, and in places even into the present location of North Street between these points; and the line of the sweep of the marsh and old Town Street is clearly indicated by the segment of a circle upon which the houses from Mr. David Cushing's to the Andrews' are now built. Rev. Peter Hobart's neighbors to the westward were Thomas Gill and his sons, Lieut. Thomas, and Samuel, and his son-in-law, Josiah Lane; and beyond them were Thomas and Ephraim Marsh, one or both of whom lived in the paternal homestead which come from George Marsh, their grandfather, and which bounded westerly on Burton's Lane. On the further side of this passage-way the brothers Ephraim Lane, who served in Captain Johnson's company, and John Lane, the carpenter, occupied their father's place, while near them was George Lane, an uncle. On Mars Hill, Thomas Lincoln, the cooper, one of the old men of the village, and ancestor of the Benjamin Lincoln family, occupied the spot which has been the home of his descendants to the present time. Jacob Beale lived near by, but the exact spot is not easily located. Apparently Thomas Hobart was the sole inhabitant of West Street at this period, although Caleb Lincoln's house was on the corner, but probably facing Fort Hill Street. The latter's twin brother Joshua, and their father, Thomas Lincoln, the husbandman, were close by, as were Sergeant Daniel Lincoln and his son Daniel, Thomas and Ephraim Nicolls, Moses Collier, and Thomas Lincoln, the carpenter, Henry Ward, Robert Waterman, Samuel Stowell and his sons John and David, Joshua Beale, who maintained the drum, and his brother Caleb, at this time a constable; all were located on Fort Hill Street. Here also, and probably on the crown of the hill, and within a very few feet of the street to which it gave its name, was erected at this time one of the three forts which formed a part of the defences against the Indians. The location was admirable, the eminence overlooking and commanding the fertile fields on its several sides, as well as the village clustered around its base, while the road to Weymouth, much of the water supply, and a wide range of country were within the protecting fire of its guns; while signals by day or a beacon light at night would carry an alarm to distant points. Leaving this locality and proceeding along what is now South Street, we should have found on the Gay estate of a later day, William Hersey, and near him John and James and William Hersey the younger, and Widow Hewitt and her brother-in-law, Timothy Hewitt. On the westerly corner of Austin's Lane, now Hersey Street, were John Beale, and John his son, while on the easterly corner another garrison house formed the connecting defence between the fort at West Hingham and Captain Andrews' garrison house at Broad Bridge. The house belonged to Steven Lincoln, and the Caznean cottage stands nearly upon its site. In the immediate vicinity were Simon Gross, Joshua Lincoln, Richard Wood, and Samuel Bate, who had a daughter born April 12, 1676, "in the garrison,"--not improbably the garrison house of Steven Lincoln, which was undoubtedly already occupied as a place of refuge in consequence of the alarm preceding (VOL.1.--15) the attack of a few days after in the south part of the town. Other neighbors were Dr. Cutler, known as "the Dutchman," and Arthur Caine; while Joseph Bate's house stood where Mr. William O. Lincoln, who is of the eighth generation occupying the same spot, now resides,--Clement Bate, the father of Joseph, being the first. Next east lived Nathaniel Beal, Senior, cordwainer and constable, and who had formerly been chosen by the selectmen to keep an ordinary to sell sack and strong waters, and who may still have been engaged in the same pursuits. His ordinary and home was about opposite Thaxter's bridge. Across the travelled way, and on the lot occupied by the building in which the District Court holds its sessions, were the stocks,--conveniently near the place where the strong waters, which perhaps frequently led to their occupancy, were dispensed. The street now so beautiful in all its long course from Broad Bridge to Queen Anne's Corner, is the street of the old days which we are picturing, and has undergone little change of location. Its northerly part was know however at that time as Bachelor's Row. We must recollect, however, that the hill upon which Derby Academy stands then extended over the present Main Street, sloping down nearly to the houses on the west, and that going south it fell away to abut the present level of the street in front of Loring Hall, when the ascent again commenced, terminating in quite a little eminence opposite the Bassett house, but which has largely disappeared through the cutting off of the crown and the filling of the swampy tract beyond,--a process which, repeated a short distance south, in the vicinity of Water Street, has also modified the appearance of Main Street quite materially at that point. The old road was in fact a succession of ascents and descents almost continuously, until after reaching the level above Pear-tree Hill. The first meeting-house stood upon the part of the hill near Broad Bridge, which has been removed, and probably not far from, and a few rods in front of, the site of Derby Academy. It has already been described. Over the hill, and probably to the eastward of the Meeting-house ran a road, and around the base was another, doubtless more easy to travel. These two commencing at the same point near the bridge, soon united into one again at or near where Loring Hall stands. On the slopes of the hill and around the meeting-house our fathers were buried, and there they doubtless thought to sleep undisturbed forever. Their remains now rest in the old ford in the cemetery, of which in life they were the garrison,--almost fitting sepulchre for the sturdy old soldiers. This fort, still in an admirable state of preservation, was probably erected in 1675 or early in 1676, and was the main defence of the inhabitants. It overlooked and commanded most of the village and the main approaches thereto, and in connection with the palisaded Meeting-house and the garrison house across the brook, provided ample protection to the settlement. The two latter completely covered the stream for a long distance, making it impossible for the Indians to deprive the townspeople of its sweet waters. Nearly every house on the lower part of Main Street was within range, and under the protection of the guns of the fort, which also commanded an unobstructed view of the whole territory between Captain Andrews' and the harbor, whose blue waters, framed in their bright setting of green, then as now made a beautiful and peaceful picture, as seen from its ramparts. The present appearance of the fort is outwardly that of a circular, sodded embankment, two or three feet in height, upon which are planted several of the oldest of the gravestones; but from within, the earth walls appear to be considerably higher, and the excavation is rectangular, with sides about forty feet in length. In the centre, from the summit of a mound, there rises a plain granite shaft, inscribed upon the southwesterly and northeasterly sides respectively as follows:--

                TO THE                  ERECTED
             FIRST SETTLERS             BY THE
                   OF                    TOWN,
                HINGHAM                  1839.

   On Bachelor's Row, and near where Elm Street now intersects the main highway, Daniel and Samuel Stodder, brothers, and each with a numerous family, occupied neighboring houses. Daniel attained a greater age than has any other person in Hingham, finally dying at one hundred and four years. A few rods south, Ensign Joseph Joy, by occupation a carpenter, bore them company; and on the opposite side of the street, and not far from where the Old Meeting-house now is, was the home of blacksmith and lieutenant Jeremiah Beale, with his family of seven children. Close by, for a neighbor, was the famous Captain of the Trainband, Joshua Hobart, the most prominent of the townspeople, excepting his brother, the minister. As already said, his lot included the land upon which the meeting-house of 1681 stands.

   Here too, then, or a little later, we should have found probably the only gathering-place outside the Meeting-house, for the matrons of these early times in our history; for here Dame Ellen, the worthy wife of the Captain, kept a little shop, in which were sold the gloves and ribbons, the laces and pins and needles and thread, and possibly even, now and then a piece of dress goods of foreign make, and all the little knick-knacks as dear and as necessary to our great-great-grandmothers as to the wives and sisters of the present day. Upon the homestead of his father on the easterly side of the street, lived Samuel Thaxter, a cordwainer, and ancestor of Joseph B. Thaxter, who occupies the same spot; while a little south, and about opposite the head of Water Street, Andrew Lane, a wheelwright, settled upon a lot of some four acres, with John Mayo near by. A little beyond, and very near to where Winter Street intersects Main, John Prince, a soldier of the war, made his home. At this point also we should have seen the tannery of the Cushings, stretching for a considerable distance along the street, as tanneries almost always do, with the sides of leather drying in the sun, the bits scattered here and there, the piles of red bark, and the inevitable tan entrance and driveway; all making the air redolent with an odor by no means disagreeable.

   Upon the lot now occupied by Dr. Robbins at the foot of Pear-tree Hill, a few rods north of his residence, Matthew Cushing, who died in 1660 at seventy-one years of age, the progenitor, probably, of all the families of that name in the United States, had established the home which remained uninterruptedly in the family until 1887; and here still lived his wife, who died subsequently to the war, aged ninety-six, his son Daniel, then and until his death town clerk, and one of the wealthy men of the period, and Matthew a grandson, afterwards lieutenant and captain. Not far away Matthew Cushing senior's daughter Deborah lived with her husband, Matthias Briggs, while on the opposite side of the street, at what is now the Keeshan place, Daniel the younger, a weaver by trade, established a home and reared a numerous family. The Cushings were shopkeepers in addition to their other occupations, and probably the little end shop built onto the dwelling on either side of the street contained articles of sale and barter,--produce and pelts and West India goods and ammunition. We may suppose that these small centres of trade, together with the tannery in the immediate vicinity, gave quite a little air of business to the neighborhood,--forming indeed the primitive exchange of the period.

   Not far from where Mr. Fearing Burr's store now is, Lieut. John Smith, Captain Hobart's able second in rank, had a home and a fort combined, being one of the "garrison houses" whose wise location probably saved the town from a general attack. Lieutenant Smith is stated to have been in active service during the war, and to have commanded a fort. He was a man of marked ability, holding many positions of public trust, representing the town in the General Court and succeeding to the command of the foot company in 1683, after the death of Captain Hobart. He was also one of the wealthiest of Hingham's inhabitants, leaving property valued at upwards of £1100, a considerable sum for the time. Commencing at his house and thence extending south to the present location of Pleasant Street and east to that of Spring Street and bounded north by Leavitt, and west by Main Street, was a large common or training-field in which, probably not far from where is now the Public Library, was Hingham's third fort, doubtless under the immediate charge of Lieutenant Smith; and which in connection with his garrison house, provided a fair means of defence to most of the houses on the plain. Around this field were the lots of many of the first settlers, and the homes of their descendants formed at this time quite a village. Among them on Main Street was that of Matthew Hawke, afterwards the third town clerk. From him is descended Col. Hawkes Fearing, whose house is upon the same spot. Matthew, one of the first settlers, was by occupation a schoolmaster. His granddaughter married John Fearing, Colonel Fearing's paternal ancestor. James Hawke, son of Matthew, also resided at Hingham centre and probably with his father,--he too becoming town clerk in 1700, succeeding Daniel Cushing; and was himself succeeded in the same office by his son James, also a resident of this part of the town, and with whom the name ceased. He left two daughters, one becoming the mother of John Hancock. Next them was Francis James, and but a short distance further south, about where Mr. David Hersey's house now is, was the homestead of the Ripleys, and on or near it were located John Ripley and John junior and his brother Joshua. Their nearest neighbor, John Bull, "Goodman Bull," was the progenitor of many of the present inhabitants of the town. Bull's Pond, a small bit of water opposite Grand Army Hall, takes its name from the old settler, and marks the location of his property. On Leavitt Street Deacon John Leavitt, tailor, and the father of thirteen children, had the grant of a house lot. He appears, however, to have made his home as far from the centre as he well could, as his residence was in that part of the town known as "over the Delaware." He was not only one of the deacons of the church, but a trusted and leading citizen and officer, representing the town for many years in the General Court. His two sons, Josiah the cooper and farmer, and Israel the husbandman, lived on the same street. Nathaniel Baker, a farmer, large landowner, and a selectman in 1676, and a soldier in the war, was conveniently located at the junction of Leavitt and East streets. Nevertheless we find under date of Dec. 18, 1676 the following:--

   To the Constable of Hingham. You are hereby required in his majestys name forthwith at the sight hereof to destraine upon the goods or chattels of Nathaniell Baker of this Town to the value of twenty shillings for his entertaining a Indian or Indians contrary to a Town order which fine is to be delivered to the selectmen for the use of the Town. Hereof you are not to fail. Benjamin Bate in the name of & by the order of the rest of the Selectmen of Hingham.

   This is a true copy of the warrant as attest Moses Collier Constable of Hingham.

   The fine imposed upon Mr. Baker was in consequence of his disobedience of an order passed by the town forbidding the employment or entertainment of an Indian by any person. It was almost immediately followed by petitions from Baker, John Jacobs, and others to the General Court asking that they be permitted to retain their Indian servants, and it appears from the State Archives that the following similar request had already been granted. It is of added interest for its illustration of the conduct of the war and the standard of the times.

   John Thaxter petitions the Hon. Gov. and Council now sitting in Boston &c. that his son Thomas Thaxter was in service under the command of Capt. Benjm Church at Martha's Vineyard and Islands adjoining where they made many captives and brought them to Plymouth; and Captain Church gave ye petitioner's son an Indian boy of abt nine years old and the selectmen having made an order that no Inhabitant shall keep any Indians in his family, &c.--hence the petition--Granted Jan. 11, 1676.

