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UNIV. OF MASSACHUSETTS/AMHERST
LIBRARY

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74
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CARD

IRarrative Ibistor^

OF THE

TOWN OF COHASSET

MASSACHUSETTS

E. VICTOR BIGELOW

Pastor of the Secoiid Congregational Church

PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

tTbe Committee on ^own Ibistore

1898

975
n3Qx

COPYRIGHTKD 1898

BY E. Victor Bigelow

Press of Samuel Usher,
Boston, Mass.

DEDICATED

^0 m^g iParcnts

FOR ALL GOOD BEGINNINGS, AND

XLo \m "^ife

WHO CONTINUES EVERY GOOD INFLUENCE, AND WHOSE ANCESTORS

FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS IN THIS TOWN HAVE BEEN

HONORED BY HER HELP IN WRITING

THIS BOOK

CO
CD

^be Zovon Seal

Adopted November 5, 1898.

Explanation. — The scene with its ledges and breakers illustrates the meaning
of the word Cohasset — " A-Iong-rocky-place."

Minot Lighthouse and White Head are shown with two old fishing scliooners
at the entrance of the harbor.

The three buildings, Town Hall, Osgood School, and First Church, symbolize
the three functions of town life — the municipal, the educational, and the religious.

The town had never adopted a seal, and the Committee on Town History
recommended this one devised by the author of this book, after modifying it in
some details.

INTRODUCTION.

THE earliest action toward the writing of this history occurred at
the annual town meeting of March 5, 1894, when, in accord-
ance with an article previously inserted in the warrant, the following
persons were appointed as a Committee on Town History : —

Rev. Joseph Osgood, D.D. Dr. Oliver H. Howe.

Newcomb B. Tower. E. Pomeroy Collier.

Aaron Pratt, Esq. Rev. E. Victor Bigelow.

The Committee were authorized to fill vacancies and to add to their
number if deemed expedient. At the first meeting, held appropriately
on Patriots' Day, 1894, Rev. Dr. Osgood was chosen Chairman and
Dr. Oliver H. Howe, Secretary. By vote of the Committee, Ira B.
Pratt and George W. Collier were added to their number, making
eight in all. The early meetings were spent in examining various
old maps and records and in rehearsing many traditions of early
times. Of plans for the writing of a history, we had none; but
as the next best thing, we set ourselves to the task of collecting
materials which could be used later by whoever should write the
history. We recorded every tradition or reminiscence that seemed to
be of value and secured documents and maps. We also started a
collection of historical relics, which, by the courtesy of the Trustees
of the Public Library, we were allowed to place in their reading-room.
This collection has grown in variety and interest and we hope it will
be permanently kept, both as an instructive exhibit of implements
of former times and as a repository for family relics that might
otherwise become forgotten or lost. The town has provided the
Committee with a room in the new fireproof vault where any docu-
ments that are precious for family association may be deposited for
safe-keeping.

The Committee repeatedly considered the matter of finding some one
who would undertake the task of constmcting a narrative of the town
from the materials obtainable. There seemed to be nobody in the
town willing to undertake so serious a work, and the Committee thought
it unwise to employ an outsider for the purpose.

At length, in September, 1896, much to our satisfaction. Rev. Mr.
Bigelow volunteered to write the history, which is herewith submitted.
He has read the whole work to the Committee, chapter by chapter,

VI INTRODUCTION.

thus having the benefit of suggestions throughout. Entering into the
work with unbounded enthusiasm, he has wrought with painstaking
thoroughness, exhausting all documentary sources of information,
delving with rare tact into the early experiences of the oldest inhab-
itants now living, and giving to the combined product a vivid and
romantic portrayal.

The Committee record with deep sorrow the death of their honored
Chairman, Rev. Joseph Osgood, .d.d., on August 2, 1898. Dr. Osgood
felt the keenest interest in the work of the Committee, and especially in
the preparation of this history. His lifelong association with the
town and his devotion to its moral and intellectual advancement made
this work very dear to his heart. He attended every step of its
production with careful oversight, and it was one of the satisfactions
of his last days to have a part in the writing of the history, which he *
himself, in his fifty-six years here, had been a large factor in making.

We mourn his loss and sorely regret that he could not live to see
the publication of the history ; but he has jjassed to his reward, and his
faithful, earnest, steadfast life will ever be held in grateful remembrance
by the people of Cohasset, with whose lives his own was so intimately
associated.

Under the new Chairman, the work of the Committee has been con-
tinued and the details of publication have been carried out. The com-
pletion of this history should not be regarded as the end of all historical
work in the town. It ought i-ather to result in an awakening of the
public mind to the value