   From the residence of Nathaniel Baker, going east, there were few, if any, houses until reaching the vicinity of Weir river on East Street, then a little travelled lane. Here, however, we should have come upon the farm of John Farrow with whom lived his sons John and Nathan, while beyond and near if not upon the very spot where the Misses Beale now live, was the last residence of Sergeant Jeremiah Beale; and near him his friend and neighbor Purthee McFarlin, the Scotchman, found himself blessed with nine bonny lassies and three sturdy laddies. Beyond, in what is now Cohasset, then known as the Second Precinct, there were a few settlements whose story seems properly to belong to that of our sister town. On the farther side of the common before referred to, Simon Burr the farmer, and his son Simon, a cooper, located on a lane which has since become School Street; and not far off, Cornelius Cantleberry, John Mansfield, and his son John, and perhaps a few others made homes for themselves. On the corner of Union Street Captain Eames had lived, and it was in that part of the town known then as now as "over the river," and where Israel Whitcomb grows his beautiful asters in such profusion, that Millicent Eames, daughter of Capt. Anthony, went to live with her husband William Sprague, the first of a long line of descendants many of whom have become celebrated; and here in this exciting period was a little settlement almost by itself, of which Antony and William Sprague, the younger, Robert Jones, then quite an old man, his son Joseph with his family, and the Lazells, John and his sons Joshua and Stephen, formed the greater part. From the Lazells the street bearing their name was called, and probably their homes were upon it. Leaving the common with its fort in easy reach of all the surrounding houses, and following the general direction of Main street as it now lies, we should have come at Cold Corner to the lot allotted John Tower. Upon it he built his house, which was admirably located for defence from Indian attack, and commanded not only a considerable portion of the highway, but also a long line of the river and no inconsiderable part of the country in its vicinity. Tower was a resolute man, who determined to take advantage of his position and defend his home untrammelled by the behests of the town authorities. To this end he petitioned as follows:--

   To the Honored Gov. & Council convened in Boston, March 10, 1675, John Tower Senior of Hingham is bold to inform your Honors that he hath at his own proper charge fortified his house & to begg your ffavor that his four sonns & one or two persons more that he may hire at his own cost may be allowed to him for garrisoning his house; and may not be called off by the Comittee of the Town for to come into any other garrison, my sonns having deserted their own dwellings and brought their goods into my fortification. I shall thankfully acknowledge your Honors ffavor herein & be thereby further obliged to pray for a blessing on your Counsels.
Your humble Servant

                                                        J. Tower, Senior.

   Edward Wilder, Jr., ancestor of all the Hingham Wilders and husband of Elizabeth Eames, owned at one time all the land between Tower's and Wilder's bridges and resided between High and Friend streets, on Main. He was a soldier in the war against Philip. With him lived his son Jabez and in the immediate vicinity several more of his children, including Ephraim and John. The region about the meeting-house at South Hingham was occupied largely at this time by the Jacobs, a wealthy and influential family. Foremost among them was Capt. John Jacob, a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, probably one of its officers and perhaps at one time its commander, and an able and trusted officer in the war against Philip. Captain Jacob succeeded to the command of Captain Johnson's company after that officer's death, and directed the defences at Medfield when that town was attacked and partially destroyed Feb. 21, 1676. On this occasion there were with him Lieutenant Oakes and twenty troopers, besides his own foot company of about eight men. The only Hingham name upon the roll at this time of which there is reasonable certainty, besides his own, is that of Nathaniel Beal. With Captain Wadsworth, Captain Jacob was engaged during the winter in guarding the frontiers from Milton to the Plymouth colony bounds,--Weymouth, Hingham, and Hull, being specially assigned to the latter. The service was an important and arduous one, and these towns were fortunate in having so able an officer assigned to their protection; it may well be that to this is to be ascribed the small loss sustained from attack by any of them during the two eventful years. He was among the moneyed men of the town, his estate being appraised at £1298. He owned a sawmill and a fulling mill, besides much land and considerable personal property. He too was a son-in-law of Captain Eames, having married his daughter Marjory. Their son John, a young man of twenty-two years and who had served in the war, was perhaps the only inhabitant of Hingham ever killed in the course of military hostilities upon her own soil. Preceding the descent upon the southern part of the town, to be hereafter spoken of, he was slain near his father's house April 19, 1676. Joseph, a brother of Captain Jacob, was also a resident of this part of the town, and Samuel Bacon, who married Mary Jacob, and Peter Bacon were near neighbors. At Liberty Plain, Humphrey Johnson, who had been turned out of Scituate, set up the house which he removed from that town, but only on condition that he should remove it out of Hingham on short warning, as he was a troublesome man. Later he was admonished to accept a fence line quietly. He, however, in part atoned for his short-comings by serving his country in the conflict then going on. His son Benjamin, a blacksmith and afterward proprietor of Pine Tree Tavern, doubtless resided with his father at this time. Other residents of Liberty Plain were James Whiton, whose house was burned by the Indians, and his son James who lived near by, and William Hilliard. On Scotland Street a Scotchman, Robert Dunbar by name, made his home, and from him have descended the Dunbars of the present time. Nathaniel Chubbuck, also one of those whose houses were destroyed on the 20th of April, lived not far away, and probably near or upon Accord Pond.

   On the 25th of February, 1675, it was ordered, on request of Capt. John Jacob, "that his house standing in the pass between this colony and Plymouth be forthwith garrisoned, and such as are his nearest neighbors are to joyne therein." This was the last of the defences of the town of which we have any knowledge, although it is more than probable that there were other garrison houses in the small hamlets, like that "over the river" or the one in the vicinity of Weir River. The "pass" where Captain Jacob's garrison house was situated is somewhat uncertain. It may have meant simply the street leading toward Plymouth Colony, or possibly the Indian trail near Accord Pond was so denominated.

   This, then, was the Hingham of 1675, and these, with perhaps a few more whose names the kindly and gentle hand of time has shadowed in to the great oblivion, were the heads of families in this olden time,--a little town consisting of perhaps one hundred and twenty homes, divided among several small villages and a few nearly isolated settlements; a half-dozen or so streets, of which Town, or North, Fort Hill Street, South, Bachelor's Row, a part of Leavitt, what is now School, and the part of Main from Bachelor's Row proper to the extreme southern boundary, were the principal. These streets, however, were mere grassy lanes, almost unimproved, whose deep-cut ruts were strangers to any other vehicles than the heavy, lumbering teams which served as farm wagons two centuries ago. Here and there it is probable that necessity or the public spirit of an individual, or perhaps the combination of several, had resulted in trifling attempts at road making, and in some of the swampy sections bits of corduroy were constructed. One such, at least, was upon the low approaches to the brook at Broad Bridge, and some of its remains were found several years since, and even yet lie in the bottom of its bed. Road surveyors and superintendents and working out of taxes, and even taxes themselves, were for the most part blessings of a later period. There were no sidewalks either, and along the little side paths leading from house to house and farm to farm, the blue violet blossomed in the early days of May as now, and the white violet scented the air with its delicate fragrance, while the wild rose and the golden rod in their season made the ways bright with their beauty. The chipmunk, his cheeks filled with the yellow Indian maize stolen from the adjoining field, sat saucily upon the fresh-cut stump and chipped at the passer, while the golden-winged woodpecker tapped for insects in the tree overhead, the kingfisher flashed his steel-blue breast across the water of the bay and uttered his shrill cry, and the robin and the cat-bird danced along with their familiar friendliness before the settlers' feet. On either hand, and nestling near together for mutual protection, were the low log or hewn-board thatch-roofed homes of the people, in most of which glazed windows were unknown, the light entering through oiled-paper panes and the opened door. Heavy board shutters added something to the warmth and much to the safety of the interior after dark. The rooms were few in number, unplastered and not always sheathed inside, while a single chimney, with a great open fireplace and a crane, served as oven and furnace alike. Here and there, however, more pretentious, and in one or two cases perhaps, even stately edifices had been erected. Some of these had a second, story overhanging slightly the first, and this added greatly to the power of resisting an attack. A few had glass windows, and here and there a little shop protruded from one end. Besides these the three forts, the garrison houses, and the meeting-house gave a certain diversity and rough picturesqueness to the landscape. Fine tracts of wood covered a large part of the territory, but numerous planting fields had been granted from time to time, and the axe of the settler during forty years had made no inconsiderable mark, and the clearings had been industriously cultivated from Otis, or Weary-all-Hill, to World's End. The soil was new and fairly good, and prosperity had lightened the lot of not a few, so that while certainly far from rich as wealth is measured in these days, the appraisal of some estates indicates the accumulation of the means of considerable comfort and influence. The people were for the most part sturdy, industrious, English farmers with a fair proportion of carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers, more, probably than the necessary number of inn-keepers with their free sale of strong-water and malt, a few mariners, several mill owners and millers, two or three brewers, not a larger number of shop-keepers, a tailor, a tanner perhaps, one or two "gentlemen," a schoolmaster, and last, and on many accounts most important of all, the parson. As already said, the inhabitants were for the most part English, but a large proportion of the younger generation was native born, and there was also a small sprinkling of Scotch. In addition there remained a few Indians, whose wigwams were pitched outside the settlement, besides a small number employed as servants in the houses of several of the whites; and in the same capacity a negro might here and there have been found. From a people mainly composed at first of the British middle-class, impelled to emigrate and settle rather from an ambition to improve their worldly lot than from any deep-seated dissatisfaction, either with the government or institutions of home, or even from especially intense religious aspirations, there had developed a sober, industrious, earnest, self-sustaining community, whose energy was already laying the foundations for the commerce with the West Indies which afterwards became extensive, and for the varied manufactures which for so many years gave employment to our people. A few small shallops too were owned here, and some of the inhabitants had an interest in one or two vessels of larger size; but fishing, which subsequently became a great industry, had scarcely began at this period. The real business of the settlement as yet was farming. The families of the day were not small, and year by year added to their proportions; Rev. Peter Hobart himself was father to no less than eighteen children while others were hardly less numerous. Men and women alike were commonly dressed in homespun, and undoubtedly the style of their garments was that so often seen in the pictures of the period. Can we not, for the moment, people our streets with them once more?--the men in their tall-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, the short coat close-belted, with broad buckle in front, the knee breeches, long stockings and buckled shoes varied by the better protection of long boots worn by others, especially in winter, and in this latter season the long cape hanging gracefully from the shoulders; the women in their becoming hoods, faced it may be with fur, the straight, rather short skirts, and the long enveloping cloaks, with gloves or mittens in cold weather.

   The costumes were picturesque if the materials were not of the finest, but we have no reason to suppose an utter absence of more elegant fabrics when occasion demanded, and not a few are the traditions of silks which would stand alone, carefully treasured as their chief pride by our great-great-grandmothers, while doubtless velvet coats and knee-breeches, with famous paste or silver buckles, and perhaps even a bit of gold lace, about this time forbidden by the General Court to all but certain excepted classes, found proud and dignified wearers on days of importance among the town fathers and military commanders. We read, too, of the bequest of swords in some of the wills of the period, and it is not unlikely that they were at least occasionally worn by the grandees of the town, as well as by the trainband officers, on ceremonious occasions. Nor must it be forgotten that from necessity, as well as by mandate of law, the musket had become so constant a companion that, though strictly not an article of dress, it may at least be considered as a part of the costume of the men; it was upon their shoulders in the street, it rested against the nearest tree when the farmer toiled, it went with him to meeting on the Sabbath, and leaned, ready loaded, in the corner at the house when he was at home.

   The heavy cloud which had so long threatened Plymouth, and which finally burst upon Swansea in June, was extending over Massachusetts also. The border towns were immediately upon the defensive. Hingham, with her boundary upon that of the Plymouth Colony, and peculiarly bound to it by neighborhood, by frequent marriages between her families and those of the Pilgrim settlements, and by the removal of some of their people to live among hers, may well have benefited by the kindly influences of the sister colony, and imbibed a liberalism and imagination not common among the Puritans. At all events, no persecution for conscience' sake mars the records of the old town, which a little later loyally followed for more than half a century the teachings of Dr. Gay, with his broad and embracing Christianity. Now, with sympathy for her friends and apprehension for herself, the town quietly, soberly, grimly prepared for the contest, and awaited the call for duty.

   Under Captain Hobart's direction the three forts were erected the garrison houses provisioned, and the careful watch and strict discipline maintained. The summer slipped away, the people pursuing their usual vocations. The drum-beat at sunrise relieved the weary sentinel, called to life the sleeping town, and put in motion the industries of the field, the shop, and the home. And while the men labored at their various vocations, the women were equally industrious; for not only were the children and the homes and the dairies to be eared for, but the very clothes must be woven and made in the kitchen of every house. Probably the mill, the inns, and the malt-houses were favorite places of gathering for the men during their leisure moments, while Mrs. Hobart's shop formed the ladies' exchange of the period, and many a confidence and bit of gossip were here whispered, only to reach the goodman's ears a few hours later.
   On the Sabbath-day all attended meeting, and after the services--probably several hours long--lingered around the porch to exchange greetings and make inquiries about friends and relations too scattered to visit during the week.

   An occasional sail whitened the placid bosom of the little circular harbor, whose outlet was nearly hidden by the three islands with their dark cedar foliage. Grand old trees here mirrored themselves, and again in the waters of the inner bay and the beautiful pond, which belonged to Plymouth and Massachusetts alike, while fields of maize ripened and yellowed on the hillsides.

   The sharp stroke of the axe, the occasional report of a musket, the voice of the plowman talking to his cattle, the grinding of the mill wheels, the music of the anvil, the merry splash of the bounding stream, the whir of the partridge, the not distant howl of the wolf, the stamp of the startled deer, the crackling of the dry boughs beneath the feet of an Indian, whose swarthy form flitted silently and ominously along the trail to the sister colony,--these were the every-day sights and sounds of the summer of 1675.

   The weeks following the attack on Swansea had seen the uprising of tribe after tribe, allies of Philip, the destruction of town after town in various parts of the colony, and the ambuscade and defeat of various bodies of troops under brave and able officers. United action on the part of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut became necessary. Governor Winslow was appointed commander-in-chief, and additional companies were raised by the three colonies. Among these was one commanded by Captain Johnson, of Roxbury, already a distinguished officer, who had led a company of Praying Indians in the earlier days of the conflict. He was known as the brave Captain Johnson, and in his command it was the good fortune of a part of the men from our town to serve. The following quaint report marks Hingham's entry into the struggle, and indicates also the names of those who served her in the field:--

TO THE HON^ORD COUNSELL NOW SITTING IN BOSTON:
   In persuance of an order from the Hon. Major Thomas Clarke bearing date of the 29 of y^e 9 m 1675, we have accordingly by the constables given notice to our souldiers impressed for the countrys service to appear as expressed in the sayd order and find those that appear completely furnished for the service. Others we are informed [are] to be at Boston making provisions for the sayd service. So as we [be able] they will be completely furnished according to sayd order.
   The names of these souldiers are as follows, Benj^a Bates, John Jacob, John Langlee, Edward Wilder, Thomas Thaxter, Ebenezer Lane, Sammerwell Lincoln Jun^r, Ephraim Lane, John Lazell, John Bull, William Woodcock, William Hersey Jun^r, Francis Gardner, Nathaniel Beal Jun^r, Nathaniel Nicols, Humphrey Johnson.

                                                        JOSHUA HOBART, Captain.
                                                        JOHN SMITH, Sergt.
        HINGHAM, Dec. 1, 1675.

   William Woodcock was missing when the time came to march, but he subsequently appeared and served.

   In addition to the above, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register gives the names of the following as in service from Hingham: Henry Chamberlin, William Chamberlin, Joseph Benson, Christ. Wheaton, Isaac Prince, Isaac Cole, Samuel Nicholson, John Dunbarr, Paul Gilford, Richard Francis, John Chamberlin, and Dr. John Cutler. Dr. Cutler, known as "the Dutchman," was one of the surgeons attached to the Massachusetts regiment under Major Appleton at the great battle with the Narragansetts. In his professional capacity, the care of John Langlee and John Faxton, wounded fellow-townsmen, fell doubtless to him. A note also says that Josiah the Sagamore went to fight against the Mohawks. A report of Capt. John Holbrooke, of Weymouth, shows that he had upon his rolls six men and four horses, and two men from Hingham, but that among the "defects" were Jno. Feres and Arthur Sherman from out town. From the town records we get the names of many individuals paid for arms and costs lost in the war. Among them are Samuel Stodder, a sergeant, James Whiton, Andrew Lane, Ephraim Wilder, and Simon Brown. By the same authority we learn that Nathaniel Baker helped fill the town's quota. The following petition from the State archives adds two soldiers to our list:--

   To the much hon^d Governeur and the rest of y^e Hon^rd Magestrates now sitting in Councill, the petition of James Bate of Hingham, Humbly sheweth, that whereas your petitioner having now for the space of more than two months had two sons prest into the service against the Indians whereby many inconveniencyes and great Damages have been sustained by us for want of my Eldest Son who hath house and land and cattle of his own adjoining to mine being a mile from the Town and therefore nobody to look after them in his absence, and whereas there are many in our Town that have many sons that were never yet in this Service who have also declared their willingness to take their Turns and seing God hath been pleased hitherto to spare their Lives, If he should not take them away before I doe again see them (upon several considerations) I know not how I should beare it. My humble request therefore to your Honours is that you would be pleased to consider our Condition and grant them a Release from their Long service. So shall you as he is in duty bound for your Honours prosperity pray and remain yours to serve in what he is able.

                                                                JAMES BATE.

   In 1725 seven townships were granted to the officers and soldiers living, and the heirs of those deceased, who were in the war of 1675; one of these townships was Bedford, and among the grantees were a number from Hingham. Besides including part of the names already given as in the service during this eventful period, we find those of Joseph Thorn and Samuel Gill, then still living. Cornelius Cantlebury's heirs, John Arnold's heirs, and Israel Vickery for his father. In this connection it may be interesting to add that on June 6, 1733, a meeting of the proprietors of Bedford was held on Boston Common, and that Col. Samuel Thaxter presided, and that subsequently he, with others, was appointed on a committee to lay out the town. Including Capt. John Jacob, we are thus enabled to furnish the names of some forty-five men who served from Hingham in the war against the great Indian warrior. Besides these there were the six or eight in Captain Holbrooke's company, and doubtless very many others whose names the imperfect lists have failed to preserve to us. Indeed, if the tradition that Captain Hobart commanded a company in active service is well founded, the probability is very strong that it was largely, if not entirely, composed of Hingham men.

   The day after the draft for Captain Johnson's company was observed as a "solemn day of prayer and humiliation, to supplicate the Lord's pardoning mercy and compassion towards his poor people, and for success in the endeavors for repelling the rage of the enemy."

   On the 20th of December, after a night spent in the open air without covering, and a toilsome march through deep snow, the combined troops of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut arrived before the great fort of the Narragansetts, near Pocasset, in Rhode Island. At about one o'clock the little army moved to the attack, the advance led by Captain Johnson, who was killed at the first fire, as was Captain Davenport, who followed him. Before gaining the final victory, six captains were lost, and over one hundred and ninety of the English were killed or wounded, of whom over one hundred belonged to Massachusetts, out of a total of about five hundred and forty.

   In the "great Narragansett fight" the men of Hingham, under their unfortunate captain, led the way. We must regret having but little record of their individual experiences. We know, however, that the retreat from the Narragansett country was one series of hardship and suffering, and that besides the death of many of the wounded on the way, that the unharmed nearly perished from exposure and hunger; so that when General Winslow reached his headquarters four hundred of his little army, besides the wounded, were unfit for duty. On the 24th of February, Weymouth was attacked and seven houses destroyed, and by March the Indians had become so aggressive that Massachusetts ordered garrisons to be established in each town, and a select number of minute-men were to spread the alarm upon the first approach of the savages.

   That the three forts, and perhaps all of the garrison houses were occupied permanently at this time there can be little doubt. Lieutenant Smith, as has been said, is known to have commanded a fort,--more than probably that near his residence upon the Lower Plain; while Captain Hobart, though exercising general supervision of all the defences, took immediate personal charge of the one in the cemetery, directing, we may presume, the garrison of the fortification at Fort Hill to obey the orders of Ensign John Thaxter, then the third officer of the company.

   The Town Records have the following:--

   "At a meeting of the freemen of Hingham on the 18th day of October, 1675, on complaint made against Joseph the Indian and his family, who were in the town contrary to the views of most of the inhabitants, and on suspicion that he will run away to the enemy to our prejudice, therefore the freemen at the said Town meeting passed a clear vote that the constable forthwith seize the said Indian and his family, and carry them up to Boston to be disposed of by the Governor and Council as they shall see cause."

   October 13, 1675, Hingham was ordered to pay £30 toward carrying on the war. Besides this tax, the selectmen's records show many allowances for arms lost, for money allowed the soldiers, and sums voted for transporting them to Boston, and various other military purposes, including an allowance for "lickars" for the committee having some duty connected with the war.

   In February, 1676, the selectmen forbade, under a penalty of twenty shillings for each offence, any person from harboring or entertaining any Indian within the limits of the town.

   Early in February the little army of Massachusetts returned to Boston, and the men were dismissed to their homes. But the vigorous prosecution of the campaign by Philip in the very first days of spring, his successful attack on one place after another, together with the destruction of Captain Pierce, of Scituate, and nearly all his command, while in pursuit of a body of Indians near Seekonk, the burning of Marlborough, and the murders at Long Meadow, all on March 26th, imperatively called for the speedy reassemblage of the troops, and for vigorous measures by the three colonies. It would not be easy to overestimate the anxiety and alarm at this time. Various plans were proposed, and among them was that of building a continuous stockade from Charles River to the Merrimac. This was only negatived because of its magnitude. In the various towns the forts and garrison houses were constantly occupied, and the utmost precaution taken against surprise. May we venture, for the sake of the better understanding of the time, to attempt one more sketch, outlined by the recorded facts and the bits of tradition, but shaded and filled in rather by the assistance of our general knowledge of the people, the times, and the situation, than by any particulars of the especial day?

   It is the 16th of April, and the Sabbath-day; a bright, crisp morning, but the sun is already softening the surface of the quiet pools thinly skimmed, perhaps for the last time in the earlier hours; and the frost coming out of the ground makes moist the paths; the brook at the foot of the meeting-house hill is dancing with its swollen flood and sparkling in the sunlight, while over and along it the pussy-willows are already nodding, and the red maple's blossoms go sailing and tossing in the pools and eddies. A little further up the stream the ever-graceful elms are beginning to look fresh and feathery in their swelling and opening buds, while on the slopes rising up from the valley the blossoms of the wild cherry and the dogwood gleam white among the dark trunks and branches of the oaks and the sombre shadows of the evergreens. In the warm nooks the blue, and in the swampier meadow the white violet breathes out the same faint sweetness which in the same spots, two hundred years later, will delight the school-children of another age, while above them with red berries of the alder and the seed-vessels of last year's wild roses give brightness and color to the shrubbery not yet awakened to its new life; the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the robin twitter in the branches, while a great black crow lazily flaps his way across to the horizon; possibly here and there, in some shaded and protected places, the melting remnants of a late snow linger yet, but in the clearings elsewhere the young grass has already veiled the earth in fresh green. The furrows of the planting fields show that the farmer has already commenced his preparation for the spring sowing, but some of the more distant lots tell of the universal apprehension, for last autumn's stubble in them still stands unmolested. The quiet of the Puritan Sabbath has no fears for his highness the barnyard cock, whose clarion and cheery notes are heard far and near, while faint columns and blue wreaths of smoke rising here and there each mark the home of a settler. Hours since, with the rising sun, Steven Lincoln has beaten the drum, and the tired and half-frozen sentry has been relieved and replaced by the "warde for the Lord's day;" the quaint, palisaded log building, with its belfry, which had served so long as a house of worship, of a meeting place for public conference, of refuge in alarm, of storage for ammunition, of defence from danger, and which is getting old and must soon be deserted, still stands overlooking the village, its doors wide open for the nine o'clock service, and the clanging of its little bell bidding the living to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," while to them under the little green mounds on the slope between the two roads it tolls a requiem. Goodman Pitts, the venerable sexton, still restrains with his watchful eye the small boy and awes him into a temporary quiet, while the people move decorously into their allotted places, the men and the women each into their own parts of the house. See them as they come picking out the best and dryest places between the deep ruts and along the paths, now two or three abreast, and now in single file, stretching along the ways leading to the meeting-house. How sturdy the men look, with their belted coats and broad-brimmed hats, and the inevitable musket, which each places against the building or some neighboring tree before entering! How cheery the goodwives seem, even in the midst of the general anxiety, as they greet each other and pause for a word of inquiry about the children--by no means few in number--who are trailing along after; and how sweet the Puritan maidens seem to us as they glance shyly at the great rough lads, whom danger and responsibility have so quickly transformed into manly young soldiers. Here from the Plain comes John Bull, and his young wife, Goodman Pitts's daughter, bringing perhaps a message and report to Captain Hobart from Lieutenant Smith, whose watchful care for the fort keeps him away to-day. Indeed, many a one is forced by the threatening peril to an unusual absence, and the attendance will be strangely small. Still, most of the people from the lower part of the town are on their way, though with anxious hearts, and many a thought will wander from the long sermon of the day to the little home, and every sound from without will strain again the already weary ears. There, crossing the bridge by the corduroy road, is John Langlee, leading his little daughter Sarah, and talking by the way to young Peter Barnes; while close behind come Sergeant Thomas Andrews, with his wife and six children; and a few rods further back we see Mr. Samuel Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln, with their straight young son Samuel, whose title of cornet is well deserved, and who is not only the pride of his parents, but one of the heroes of the town for his gallant part in the great Narragansett fight; there, too, are his (VOL. I.--16) brothers, and two or three of his little sisters, following as solemnly as youth and a bright day will permit. Just stepping out of his door is Benjamin Lincoln, whose wife, Sarah, with her little son John and six-years-old Margaret, are stopping to greet their uncles, John and Israel Fearing, who live next door. Rounding the corner of Bachelor's Row, with a brisk stride and erect carriage, we see Ensign John Thaxter, who has come down from the fort on Fort Hill, where all seems tranquil, leaving Sergeant Daniel Lincoln in charge while he attends meeting and holds a council of war with Captain Hobart. On his way we presume he stopped at the garrison house at Austin's Lane to speak a word of warning and make a kindly inquiry of Mrs. Bate and the four-days-old girl; and only a moment ago we saw a sterner look as he sharply inquired of the luckless inmate of the stocks what folly had made him a victim on this Sabbath morning. Near a large tree upon the hill, and against whose broad trunk rest half a dozen muskets, quietly awaiting Ensign Thaxter, stands one of Hingham's two foremost citizens, the late speaker of the House of Deputies and captain of the town forces. Captain Hobart is sixty-two years of age, and among the darker locks the gray hairs are thickly scattered, yet in his well-knit figure there is little sign of age; a strong, able, brave, wise man, loaded with all the honors in the gift of his townsmen, faithful for many years in their service, he is crowing his work by a care and watchfulness which will save those whose confidence is so well reposed in him from the horrors which have devastated so many sister communities. Even now he might have been seen coming along the path among the trees that runs between the meeting-house and the central fort, the garrison of which latter he has in part relieved for the services of the day.

   As the soldier in long boots, short-belted coat and sword, with his alert military air waits, we note the similarity and yet the dissimilarity between him and the slightly bent and older figure which in long cloak and buckled shoes is rather slowly mounting the hill, though declining the proffered arm of Ensign Thaxter. It is Parson Hobart himself, ten years the senior of his distinguished brother, and in disposition scarcely less a soldier. His long ministry is drawing near its close, but there is little diminution in the sparkle of his eye or the vigor of his manner. We can almost see the grave salute with which the Captain greets the Elder, and the equal gravity with which it is returned; we seem to hear the brief inquiry and reply, after which the one passes into the presence of his assembling congregation, while the other remains for a short interview with his subordinate.

   Within the house are the Hobart, brothers and nephews of the old parson, the Beals, Dr. Cutler, Joseph Church, Daniel and Samuel Stodder, with numerous members of their large families, Joseph Joy, Samuel Thaxter, and many others. Even now we can almost feel the uneasy restlessness which pervades the worshippers. Many of the friends, usually so regular in their attendance, are away in the forts and garrison houses, and all through the sermon, probably several hours long, the thoughts of the listeners wander, and the strained ears catch with apprehension every unusual noise from without. We imagine, too, that when at last Captain Hobart and Ensign Thaxter enter to join in the service, neither will take their accustomed seats, but more likely will remain near the door, and where perhaps the keen eye of the commander can keep within view the muskets without, and occasionally catch a glimpse of the "warde," moving from one point of vantage to another. Meanwhile the latter, not perhaps sorry to be in the open air this April morning, keeps eye and ear alert for sign or sound of the wily foe. From the summit almost the whole of the lower village can be seen. Across the glassy waters of the inner bay, which, stretching away from his very feet, are broken into several shady coves and dotted with islands, he is following with ill-pleased attention a canoe paddled by an Indian, who a moment later may be seen climbing the cliffs on the eastern shore and losing himself in the forest paths which lead toward Neck Gate Hill, from behind which a faint blue smoke rises and fades slowly away. There on the southeastern slope, and nearly at the foot of the hill, are the wigwams of the little-trusted countrymen of Philip who yet remain in the vicinity. This spot, by tradition said to have been the last camping-place of the Indian in Hingham, is comprehended in the property now owned by Mr. T. T. Bouvé, and called, from the fact and the configuration of the land, "Indian Hollow." The smooth lawn of the present day shows no sign, but the plow would reveal a long and broad line of disintegrating clam-shells, doubtless a shell-heap of the former inhabitants, and several implements have been picked up in the immediate vicinity which were formerly in use by them. However, beyond a mental growl of dissatisfaction at what he termed the folly of allowing the encampment to remain, our sentry of 1676 could do nothing; so, turning towards the blue waters of the harbor, his eye falls upon the ship-yard of William Pitts, the first one established in Hingham. He watches, too, for a few moments the white sails of a West Indiaman as she passes between Nantasket and George's Island and thence towards Boston. Then he walks slowly over to the new fort, and carefully scans the country in every direction as far as the eye can reach and the forests permit. And so the long hours pass away until the close of the service brings the uneasy officers out of the meeting, first of all for a conference with the watch, who, however, has little to report. And now the worshippers are wending their way homeward, singly and in groups, some discussing the weather, and others, it is probable, commenting, like their descendants of later generations, upon the sermon which they have just heard, while we may be sure all are thankful to return once more to undespoiled homes. Others, who come from a great distance, meet together and eat the frugal luncheon between the morning and afternoon service, while a few, husband and wife, mount pillion fashion the horses which have been awaiting the close of the services under the trees, and ride to their homes.
   As the rich glow of the setting sun crimsons the glassy harbor and turns to gold the fleecy clouds of April, while the shadows creep up from the valleys, the tap-tap and rattle and roll of Steven Lincoln's drum sings the vespers of the Puritans, and the Sabbath is over. Then comes the new watch, who being properly instructed and posted begins his hours of vigil. The garrisons are carefully looked to; the orders for the night issued. The poor victim of the stocks, if not before released, is now given liberty. The restraints upon the children are relaxed, and during the brief period of twilight secular pursuits are resumed; the cattle are seen to, the wood brought in, and the wide old-fashioned fireplaces blaze and crackle with the long sticks, while above the kettle hisses and sings and its cover rises and falls and rattles. Here and there the tallow dip assists in its poor faint way "the busy housewife ply her evening care," and then an hour later, the low thatched-roof cottages are wrapped in darkness, and the stars shine out upon the town at rest. Only the half-chilled, weary soldier on guard watches for the beacon, or listens for the signal guns which shall call the men of Hingham to the aid of Nantasket or Scituate or Weymouth, or awaken them to the defence of their own wives and children and homes.

   What a dreary duty it is, too, this waiting and fearing for the dreaded warwhoop of the Indian in the still and lonesome house of the night. How the eye grows strained peering into the darkness and the ear weary listening, and with what a nervous start each new sound, each before unnoticed shadow is noted by the young sentry moving among the aisles of the great trees on the height overlooking the village! What a relief, though all too brief, is the visit of Captain Hobart, whose vigilance causes many a restless and wakeful hour in these trying days; and how doubly appalling seems the solitude as the sound of the Captain's retreating steps die away in the distance, leaving the long hours until dawn to be counted away alone, before whose coming the sentry's breath shall more than once stop, while he hears the beating of his own heart, at the imagined creeping form of an Indian.

   The defences of Hingham and the preparation for the protection of her inhabitants have already been described. Even in the absence of other evidence, the comparative immunity of the settlement from serious loss and the total failure on the part of the Indians, almost constantly lurking in the vicinity, to effect anything like a general surprise, would in themselves be strong indications of the ability and watchfulness of those responsible for the safety of the town. The incidents attending the several attempts upon it, and the intelligent location of the forts and garrison houses, with their garrisons at this time made permanent, the mutual support which they afforded each other, and the fact that scarcely a house from Fort Hill to Broad Bridge, and thence to South Hingham, was beyond the range of fire of one or more of them, added to the vigilance which anticipated and forestalled panic when the hour of period and trial at last came, furnish indubitable proof of the military instinct, knowledge, foresight, and faithfulness of Joshua Hobart, John Smith, and John Thaxter. Beyond question it is to this due that the two known attempts against the town met with comparative failure; of others, contemplated but abandoned, owing to the thorough dispositions for meeting them, we of course know little.

   In this connection we recall the old tradition that Philip himself was at one time concealed within our borders and awaiting perhaps a favorable opportunity to make a descent. As the story runs, he lay somewhere in the region known as the swamps, which in those days extended with scarcely a break from Broad Bridge to near the Weymouth line, and included the location of Round Pond and the district known as Bear Swamp. The sagacious chief probably concluded that the chance of success was too small and the risk of severe loss too great to justify a movement against the lower part of the town, and therefore prudently withdrew. No amount of caution, however, could insure individual life or the safety of isolated farms against the silence and celerity of the Indian war parties. One of these, having perhaps eluded Captain Jacob, whose small force could hardly hope to cover the long frontier assigned to its care, was moderately successful at South Hingham in bringing the terror and horrors of the war home to our own firesides.

   On Wednesday, the 19th of April, young John Jacob, who, as it will be recalled, had served against Philip the previous autumn, and had seen his brave captain fall before the fort of the Narragansetts, took his gun and went out to shoot the deer that had been trespassing upon a field of buckwheat near his father's house and not far from the site of the present Great Plain Meeting-house. He was a famous hunter and of a fighting stock, and he had been heard to declare that he would never be taken alive by the Indians. Little did he dream that spring morning that his would be the only blood ever shed by a public enemy upon the soil of his native town.

   The simple and brief accounts, with a little assistance perhaps of the imagination, bring like a living panorama before us the events, the homes, and the actors of that and the following day in the far away time when our prosaic town was making a part of the history which has become one of the romantic chapters of New England's story. On this 19th of April, then, of the year 1676, and shortly after the disappearance of Jacob, the sound of a musket breaking the stillness and echoing against the great solitary rock that stands like a mighty monument in the field not far from the travelled way, momentarily attracts the attention of the neighbors whose habits of industry have overcome the general prudence, and who had been enticed to a little early planting on the home lot. Beyond the fleeting thought of their friend's success in his efforts to chastise the mischievous destroyers of the winter wheat, the incident attracts no attention, and soon passes from the minds of the workers. With the lapse of considerable time, however, and the continued absence of the hunter, there arises a feeling of strained uneasiness; finally a search is made, and there beside his gun, which has been battered to pieces, the young soldier lies dead. The terrifying truth flashes across the searchers as they tenderly and hastily bear their neighbor to his father's home. The Indians are in Hingham and have been lying concealed during the night near the wheat-field, and almost close to the homes of the settlers! And now in an instant and from every side, out of the calm and quiet of the village street there starts the life, the uncontrolled excitement, the panic and terror of the community, above and about whom the threatening horror of the tomahawk and scalping-knife already seems to gleam, and before whose fevered imagination come all too readily pictures of cruelty and torture. The blanched faces of men and women alike, the clinging fear of the children, the hurrying to the nearest garrison houses of those not already therein, the exaggerated stories and rumors, the cry "The Indians! the Indians! rising above all other sounds, repeated again and again, carrying consternation from the Great Plain to the harbor, and falling upon the startled ear of the farmer in the field and the wife in the kitchen,--how the sights and the sounds of that day thrill us through these passed centuries!

   And soon we hear the sharp clanging of the little bell on the meeting-house, the beat and roll and rattle of the drum, the sharp reports of the three alarm muskets, and into the forts, the palisaded church, and the garrison houses come the streaming, hurrying throng. We fancy we can see brave Joshua Hobart making, calmly and sternly, his dispositions for defence, and even personally visiting and instructing each sentry and urging to unceasing vigilance; or brilliant John Thaxter ably seconding his chief, and inspiring with confidence the garrisons at Austin's Lane and Fort Hill; or John Smith cheering the people as they flock into the protecting works on the common field. And there come before us, too, sturdy John Tower and his sons and "one or two more persons," as his petition reads, holding his little fort and covering a long section of the river and the homes of his neighbors with his muskets, while he checks the panic with his plain, strong words. Nor is it possible to overlook the figure in the long cloak, moving more slowly, it is true, than when speaking his mind to the magistrates, but still with considerable vigor and the natural grace of a man of superior mind and strong will; everyone recognizes immediately the venerable minister, and many a word of hope and many an admonition to duty he speaks as he passes among his people exerting his quieting influence upon them. With our knowledge of his younger days, we cannot help thinking that he had moments of impatience in the reflection that his age and calling prevented a more active participation in the movements against the enemy; nor would it surprise us to learn that Parson Hobart more than once thought, and even said, that if he were Captain Hobart the military operations would be conducted with more reference to an offensive policy. Be that as it may, the latter's dispositions saved the town and the lives of those whose safety was committed to his care.

   Succeeding the first alarm there followed many weary hours of anxiety and waiting. The day, with its exciting rumors and exaggerated stories, wore away, and a night of watchfulness, with a terror hanging over the people huddled together in their strange quarters difficult to picture, seemed interminable. Nor was the dawn much more reassuring, for soon the smoke from the burning homes of Joseph Jones and Anthony Sprague "over the river," and of Israel Hobart, Nathaniel Chubbuck, and James Whiton rose into view from widely separated points on the southern horizon, and added fresh consternation to the anxious watchers. These fires, however, were the last acts of the Indians, who abandoned the attack. The second visit was just one month later, being the 20th of may. It was even more fruitless, and the savages soon passed into Scituate, which they largely destroyed.

   Oct. 12, 1676, the General Court ordered "That Hingham be allowed and abated out of their last tax rates towards their losses by the enemy the sum of ten pounds."

   The soldiers from Hingham appear to have been engaged in some of the most arduous service of the war, for besides leading the van in the great Narragansett fight, as already stated, we find them serving under the immediate command of their old townsman, the brave Captain Church, on Martha's Vineyard and the adjacent islands; and it need not be said that service under that officer was of the most active kind.

   August the 12th Philip was killed at Mt. Hope and the war closed, but the military preparations of the colony rather increased than otherwise, and the towns as a necessary consequence participated in the general activity. In 1679 a petition for leave to form a small troop of horse in Hingham, Weymouth, and Hull, signed by Captain Hobart and others, was granted, and in June of the following year Ensign John Thaxter, whom we have already seen as one of Captain Hobart's company officers, and who earlier, in 1664, had served with such distinction in the expedition against the Dutch in New York as to be "preferred for," as the phrase runs, under orders of Cromwell, was commissioned to its command, with Samuel White, probably of Weymouth, as lieutenant, and Matthew Cushing as cornet, "so as the said Matthew Cushing take the oath of freedom," which he appears to have done. The same year Jacob Nash was appointed quartermaster, and the new troop together with the rest of the military in the town was attached to a new regiment under Maj. Wm. Stoughton.

   Sergt. Jeremiah Beale was appointed ensign of the foot company May 11, 1681, which remained under command of Captain Hobart until his death in 1682, when the periodical trouble which this company seems to have given the government whenever new officers were to be chosen again called forth a sharp reproof, with a reminder that an acknowledgment of error was expected. This time the difficulty was over the desire of a part of the command that Thomas Andrews be commissioned ensign instead of James Hawke. The magistrates, however, disapproved of both, and appointed Lieutenant Smith to be captain, Ensign Beale as lieutenant, and Thomas Lincoln to be ensign.

   A reminder of "The late Indian Warr," as the old State paper terms it, is found in a grant dated June 4, 1685, as a reward for services, to "Samuel Lyncolne and three more of Hingham, and others of other towns, of land in the Nipmuck country."

   Among the many interesting entries in Daniel Cushing's diary, from which not a little of the town's history has become known, is this: "1688, Nov. 5th, soldiers pressed 11 to go against the Indians." These men were perhaps a part of Sir Edmund Andros's small army of eight hundred with which he marched to the Penobscot, an expedition in which, it will be remembered, little was accomplished of value.

   April 18, 1689, Gov. Edmund Andros was arrested by the people of Boston, who had risen against the tyranny and corruption of his government. The next day the conduct of public affairs was assumed by the Council of Safety, of which Bradstreet was chosen president. On May 8th, acting doubtless under the orders of this extraordinary body, the train band went to Boston where on the ninth were gathered the representatives of forty-three towns. Cushing's diary tells us that a town meeting was held on the 17th to choose a member of the Council. The choice fell upon Capt. Thomas Andrews, already distinguished in town affairs, and who had been a representative in 1678. It was a distinction wisely bestowed, and doubtless while performing the delicate duties of his new office in a critical period, attention was called to that ability which soon after gave him the distinguished honor of being selected as one of the twenty-one captains appointed for duty with Sir Wm. Phips in his attempt at the reduction of Canada. This officer, recently appointed high-sheriff of New England, sailed from Boston early in the spring of 1690 for Port Royal. The fort surrendered with but little resistance, and three weeks later Sir William returned to Boston to prepare for the more ambitious attempt upon Quebec. August 9th, he sailed with upwards of thirty vessels and two thousand Massachusetts men, among them were Captain Andrews, Lieutenant Chubbuck, and other Hingham men; how many we do not know.

   October 5 the fleet dropped anchor beneath the castle which was commanded by Frontenac, an old and distinguished French officer. The attack commenced on the 8th, and was continued during the two following days, when the colonial troops retreated after suffering great loss. Sir William -unreadable text- the remnant of his army and fleet, arr -unreadable text- At least one of our townsmen was k -unreadable text- Quebec, while another, Isaac Lasell, di -unreadable text- bly of wounds, while Paul Gilford, S -unreadable text- Burr, Daniel Tower, and Jonathan Ma -unreadable text- town" were carried off by the small p -unreadable text- fleet and added its misfortunes to the d -unreadable text-

   On the 25th of the month Captain Andrews -unreadable text- dreaded disease; a stone in the Old Granary burying -unreadable text- marks his last resting-place. The succeeding day Lieutenant Chubbuck died also. This ill-fated attempt was followed by the long struggle between France in the New World and New England and the colonies south and west, which only terminated a few years preceding the American Revolution. The history of the period is that of exasperating and wasteful incapacity, oftentimes on the part of British commanders in this country, of disastrous defeats, of glorious victories, of cruelties on both sides which we would gladly forget, of bravery, persistence, and enterprise by Massachusetts men of which we may well be proud, and of final triumph, due in very large measure to the arms of New England and the training of a soldiery under the laws of our won and the neighboring colonies which only made success possible. It is the history of Louisburg, of Fort Necessity and its gallant young commander, of Crown Point, Fort William Henry, Acadia and its piteous story, Shirley and Winslow, Wolfe and Montcalm, and the Heights of Abraham. During its telling we learn of Braddock's defeat, of Ticonderoga, of Fort Frontenac; we become acquainted with the Howes, with Gage, Fraser, and a score of other English officers who afterwards played a part in the contest with the mother country. We first meet Washington and soon come to know why none other could have been the future American commander; we see Gates and Putnam and Stark in their earlier days, while Franklin and Otis already are shaping the legislation and destiny of their respective States. During all this period, in all the wars, and in nearly every battle fought in the North we shall find, on sea and on land, the sons of Hingham creditably participating. They are in the contest as soldiers, as officers, as councillors and advisers, and in numbers which seem at times almost incredible considering the probable population of the town. It is interesting too, to note the individual names of those concerned in the later French wars, and afterwards to observe the use to which so many put the invaluable experience and knowledge then gained, in the subsequent service of the Revolution.

   The extremely small scale, as compared with modern days, upon which financial matters were carried on by the town in connection with its military interests, will doubtless have been observed. An interesting illustration is afforded by an entry in the Selectmen's Records of 1691, as follows:--

   The first day of July, 1691, then received by the Selectmen of Hingham tenn pounds in silver money of Mr. Daniell Cushing, Sen., of Hingham, which hee, the said Daniell Cushing, lead to the Country for the carying one the present expedition against the Common enemys of the Country and is to have it payd to him, his heirs, exexutors, administrators, or asigns, in silver money on or befor the last day of September next insuing the dat hearof.

   Cushing's diary, under date of July 14, 1694, says that "Edward Gilman was pressed to be a soldier to go out against the French army," and under date of October 29 of the same year we are informed "that Edward Gilman came home out of the country's service." This small draft from Hingham, if indeed it was all, was probably her proportion of the force raised to meet the harassing and incessant incursions of the Indians, incited by the French, which for the ten closing years of the century left no peace to the colony, and which had for its principal episode in that year the attack on Groton, July, 27th. Captain John Smith, who died in 1695, was probably succeeded in the command of the company by Thomas Lincoln, who had long served as an officer, having been an ensign as early as 1681. At all events we find in the town records of 1697-98, the following:--

   The town stock of ammunition is in the hands of the 3 commanders of Divs. viz., Capt. Thomas Lincoln 1 bbl. of powder and 198 weight of bullets and 260 flints; to Lieut. David Hobart, 1 bbl. of powder and 200 and a half of bullets, gross weight, & 260 flints; to Ensign James Hawks 1 bbl. powder & 190 weight of bullets, net, and 260 flints.

   In 1702 a second company was formed in that part of Hingham which is now Cohasset, and which became what was formerly known as the Second Precinct.

   In 1722 the colony declared war, owing to exasperating Indian depredations upon Ipswich and other places, and among the names of men serving under Captain Ward, of Scarboro, are those of John Murphy, a corporal, and Edmund Moorey, or Mooney, both of Hingham.

   Murphy was again found serving against the French on behalf of Hingham in 1725,--this time upon a small vessel of which Lieut. Allason Brown was commander.

   Among the many conferences held with the Indians of Maine in the endeavor to secure the safety of the settlements, was one by Governor Belcher, at Falmouth, in Casco Bay, in 1732, at which he was accompanied, as would appear from an account found in the Thaxter papers, by Col. Samuel Thaxter, Rev. Nathaniel Eells, and Ebenezer Gay. Colonel Thaxter was a very prominent and trusted citizen, was colonel of the regiment in which Hingham's companies were included, and held many important offices. Among these was that of one of his Majesty's Council, in which capacity probably he acted as adviser to the Governor. On one occasion, while moderator of a meeting, he was grossly insulted by ----- Cain, who dared him to fight. Colonel Thaxter quietly ordered the constable to remove Cain. The meeting being concluded, however, Cain obtained all the fight he wished, for Colonel Thaxter found him, and administered a severe thrashing. It is probably safe to assume that, although frequently moderator of the town meetings, Colonel Thaxter was never subsequently troubled by personal challenges. This incident recalls to mind the fact, that with the occupation of the new meeting-house of 1681, there followed the uses of which the earlier building had been applied, and that not only were the town meetings held in the same place as the religious services, but that the military character of the old belonged, at least to a degree, to the new building also. We should find in searching the yellow and stained records of the selectmen for the year 1736, an account of an inquiry made by those officials into the amount and places of deposit of the town's ammunition, and the discovery that in Colonel Thaxter's hands was a barrel of powder weighing two hundred pounds, two hundred and sixty-three pounds of bullets, and a thousand flints, besides a large amount held by Capt. Thomas Loring, and considerable by Mr. Jacob Cushing, all of which, together with other purchased by the town, "we removed into the ammunition house made in the meeting-house of the first parish in Hingham." In the absence of other information, this record may justify the inference that Captain Loring then commanded one of the Hingham companies. Of this, however, there is not certainly. Captain Loring represented the town at one time in the General Court, and from his son Benjamin are descended some of the present Hingham Lorings.

   During the colonial period there were two expeditions, at least, by Great Britain against the Spanish possessions in the West Indies in which New England actively participated, and in which, almost as a matter of course, men from Hingham served. The first of these was in 1740, when Governor Belcher received orders to enlist a force to be sent to Cuba to the relief of Admiral Vernon, who was in need of reinforcements. Among the five hundred soldiers recruited in Massachusetts, there is much reason to believe that quite a number were recruited in Hingham. The rolls are, however, not only very imperfect in other respects, but they fail entirely to name the towns from which men served. We know, however, that among the officers was Lieut. Joshua Barker, who had declined a captaincy, and who now went as second in the company commanded by Captain Winslow. Lieutenant Barker was one of the very few survivors of this ill-fated expedition, in which, it will be recollected, was Lawrence Washington and a Virginia contingent. The forces of Massachusetts and Virginia together stormed the castle of Carthagena, the principal town of the Spanish Main in New Granada. The place was not taken, however, and the expedition was a dismal failure. It is said that only fifty of the men from Massachusetts returned. Lieutenant Barker afterwards, as Captain Barker, served in all the wars of his country from this time until 1762, when he was again engaged in the second and more successful attack upon the Spanish West lndies. He held a commission in the British service, and was a kind and able man. He resided upon the spot where now stands the Hingham Bank.

   There was also a Nathaniel Chubbuck in this service, who may have been a townsman.
   On the night of September 30, 1741, a number of the Spanish prisoners escaped from Boston with a large sail-boat. As they were armed, great fear was felt for the safety of the New England coasting vessels, and Capt. Adam Cushing, formerly one of Hingham's selectmen, and now an able officer, was ordered in pursuit, with special instructions to search the creeks of Hingham and Weymouth. There remains no account of his success or otherwise.

   In 1740, a division of the town into the wards whose limits remain unchanged to this day took place, and it is interesting to note that this division was solely for military purposes, and that the ward boundaries were merely those of the several companies, which the town thereafter maintained. At this time Cohasset, which had been made the second precinct in 1702, continued to be so designated, while the third comprised what is now known as the middle ward, embracing that part of the town south of the town brook, as far as Cold Corner, the remainder lying in the former fourth, now the southward. The first, or north ward, then as now, embraced the country north of the brook. The first powder-house in Hingham was built by the town in 1755. It stood a little north and nearly on the site of the New North Meeting-house. Afterwards it was removed to Powder-house Hill, near where Mr. Arthur Hersey's house now is, off Hersey street.

   Frequently in the archives of the State and of the various towns there are references to the "Old French War," to the "Expedition to the Eastward," to the " Expedition to Cape Breton," and to the "Capture of Louisburg." The expressions are all rather misleading, because they were, and unfortunately still occasionally are, indiscriminately used in referring to each of the several attempts made at different times upon the French possessions in the northeast provinces, or to either of the several wars between France and England in America subsequent to 1700. The mischief of the expressions becomes the greater when leading, as it sometimes does, to historical errors. Indeed, it is to this cause that the accurate placing of a number of our own citizens, as to the time and place of service, becomes impossible. The expression "Old French War"--and indeed the others mentioned also--more generally and more properly relate to the events in North America between the years 1744 and 1748, during which occurred that wonderful New England military expedition and crusade which resulted in the capture by some four thousand men, assisted by the English fleet, of the strongest fortified city in the New World, and which was considered capable of resisting an army of thirty thousand. In the limits of a local history it is impossible to give even the outlines of this romance of New England's arms. We can only tell the very little of which we have any record concerning our own townsmen's connection with t he brave Sir William Pepperell, and Commodore Warren, and the officers and men who sailed from Boston in March, 1746, and entered as victors the "Dunkirk of America" on the 17th of June following. It is most unfortunate that the rolls of these troops are lost from the State archives, and that such as exist in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society are not only very imperfect, but are comparatively value less, from the fact that the places from which the men enlisted are not given. It is probably owing to this that we are enabled to give the names of only a few as serving from Hingham. These are Thomas Lewis, Ralph Smith, and Edward Ward.
   Among a number who signed a voluntary agreement to engage in a hazardous attempt to storm the Island battery in the harbor of Louisburg, we find the name of Ebenezer Beal, presumably a Hingham man. Israel Gilbert, who died later in the service, is said to have been a soldier in the "Old French War."
   Samuel Lincoln and John Stephenson were also at Louisburg in some capacity, and received pay for assisting in "wooding the garrison." The following were also soldiers at Louisburg, and there can be little doubt were Hingham men John Lewis, Joshua Lasell, Thomas Jones, Samuel Gilbert, and John Wilder.
   By the terms of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded in 1748, Louisburg was surrendered to the French, and the work of taking it had subsequently to be done again.
   The peace was, at least in America, more nominal than real, and the usual encroachments of each party upon the claimed possessions of the other, with all the attendant barbarities of border war, recommenced almost with the signing of the treaty. Nevertheless, the fifty years' conflict between the civilization and aims of the Saxon and the civilization and aims of the Latin was drawing to its close, and the year 1754 saw the beginning of the end. In the South its first notes were heard in the conflict between the Virginians under Washington and the French on the Ohio; in the North the real signal was the march of an army of eight hundred Massachusetts men, under Gen. John Winslow, to secure by forts the passes from Quebec to New England, although negotiations were carried on between France and England even months later for an amicable settlement of all disputes between them. General Winslow fortified several places on or near the Kennebec. In his regiment, in Capt. John Lane's company, were Sergeant Elijah Cushing, Ephraim Hall, and Isaac Larrabee, of Hingham.

   Engaged in this same expedition probably, was the sloop "Mermaid," of eighty-five tons, of which Samuel Lincoln was master, Samuel Johnson mate, and Charles Clapp and James White were sailors. Clapp's residence is unknown. The others, as well as the sloop, undoubtedly belonged in Hingham. Samuel Lincoln was styled Captain in later life.

   In the spring of the following year, negotiations having been broken off in December, troops and transports began to arrive from England, and in April Shirley and the other colonial governors met Braddock in consultation. The events which followed can be scarcely more than named. Parkman, in his "Montcalm and Wolfe," has related them with a charm and grace which give to the hard facts of history the enchantment of romance.

   Yet with many, perhaps nearly all, of the occurrences in the North and East, Hingham was so closely and intimately connected, through the very large number of her sons who participated in them, that some brief explanations, expanding occasionally into narrative of what has elsewhere been better told, may be allowable here. If the rolls of participants in the first taking of Louisburg were incomplete, and the numbers serving from this town were apparently meagre, the fulness of the former and the length of names making up the latter, which are to be found in the Commonwealth's papers, at once surprise and gratify, although the task of eliminating repetitions in the different returns and crediting the men properly to the places to which they belonged, is extremely difficult. After the death of General Braddock, Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, became for the time the commander of the British forces in America, and among the several expeditions planned by him was one having in view the capture of Crown Point on Lake Champlain. To this end a large number of men were recruited in New England, New York, and New Jersey, the burden, as usual, falling principally upon Massachusetts, which voted both troops and money with a liberal hand. To William Johnson, afterwards knighted for his services, was given the command. On September 8, Baron Dieskau, with a force of French and Indians, attacked Johnson near the head of Lake George, but was defeated. The attempt upon Crown Point was however abandoned for the time, and the troops went into winter quarters at Fort William Henry. For this expedition there was enlisted in Hingham a company commanded by Capt. Samuel Thaxter, and attached to Col. Richard Gridley's regiment. A note in Hon. Solomon Lincoln's private copy of the "History of Hingham" says that this company marched September 23, 1755, with fifty-five men, and that they were at Fort Edward. Besides the Hingham men there were undoubtedly many from Weymouth and other towns in the neighborhood.

   Those from Hingham were--

        Samuel Thaxter, captain,        Joseph Jones,   private,
        Thomas Gill, Jr., sergeant,     Joseph Lyon,       "
        Samuel Joy, clerk,              Silas Lovell,      "
        Thomas Hollis, corporal,        Geo. McLaughlin,   "
        Lot Lincoln, corporal,          William Magnor,    "
        Hosea Dunbar, corporal,         Richard Newcomb,   "
        Nehemiah Blancher, private,     John Sprague,      "
        Thomas Chubbuck,      "         Stephen Saulsbury, "
        Joseph Carrel,        "         Benjamin Tirrell,  "
        Joseph Dunbar,        "         Abel Wilder,       "
        Seth French,          "         Jonathan Whitton,  "
        Thomas Hearsey,       "         Samuel Trask,      "
        Mathias Hartman,      "

   Lieutenant Blake, who afterwards came to live here, went to Crown Point the next year as an officer in Major Thaxter's company. Little is known concerning the Acadians who came here; even their names are for the most part unrecorded and forgotten. They were, however, generally very poor, and worked at almost any employment obtainable. Some of them were for a time lodged in the old Hersey house on Summer Street, now the property of A. H. Hersey and Mrs. Andrew, where within a few years a window was preserved upon whose small panes some of the exiles had scratched their names or initials with the stone in a ring belonging to one of them. In the field near this old house, so tradition says, these poor unfortunates were in the habit of meeting, to hold, in quiet and peace, religious services in the faith of their youth and their homes.

   Another family occupied a part of the old Cushing house at the foot of the Academy Hill; and still another what is generally called the Welcome Lincoln residence at West Hingham. The few names that remain to us of these people are as follows: Joseph and Alexander Brow, Charles, Peter, and John Trawhaw, mid Anthony Ferry. Beyond the inhumanity of their expatriation, the treatment of the Acadians by the people of New England was often kind, and even sympathetic. Without a country, separated from the neighbors and friends with whom they had spent all their happy days, in some cases members even of their own families lost to their knowledge, their sunny homes destroyed, their lands forfeited to the stranger, deprived of the ministrations of their religion, hearing always a foreign tongue, seeing always unfamiliar faces, watched, suspected trammelled, poor, their condition, let us be thankful, was at least not aggravated by extreme bodily suffering, or by the coldness, neglect, and indifference of their conquerors. Indeed, many of those who reached Canada looked back with longing eyes towards the land of the Puritans, where a kinder welcome and more generous charity softened their hard lot than that given by their compatriots.

   The town records of Hingham contain many entries showing liberal disbursements for the benefit of such of these people as were in want; and in the volumes devoted to the French Neutrals in the State archives, are several accounts allowed by the Province of Massachusetts Bay to the town for money expended in their behalf. Among these is the following in relation to a family which came here Nov. 29, 1755:--

PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

                        SUFFOLK SS.

To the Honble Josiah Willard Esq. Secretary

   In pursuance of an act of the Great and Genl Court of the Province
aforsd the following is the account of the Selectmen of the town of Hingham in the
County aforsd of their expense in the support of the French called Neutrals late
Inhabitants of Nova Scotia sent to said town by order of the Committee appointed to
dispose of the same, the family sent to sd town were Anthony Ferry & wife & five small
children and one single woman in all Eight, this accompt is from the First day of June
1756 to the tenth day of Novr 1756 for tools & provisions &c is twelve pounds fourteen
Stirling and four pence
                £12: 14:4
                                                DANIEL BEAL   }  Selectmen
                                                ENOCH LINCOLN } of The Town
                                                JOSEPH THAXTER} of Hingham.

   1760 April 18 Two French boys for husking corn

   May 23 Employed the Frenchmen. Charge them with 38 lbs. Salt Beef Joseph Brow, Alexander Brow, Charles Trawhaw, Peter Trawhaw, John Trawhaw.

   Oct 28 Employ d the old Frenchman Alexander Brow and Peter Trawhaw also the other Brows and Trawhaws at Husking for several days

   The fate of these families is lost in the obscurity of history. It is probable that they entirely died off or removed from Hingham, for no descendants of any of them are known to exist.

   Among the men impressed and enlisted by Colonel Lincoln out of his regiment for service in Canada in 1759, were, besides Lieutenant Blake, Capt. Jotham Gay and Gideon Hayward, of all of whom he speaks as having been in the Nova Scotia expedition of 1755. Whether there were others or not is not known, as the rolls of Winslow's troops are not to be found.

   After a year of open hostility, England on the 18th of May, and France on the 9th of June, 1756, at last declared war. The capture of Crown Point was by no means abandoned, but the French during the interval had constructed a powerful defence at Ticonderoga, and this too was included in the objects of a new expedition planned by Shirley, who chose John Winslow for its leader. Before the campaign commenced Shirley was removed and the command was first given to General Abercromby, who arrived in June, and then to the Earl of London, who came in July.

      (VOL., I.--17)
   In the mean time the raising of the new army went on. The method was to call for volunteers, but if the requisite number did not appear a draft was made, by the colonels of the militia regiments, of enough men to supply the deficiency. This will explain some facts to be hereafter related. A bounty of six dollars was offered to stimulate enlistments, and the pay of private soldiers was one pound and six shillings a month. If a man brought a gun his bounty was increased two dollars. If not, one was supplied, for which he was to account, as well as for powder-horn, knapsack, canteen, blanket, etc. Subsequently a coat of blue cloth, a soldier's hat, and breeches of red or blue were supplied. Probably this was the first American force of any considerable size wearing a uniform, although some regiments had done so previously; it will be noted that the color was the same which has since become enshrined in the affections of the armies of the republic who have succeeded these troops. The regiments generally were composed of ten companies of fifty men each. Besides their rations each man was promised and insisted upon having, a gill of rum daily. The troops mustered at Albany, and soon encamped a short distance up the Hudson.

   One of the regiments was commanded by Richard Gridley, afterwards conspicuous for his services at Bunker Hill; its major was Samuel Thaxter, who, in accordance with the custom of the time, was also captain of a company. This latter was from Hingham. There are several rolls in existence at different periods of its service. The first bears date of May 4, 1756, and contains the following names of men from this town:--

        Samuel Thaxter, major and captain,      Robert Tower,
        Joseph Blake, lieutenant,               Wm. Hodge,
        Jeremiah Lincoln, ensign,               James Fearing,
        Jonathan Smith,                         Knight Sprague, Jr.,
        Caleb Leavitt,                          Daniel Stoddard,
        George McLaughlin,                      Abel Wilder,
        Elijah White,                           Joseph Loring,
        Joshua Dunbar,                          George Law,
        Israel Gilbert,                         Joshua French,
        Thomas Slander,

        Thomas Cushing,                         Zebulon Stodder.

        Noah Beals,                             George Lane,
        Isaac Gross,                            John Lincoln.

   Loudon had ten thousand men posted from Albany to Lake George. Of these about three thousand provincials were at the lake under Winslow, with whom was Gridley and his regiment. Montcalm was at Ticonderoga with an army of about five thousand regulars and Canadians.

   On the 19th September, Captain Hodges, of Gridley's command, and fifty men were ambushed a few miles from Fort William Henry by Canadians and Indians, and only six escaped.

   Bougainville, aide-de-camp to Montcalm, who was with the expedition says that out of fifty-three English, all but one were taken or killed; he adds that a mere recital of the cruelties committed on the battle-field by the Indians made him shudder. Among the dead was Captain Hodges, and undoubtedly also Israel Gilbert, Thomas Slander, Elijah White, and Robert Tower; Ensign Jeremiah Lincoln, then apparently a lieutenant, was, with others, captured. These men all belonged to Major Thaxter's company.

   Mr. Lincoln, in the history of the town, says that a man named Lathrop, who also belonged here, was killed at the same time. Lieutenant Lincoln was taken to Quebec, where, after spending the winter, he made his escape in the night with three others. Two of these became so exhausted that they went to surrender to the French at Crown Point, while Lincoln and his companion finally reached Fort Edward after great suffering, during which they were obliged to subsist upon the bark of trees.

   In November the army dispersed, leaving a small garrison at Lake George. The provincials returned to their homes, while the English regulars were billeted in different parts of the country; those at Boston being sent to Castle William.

   To the lists already given as serving in the Crown Point army, there should be added the following taken from a note in Mr. Lincoln's private copy of his history:--

        Ralph Hassell,                    John Blancher,
        James Hayward,                    Jonathan Taunt,
        Seth Stowers,                     Jedediah Newcomb.
        Elijah Lewis,

   A Portledge Bill of sloop Sea Flower, Jno Cushing master and
sailors in His Majesty's Service in the Crown Point Expedition
                                                1756
        Jno Cushing master           Sept 30
        Jno Burr mate
        Seth Davis pilot
        Samuel Tower sailor
        Timothy Covell  "
        Isaiah Tower    "
        Joseph Blake    "

   On the back of this is an acknowledgment by Benjamin Lincoln for Capt. John Cushing of the receipt of 27 2/3 £.

   Captain Cushing married Olive, daughter of Colonel Lincoln, and resided at South Hingham. John Burr, his mate, at this time lived on Leavitt street. Samuel and Isaiah Tower were brothers. Besides all these, Isaac Joy served in Colonel Gridley's own company, and Robert Townsend, Jr., in Captain Read's company, in Colonel Clapp's regiment. Mr. George Lincoln says that Nehemiah Joy was also in the service at Lake George.

   The next year Loudon with the best of the army sailed from New York for Halifax, leaving Lake George comparatively unguarded, with the hope of taking Louisburg,--an expedition, by the way, that proved a total failure. Meanwhile Montcalm gathered an army at Ticonderoga, and by the end of July he had eight thousand French, Canadians, and savages encamped there. Parkman gives a wonderful picture of this army and its march towards Fort William Henry. On the third of August it appeared before the fort, which was commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Monro, a Scotch veteran. With him were twenty-two hundred men including eight hundred from Massachusetts, under Colonel Frye, who arrived on the first of the month. The siege began on the fourth, while General Webb at Fort Edward did nothing but send to the colonits for militia which could by no possibility arrive in time. They however made the attempt, even as far as from eastern Massachusetts. After a brave defence the garrison surrendered, and the next day, the tenth, occurred the frightful massacre of the prisoners, which has cast the only serious stain upon the character of Montcalm.

   In the intrenched camp where they had passed the night, and as they were about to march under escort for Fort Edward, the English army with many women and children were startled by the warwhoop of the Indians. Immediately the horrible butchery commenced. Probably towards a hundred were slain, and some two hundred carried into captivity. Among the latter was Zebulon Stodder, whom Colonel Lincoln writes of under date of July 25, 1758, as being heard from in Canada. Knight Sprague escaped after being partially stripped. In an account afterwards he said that fifteen out of fifty of the company to which he belonged were killed that day. His captain was stripped naked, as were many soldiers and women he passed in his flight towards Fort Edward. Sprague's captain was probably still Major Thaxter, although we have no roll of the company at this time. Major Thaxter was stripped of his clothing, bound to a tree, and about to be roasted alive, when he was saved by a French officer. Seth Stowers, who subsequently became a captain in the Revolutionary service, at the commencement of the attack upon the prisoners stuffed his coat with articles of clothing taken from the military stores, and darted into the woods. He was immediately pursued by a number of the Indians. As the foremost got dangerously near, he would throw some of his burden as far as possible to one side. The greed of his pursuers for plunder was so great, that they would stop to recover the abandoned garment, thus enabling him to gain slightly upon them. Repeating the ruse as long as the articles held out finally gave him sufficient advantage to elude pursuit. Other Hingham men who escaped death were Thomas Gill, Thomas Burr, and Elijah Lewis; there were probably many more. Thomas Burr became a lieutenant in the company commanded by Capt. Peter Cushing in the Revolution, and Elijah Lewis was also a soldier in that war, as were Lot Lincoln and Thomas Hersey, both previously named as on Captain Thaxter's rolls, Hersey becoming a captain in the service of the patriot army.
   A list of the Hingham men not included in the surrender, belonging to Major Thaxter's company, is as follows; the men were probably on some detail away from the fort:--

        Johnson Anderson,                 Benjamin Joy,
        James Caunidy,                    Stephen Randall,
        Joseph Dwelly,                    Freeman Smith,
        James Hayward,                    Joshua Bates.

        George Phillips,                 Benjamin Sampson,
        Moses Bradbury,                  Reuben Donnells,
        James Bunker,                    Dennis Morrison,
        James Brayman,                   Samuel Winchester.

   Major Thaxter was a quick-tempered and kind-hearted man. On one occasion he got into considerable trouble by killing some of his neighbors' dogs, who were worrying deer driven into the town by a severe storm. He had a number of children, among them Dr. Gridley Thaxter, doubtless named after his old colonel, who served with credit in the Revolutionary army. The Thaxter home was on North Street; and not far from him, after the war, came to live his old commander, Gen. John Winslow, and his lieutenant, Joseph Blake. General Winslow resided until his death on Main Street, where is now the house of Mr. John Siders. The church-bells tolled when his body was removed to Marshfield. Lieutenant Blake lived where the Bassett house is, opposite the Old Meeting-house on Main Street; his son Joshua was a lieutenant in the United States navy. We can imagine that these three old veterans spent many an hour together in the after years, recalling the stirring events of the last French and Indian war. To General Webb's request for militia to march to the relief of Fort William, there was immediate response from the colonies, a nd Massachusetts especially wasted no time in getting a large number of men into the field. We already know the uselessness of the effort; indeed, Monro had already capitulated several days before the troops from eastern New England started; although this was of course not known until later. Upon receipt of the necessary orders, Col. Benjamin Lincoln commanding the third Suffolk regiment, at once detached from his command the company in Hingham commanded by Ebenezer Beal, and started it on the march the 15th of August. The roll of Hingham men in the company was as follows:--

                        Ebenezer Beal, Capt.,
                        Daniel Lincoln, Lieut.,
                        Benjamin Cushing, Ensign,
        Joseph Stowers, Sergt.,       Nathll Stodder,
        John Fearing,     "           Daniel Tower,
        John Blancher,    "           Solo: Dunbar,
        Obadiah Lincoln,  "           Saml Dunbar,
        David Farrow, Corp.,          David Wilder,
        John Keen,      "             Zach Loring,
        Elisha Tower, Jr.,"           Saml Gill, Jun.,
        Abijah Whiten, Drum.,         Joseph Sprague,
        Peter Lincoln, Private,       Asa Burr,
        Obadiah Stowell,  "           John Wilent,
        Joshua Remington,             John Wheelwright,
        Matthew Lincoln,              John Pratt,
        Ezra French,                  Calvin Cushing,
        Philip Nye,                   Price Pritchart,
        David Waterman,               Jacob Beal,
        Ephraim Marsh,                Frederick Bate,
        William March,                Job Tower,
        Isaac Gross,                  Simeon Bate,
        Consider Jones,               Hosea Orcutt,
        Jotham Loring,                Benjamin Beal,
        Isaac Burr,                   Japhet Hobart,
        Ignatius Orcutt,              Elisha Lincoln,
        Nathll Lincoln,               Micah Nichols,
        Isaac Lincoln, Jun.,          Nehemiah Joy,

                        Stephen Cushing, Lieut,
                        David Cushing, Cornet,
        Noah Nichols, Corporal,        Joseph Cushing, Private,
        Benjamin Thaxter,  "           Thomas Barker,     "
        David Lincoln, Private,         Lot Lincoln, Private, 
        Thomas Lothrop,   "             Joseph Loring,  " 
        John Burr,        "             Caleb Joy,      "
        Uriah Oakes,      "             Obadiah Beal,   "
        Benjamin Garnet,  "

   In July, 1757, Pitt, who shortly before had been dismissed from office, became the controlling force in foreign affairs and in the department of war. With him there came a new light to England and the colonies; the tide of defeat and disaster was checked, hope was reawakened, and a vigor and wisdom instilled into the conduct of public affairs, which eventually led to the triumph of the British arms and the conquest of Canada.

   Early in June, 1758, Admiral Boscawen and General Amherst, with eighteen frigates and fire-ships, twenty-three ships of the line and a fleet of transports, on board of which were eleven thousand six hundred soldiers, all regulars except five hundred provincial rangers, appeared before Louisbourg. Amherst's brigadiers were Whitmore, Lawrence, and Wolfe. July 27th the fort surrendered after a determined resistance, and over five thousand men became prisoners in the hands of the English. In the siege Jotham Gay, who commanded a company from Hingham shortly after and perhaps at this time also, is said to have participated.

   Among the Massachusetts regiments raised for the prosecution of the war was one commanded by Col. Joseph Williams. It was recruited early in 1758, and contained a company of Hingham men, commanded by Capt Edward Ward, who had already served at the capture of Louisbourg in 1745. The roll of this company was as follows:--

                        Edward Ward, Captain, 
        Isaac Smith, Sergt.,            Natha Bates,     Private, 
        Lott Lincoln, Corp.,            Joseph Beal,        " 
        James Howard,   "               Mordica Bates,      "
        James Lincoln,  "               Joseph Battles, Jr.," 
        Joseph Carrell,   Private,      Thomas Lothrop, Private,
        Primus Cobb, negro,  "          John Neal,          " 
        Robert Dunbar,       "          Flanders, negro,    "
        Seth Dunbar,         "          Micah Nichols,      "
        Solomon Dunbar, Jr., "          Joshua Remington,   " 
        Jonathan Farrow,     "          Obadiah Stowell,    "
        Ezra French,         "          Nathl Stoddard,     "
        Nathll Garnet, Jr.,  "          Oliver Southward,   "
        Norman Garnett,      "          Jerome Stevenson,   "
        Isaac Gross,         "          Solon Stevenson,    " 
        Ezra Garnett,        "          Daniel Tower, Jr.,  "
        Noah Humphrey,       "          Joseph Tower, Jr.,  "
        Japhet Hobbart       "          Shadrich Tower,     " 
        Peter Jacob, Jr.,    "          David Waterman,     "
        Nathl Joy,           "          Solomon Whiton,     "
        Elisha Keen,         "          Jonathan Whiton,    " 
        Elijah Lewis,        "          Jonathan Ward,      "

        Thomas Colsen,                    Calvin Cushing,
        David Bate,                       Thomas Colson,
        Abner Bate,                       James Lincoln. 
        Beza Cushing,

   The fifth of July, 1758, Abercromby, with over six thousand regulars and nine thousand provincials, left his camp on the scene of Dieskau's defeat and Montcalm's victory, and embarked upon Lake George. The army was in nine hundred bateaux, a hundred and thirty-five whaleboats, and a number of flatboats carrying the artillery. The day was bright, and amid the romantic scenery the line, six miles in length, with gorgeous uniforms and waving banners, presented a superb spectacle. The life of the army, and its real commander, was Lord Howe, a brother of the brave general who led the English at Bunker Hill. In the evening, lying by the side of John Stark, then an officer of Rogers' rangers, he inquired about the situation and best manner of attacking Ticonderoga; and the next day while at the head of the column with Major Israel Putnam and two hundred rangers, he fell dead under the fire of a small body of French commanded by Langy. The loss of Howe was the ruin of the army, and Abercromby preserved neither order nor discipline; indeed, he was upon the point of abandoning the expedition. Colonel Bradstreet, however, opened the way for the army and it reluctantly followed his lead. In the mean time Montcalm, on the seventh, threw up a wonderfully strong defence, and here with thirty-six hundred men he awaited the English. At one o'clock on the eighth the attack commenced. At half-past seven the French general had won his great victory, and the British army, after losing two thousand men, was in full retreat, covered by the provincials. In this disastrous attempt Captain Ward's company probably participated, as Colonel Lincoln mentions a number of men as engaged at Lake George whose names occur on the above roll. He speaks also of William Russ as a soldier of his regiment on the same service.

   After the defeat Abercromby reoccupied and refortified the camp which he had left but a few days previously. Colonel Bradstreet obtained, after much persuasion, three thousand men, mostly provincials, and with these and a small number of Oneidas he embarked, August the twenty-second, in his fleet of whaleboats and pushed out onto Lake Ontario. His destination was Fort Frontenac, and as Thomas Burr, who was in this expedition, says in his diary, the troops came in sight of the French works on the twenty-fifth, and landed about dusk, and to quote the diary, "pitched against the fort" on the twenty-sixth. The next day the garrison surrendered, together with nine armed vessels and a large amount of stores and ammunition.

   Forming a part of Colonel Bradstreet's command, and participating in his triumph was Captain Ward's company of Hingham men,--if indeed, the whole of Colonel Williams' regiment was not in the expedition. Subsequently many of them were at the Great Carrying Place. This latter was the name of a post upon the Mohawk, then being fortified by General Stanwix, with whom Bradstreet left a thousand men on his return from his victory. Among them were Beza Cushing, Noah Humphrey, John Neal, Isaac Gross, Isaac Smith, James Hayward, David Tower, Jonathan Farrow, Townsend Smith, Joseph Carrel, Robert Dunbar, Solo. Whiten, William Garnett, and Thomas Lothrop. Not previously named, but at Frontenac, in addition to others, were Ralph Hassell, and John Sprague; they would seem to have enlisted in other companies in Colonel Williams' regiment.

   May 4, 1759, Gov. Thomas Pownall sailed from Boston with a regiment commanded by himself, and constructed a fort upon the Penobscot. Among Colonel Pownall's captains was Jotham Gay, with a company from Hingham. Captain Gay's company seems however to have been sent to Halifax somewhat earlier, and a return sworn to by him indicates that it formed part of the garrison of that post from March until November of that year. Capt. Jotham Gay was born in Hingham, April 11, 1733, and as already seen, was in the king's service from 1755 until near the close of the last French war. Subsequently he was a colonel in the Continental army, and a representative from Hingham in 1799 and 1800. His brother Calvin died at Quebec in 1765. They were sons of the Rev. Ebenezer Gay, who was minister of the Old Church in Hingham for sixty-nine years. Rev. John Brown, of that part of Hingham which is now Cohasset, was a chaplain in the army in 1759, and was stationed at Halifax. He was a friend of Dr. Gay, who corresponded with him, and in a characteristic letter, dated June 25, 1759, he writes to Mr. Brown "I wish you may visit Jotham (captain) and minister good instruction to him and company, and furnish him with suitable sermons in print, or in your own very legible, if not very intelligible manuscripts, to read to his men, who are without a preacher; in the room of one, constitute Jotham curate." Colonel Gay died October 16, 1802. The following is the list of the Hingham men in the company commanded by him in 1759:--

                                Jotham Gay, Capt., 
                                George Lane,  Lieut.,
                                Thomas Lothrop," 
        Isaac Smith,  Sergt.,       Caleb Leavitt,     Private. 
        Nathaniel Bangs,"           Levi Lewis,          "
        Samuel Joy, Corp.,          Elijah Lewis,        " 
        Joseph Blake, Private,      Urbane Lewis,        "
        Benjamin Beal,   "          Israel Lincoln,      "
        Issachar Bate,   "          John Lasell,         "
        Isaac Burr,      "          Joseph Levis,        "
        Beza Cashing,    "          Ephraim Marsh,       "
        Calvin Cushing,  "          Micah Nichols,       " 
        Jacob Dunbar,    "          John Neal,           "
        Jonathan Farrow, "          Charles Ripley,      " 
        Isaac Groce,     "          William Rust,        " 
        Noah Humphrey,   "          Luther Stephenson,   "
        John Hobart,     "          Jusitanus Stephenson," 
        Gedion Howard,   "          Jerome Stephenson,   " 
        Micah Humphrey,  "          John Sprague,        " 
        Ralph Haswell,   "          Knight Sprague,      "
        James Haward,    "          Daniel Stoddard,     " 
        Joseph Jones,    "          Daniel Tower,        "
        John Lincoln,    "          Seth Wilder,         "

                John Stowel,              John Nash,
                Nathl Joy,                Job Mansfield, 
                Japhet Hobard,            Levi Lincoln, 
                Enoch Stoddard,           Abijah Hersey, 
                Joseph Sprague,           Daniel Lincoln, 
                Samuel Burr,              Joseph Beal,
                Asa Burr,                 Joshua Remington, 
                Zacheus Barber,           John Garnet,
                William Lincoln,          Stephen Frances,
                Richard Stodard,          Seth Dunbar. 
                Benjn Stowel,

   "Money owed John Faye, for money paid by him to invalids returning from Albany, &c., &c., 1760:
   Benj. Stowell, Hingham, in Col. Thomas' regt., Capt. Bradford;
   Richard Stodard,   "       "   "         "       "      "        "      "

   There is a curious and interesting record in Vol. 98, page 361, of the rolls at the State House in connection with the invalids at Albany, which seems to have escaped notice elsewhere. It is an account of a payment "to Col. Ranslow for his Battalion of Negroes to carry Small Pox people to Albany."

   Wolfe had climbed the Heights of Abraham, gained the crown of unperishing fame, and laid down his life in the moment of victory, while Montcalm, his dying thoughts for Canada, slept the soldier's last sleep in the Convent of tbc Ursulines. September the 18th Quebec surrendered. The following spring Lévis made a bold attempt to recapture it, but abandoned the attempt upon the arrival of an English fleet. On the fifteenth of July, 1760, Murray, with twenty-four hundred and fifty men, left Quebec and marched toward Montreal; he was subsequently reinforced by seventeen hundred more under Lord Rollo.

   In the mean time General Haviland left Crown Point with an army of thirty-four hundred regulars, provincials, and Indians, while Amherst with ten thousand men embarked from Oswego on the tenth of August, followed by seven hundred Indians under Sir William Johnson. On the sixth of September the three armies encamped before Montreal. With Amherst and Haviland doubtless would have been found Hingham's recruits enlisted "for the total reduction of Canada." September the eighth the remnants of the French army, consisting of about twenty-four hundred men, surrendered to General Amherst, who was about to open fire upon Montreal, besieged as it was by his force of seventeen thousand.

   If with the death of Montcalm and the surrender of Quebec, France in the New World died, so at Montreal was buried all hope of her resurrection, unless, indeed, through the medium of diplomacy when peace should at last be declared. Even that hope was destined never to be realized, for with the signing of the articles at Paris in 1763 French dominion in North America became only a matter of history. However, during the many months and even years that intervened, the sea coasts had to be guarded, and the various military posts garrisoned. Probably engaged in this or similar service, we find Hingham men serving as follows:--

        Under Capt. Samuel Bent, from June to December, 1761:--
          Ralph Hassell,             John Neal,
          Elijah Lewis,              David Stoddard. 
          Levi Lewis,
        Under Capt. Ephraim Holmes, March to November, 1762:--
          Jeremiah Chubbuck. 
        Under Capt. William Barrows, November, 1762, to July, 1768:--
          Nathan Lewis,              Arthur Cain. 
        Under Capt. Johnson Moulton, 1762 and 1763:--
          Jeremiah Chubbuck, Lieut., Levi Lewis,
          Elijah Lewis, Sergt.,      John Neal.

   Moreover, at least fifty of these re-enlisted, fifteen served three times, four four times, and one man seems to have been a recruit on five different occasions, so that there must be credited as serving in Hingham's quota, during some part of the period, shoot three hundred and twenty soldiers. Among these were more than a dozen offcers, of whom the most celebrated was Major Thaxter.

   In glancing at these old company rolls we notice the frequent recurrence of certain family names having a large representation among the present inhabitants, while others, then borne by a considerable number of persons, have entirely disappeared from the town. Of the former, the Lincolns, with seventeen names on the lists, easily lead, while the Cushings and Dunbars each furnish nine, the Burrs six, the Beals the same number, the Stoddards five, and the Towers four. On the other hand the Garnets, of whom five enlisted, have ceased to exist by that name, although under the not very different form of Gardner, there are still representatives here, while the Gays, Joys, Gilberts, Gills, and officers, including the once numerous Stephensons, have few or none to preserve their names and families.

   From the close of the French wars to the opening of the Revolution, we know little about the local military. Colnnel Lincoln coutinued to command the regiment down to about the close of the war, but under date of January 21, 1762, a list of the commissioned officers names Josiah Quincy as colonel, John Thaxter of Hingham as lieut.-colonel and captain of the first Hingham company, and Theophilus Cushing, also of this town, as major and captain of the second Hingham company. The other officers belonging here were Joseph Thaxter,--afterwards captain,--and Caleb Bates, lieutenants, in Lieut.-Colonel Thaxter's company, and Samuel Hobart his ensign; Capt. Pyam Cushing, who succeeded Major Cushing in the command of the company, and his lieutenant, Robert Garnet, and ensign John Jacob; Daniel Lincoln, captain of the third company, with Isaac Lincoln, lieutenant, and David Tower, Jr., ensign. The fourth Hingham company was commanded by Thomas Jones and his lieutenant was Benjamin Thaxter with Ebenezer Beale, Jr., for his ensign. The troop of horse which still existed was officered by David Cushing, captain, Benjamin Hayden, lieutenant, Jonathan Bass, cornet, and Joseph Cushing, quartermaster. Soon after, James Humphrey became first major, and Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., second major of the regiment.

   In 1771 this old command, formed in the early days of the colony, and so long known as the Third Suffolk, had become the second regiment, with John Thaxter, colonel, and Benjamin Lincoln, lieutenant-colonel. The companies from Hingham were officered as follows; 1st company, James Lincoln, captain; Elijah Lincoln, lieutenant; 2d company, Enoch Whiton, Jr., captain; Theophilus Wilder, Jr., lieutenant; 3d company, Isaiah Cushing, captain; Peter Cushing, lieutenant; John Burr, ensign.

   There was also a train of artillery attached to this regiment, which evidently belonged here, as all its officers were from Hingham. They were as follows: Francis Barker, Jr., captain; Samuel Thaxter, 1st lieutenant; Jotham Loring, 2d lieutenant; and Levi Lincoln, lieutenaut-fireworker.
   Lieut.-Colonel Lincoln was in command of the regiment at the opening of the Revolution, and the muster rolls of the day style it "Col. Lincoln's," although there is some uncertainty about his being so commissioned.

   In the stirring and exciting events preceding and leading up to the war between the colonies and Great Britain, Hingham was an active participant. With that of so many other towns, her history contributes to the familiar narrative of the great part taken by Massachusetts in the resistance to tyrannical and oppressive acts of parliament and king. The names of Hancock, Otis, and Lincoln have for her more even than the interest elsewhere surrounding them, for to the families bearing them she feels the affection and pride belonging to the children of the household. John Hancock, Major-General, President of Congress, and Governor of Massachusetts, was the son of Mary Hawke of Hingham, who first married Samuel Thaxter, Jr., and then John Hancock, of Braintree; while John Otis, the ancestor of the patriot, was one of the earliest settlers of the town and the possessor of large tracts of land here, and his descendants resided in Hingham for generations. Mary Otis, daughter of James the patriot, married the son of General Lincoln, while other members of the family were connected by marriage with the Thaxters, Gays, Lincolns, and Herseys. The Lincolns fill the pages of local and commonwealth history with the story of their services in the field, the town, the halls of legislation, and the council chamber, from the earliest days to the present time. During the French war we have seen Benjamin Lincoln, as colonel of his regiment, the historical Third Suffolk, to which the companies in Hingham had almost from the settlement of the town been attached, taking an active part. He was also for seventeen years a member of his Majesty's Council, but resigned in 1770, at the time when it was fast becoming impossible for patriotic Americans to hold longer the king's commissions. Colonel Lincoln died March 1, 1771, leaving, among others, the son Benjamin who so worthily filled the place lie long occupied in public estimation and usefulness. The affection which is felt for the great President Abraham Lincoln, also a descendant of a Hingham family, has given a national fame to the name in later years.

   As early as September 21, 1768, the town, in response to a circular from Boston, "chose Joshua Hearsay a committee to join the committees from the several towns within the province to assemble at Boston on the 22d of September, current, then and there to consult such measures as shall be necessary for the preservation of good order and regularity in the province at this critical conjuncture of affairs." His instructions were as follows: "We advise and direct you that you use your endeavors to preserve peace and good order in the province and loyalty to the king; that you take every legal and constitutional method for the preservation of our rights and liberties, and for having redressed these grievances we so generally complain of and so sensibly feel; that all possible care be taken that the troops that should arrive have provision made for them, so that they be not billeted in private families, and at so convenient a distance as not to interrupt the people; that you encourage the inhabitants to keep up military duty, whereby they may be in a capacity to defend themselves against foreign enemies; and in case you are exposed to any charges in prosecuting any of the foregoing preparations, we will repay it, and as these instructions are for your private use, improve them for that purpose and for no other whatever." The instructions were drawn up by Ezekiel Hearsay, Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., and Capt. Daniel Lincoln.

   In response to the circular, delegates from sixty-six towns, the number of whom afterwards increased to ninety-eight, met on the day appointed, and continued in session from day to day until the 29th, during which they adopted a letter to be transmitted to the agent of the province in London, and also voted to publish a result of their conference, in which, while declaring their allegiance to the king, they also declared their rights under the charter. March 5, 1770, occurred the event known in American history as the "Boston Massacre." Without discussing the events which led up to the riot and bloodshed in King Street on that memorable occasion, the fact of Hingham's sympathy with the people as against the soldiers is perfectly evident from resolutions passed at the annual meeting of that year. They are not to be found in the town records, but are contained in the following letter from General Lincoln, then town clerk, to the committee of merchants:--

                                                HINGHAM, March 24th, 1770.

   GENTLEMEN,--At the annual meeting of the town of Hingham, on the 19th day of March, A.D. 1770: Upon a motion being made and seconded (though omitted in the warrant), the inhabitants, taking into consideration the distressed circumstances of the people in this and the neighboring Provinces, occasioned by the late parliamentary acts for raising a revenue in North America the manner of collecting the same, and the measures gone into to enforce obedience to them, and judging that every society and every individual person are loudly called to exert the utmost of their ability in a constitutional way to procure a redress of those grievances, and to secure the privileges by charter conveyed to them, and that freedom which they have a right to as men and English subjects, came to the following votes:--

   Voted, That we highly approve of the patriotic resolutions of the merchants of this province not to import goods from Great Britain till the repeal of the aforesaid acts; and viewing it as having a tendency to retrieve us from those burdens so much complained of, and so sensibly felt by us, we will do all in our power in a legal way to support them in carrying into execution so worthy an undertaking.

   Voted, That those few who have imported goods contrary to general agreement, and counteracted the prudent and laudable efforts of the merchants and traders aforesaid, have thereby forfeited the confidence of their brethren; and therefore, we declare that we will not directly or indirectly have any commerce or dealings with them.

   Voted, That we will discourage the use of foreign superfluities among us and encourage our own manufactures.

   Voted, That we heartily sympathize with our brethren of the town of Boston, in the late unhappy destruction of so many of their inhabitants, and we rejoice with them that there yet remains the free exercise of the civil authority.

   Voted, That the town clerk be ordered to transmit a copy hereof to the committee of merchants in Boston.

   I cheerfully comply with the above order and herewith send you a copy of the Votes. I am, gentlemen, with great esteem, your most obedient and most humble servant,

                                                BENJAMIN LINCOLN, JUN'R.

   "First, That the disposal of their property is the inherent right of freemen that there is no property in that which another can of right take from us without our consent; that the claim of Parliament to tax America is, in other words, a claim of right to lay contributions on us at pleasure.

   "Secondly, That the duty imposed by Parliament upon tea landed in America is a tax on the Americans or levying contributions on them without their consent.

   "Thirdly, That the express purpose for which the tax is levied on the Americans, namely, for the support of government and administration of justice, and the defence of his Majesty's dominions in America, has a direct tendency to render assemblies useless, and to introduce arbitrary government and slavery.

   "Fourthly, That a virtuous and steady opposition to the ministerial plan of governing America is necessary, to preserve even a shadow of liberty; and it is a duty which every freeman in America owes to his country, to himself, and to his posterity.

      VOL I-18

   "Fifthly, That the resolution lately come into by the East India Company, to send out their teas to America subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack on the liberties of America.

   "Sixthly, That it is the duty of every American to oppose this attempt.

   "Seventhly, That it affords the greatest satisfaction to the inhabitants of this town to find that his Majesty's subjects in the American colonies, and of this province in particular, are so thoroughly awakened to a sense of their danger, arising from encroachments made on their constitutional rights and liberties, and that so firm a union is established among them; and that they will ever be ready to join their fellow subjects in all laudable measures for the redress of the many grievances we labor under."

   August 17, 1774, the town adopted the following agreement as reported by a committee:--

   "We the subscribers, taking into our serious consideration the present distressed state of America, and in particular of this devoted province, occasioned by several late unconstitutional acts of the British Parliament for taxing Americans without their consent--blocking up the port of Boston--vacating our charter, that solemn compact between the king and the people, respecting certain laws of this province, heretofore enacted by our general court and confirmed by his majesty and his predecessors, we feel ourselves bound, as we regard our inestimable constitution, and the duty we owe to succeeding generations, to exert ourselves in this peaceable way, to recover our lost and preserve our remaining privileges, yet not without grief for the distresses that may hereby be brought upon our brethren in Great Britain. We solemnly covenant and engage to and with each other, viz.: 1st, That we will not import, purchase, or consume, nor suffer any person or persons to, by, for or under us to import, purchase, or consume in any manner whatever, any goods, wares, or merchandise which shall arrive in America, from Great Britain, from and after the first day of October, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four, until our charter and constitutional rights shall be restored; or until it shall be determined by the major part of our brethren in this and the neighboring colonies, that a new importation, or a new consumption agreement will not effect the desired end; or until it shall be apparent that a new importation or new consumption agreement will not be entered into by this and the neighboring colonies, except drugs and medicines and such articles, and such only, as will be absolutely necessary in carrying on our own manufactures.

   "2dly, That in order to prevent, as far as in us lies, any inconveniences that may arise from the disuse of foreign commodities, we agree that we will take the most prudent care for the raising and preserving sheep, flax, &c., for the manufacturing all such woollen and linen cloths as shall be most useful and necessary; and that we will give all possible support and encouragement to the manufactures of America in general."

   In September Colonel Lincoln was chosen to attend a Provincial Congress at Concord, and in October the town" recommended to the militia officers to assemble their men once in a week and instruct them in the art of war, &c." In November the collectors of taxes were directed to pay all moneys collected to Henry Gardner, Esq., of Stow, appointed treasurer by the Provincial Congress.

   December 26 Colonel Lincoln was again sent to the Provincial Congress to be held in Cambridge. January, 1775, the town chose a committee to take into consideration the state of the militia. The members of this committee were Colonel Lincoln, Enoch Lincoln, Jotham Lincoln, Samuel Norton, Jacob Leavitt, Samuel Thaxter, and Seth Stowers; almost every one of whom served in the army subsequently.

   May 24, 1775, Colonel Lincoln was chosen to represent the town in the ProvinciaI Congress then sitting at Watertown; and at the same meeting Benjamin Lincoln, Benjamin Cushing, and David Cushing were chosen a committee to correspond with other towns in the province.

   July 10 Colonel Lincoln was chosen to represent the town in the General Court to be held at Watertown on the 19th agreeably to a resolve of the Continental Congress.

   The following are some of the expenditures of the town in this year 1775 ordered to he paid by Thomas Loring, Treasurer:--

To Jacob Leavitt for making carriage for cannon, timber, &c.           9 0-2
To Capt. Isaiah Cushing Company for exercising as per the Clerk's
        Role made up                                                  4-16-4
To Jacob Leavitt for shop candles, &c., for company                    1-1-7
To John Fearing for timber for the cannon                              0-9-0
To Capt. Jonses Company for Exercising as pr Roll                      2-8-4
To Capt. James Lincolns Company for Exercising and Allowance
        for house Liquor, Candles                                      7-6-4
To Capt. Jotham Loring for his Company Exercising Evenings and
        the allowance for house candles, &c.                         8-0-11½
To Adam Stowell for 4 lb. Ball Led 47 18 lbs Cannon shot @20           0-4-7
To Joshua Leavitt for 38 lb. Cannon Ball @ 2                             6-4
To Jerh Lincoln for part Capt. Jonses Company Exercising house
        room candles, &c.                                              2-0-4
To Enoch Whiton for part his Company Exercising house room
        Candles, &c.                                                  4-11-0
To Theop. Wilder for part of Capt. Whiton Company Exercising
        house room Candles, &c.                                        2-9-8

   Omitting the details of expense, pay, and some other items of little or no interest, an exact copy of the rolls of these companies is here given:--

   A true return of the travel and time of Service of the men under my Command in Col. Benj. Lincoln's Regiment Assembled the 19th April, 1775:--

                Isaiah Cushing, Capt.          Joshua Loring,
                Jacob Leavitt, Lieut.          Othniel Stodder,
                Charles Cushing, Lieut.        David Wilder,
                Jacob Cushing, Jr., Serj.,     Caleb Brimhall,
                Isaac Sprague, Jr.,   "        Thomas Burr, 
                Shubael Fearing,      "        Sam Burr,
                Thos. Jones, Jr.,     "        Benj. Sprague, Jr.,
                Amos Sprague, Corp.,           Sam Lazell,
                David Burr,    "                   Fearing,
                John Blossom,  "               Thomas King,
                John Burr, Jr.  "              Jos. Leavitt,
                Levi Burr, Drum,               Benj. Barnes, Jr.,
                Peter Hersey,"                 Benj. Cushing, Jr. 
                John Lincoln,                  Jared Lane,
                Seth Briggs,                   Jacob Thaxter,
                Sam Leavitt,                   Abner Loring. 
                David Sprague,
                                                        ISAIAH CUSHING.

Suffolk SS.
   Decem. 11, 1775. Then Capt. Isaiah Cushing Subscriber to this Roll personally made oath to the truth of it.

                                        Col, BENJ. LINCOLN, Jus. peace.

        Examined and compared with the original. 
                                                Edwd Rawson }
                                                Jonas Dix   }  Com.

   The other rolls have similar indorsements.
   It appears also from details not here given in full, that this company was in service three days at this time, and travelled thirty-six miles.

   A true return of the travel and time of Service of those men under my command in Col. Benj. Lincoln's Regiment assembled the 19th of April, A. D. 1775.            JAMES LINCOLN.

                James Lincoln, Captn.         Jere Hersey, Jr.,
                Isaac Lincoln, 1st Lieut.,    Gilb Hersey,
                Nath Lincoln, 2d     "        Step Lincoln,
                Joseph Beal,    Sergt.,       Bela Stowell,
                Knight Sprague,   "           David Beal, Jr.
                Heman Lincoln,    "           Jesse Dunbar,
                Noah Hersey,      "           Jona
                Elijah Beal,     Corp.        Benj Beal,
                Tho. Marsh, Jr.,  "  '        Jona Lincoln,
                Isaiah Lincoln,   "           Royall Lincoln,
                Bradford Hersey,  "           Jesset Bates,
                Zadock Hersey, Drum,          Joseph Blake,
                Reub Hersey,   Fife,          John Hobart,
                Jas Lincoln, Jr.,"            Isaiah Hersey,
                Tho. Waterman, Jr,            Nathan Stodder,
                Tho. Marsh,                   Japhet Hobart,
                Jacob Beal,                   John Souther,
                Zerub Hersey,                 John Beal,
                Abijah Hersey,                Levi Lincoln,
                Thos Stoddard,                Jere Lincoln,
                Jacob Stoddard,               Sam Todd,
                Barna Lincoln,                Nat Fearing. 
                Josh Stowell,

   This company was in service thirteen days and travelled thirty-six miles "from and to home."

   A true return of the travel and time of Service of the men under my Command in Colo Benja Lincolns Regt Assembled 19 April, 1775 :--

                Enoch Whiton, Capt.,         Josiah Lane, 2 Lieut.,
                Theop. Wilder, Lieut.,       Elias Whiton, Serg.,

(Pages 209-300), (pages 301-325), (pages 326-374) of History of Hingham1893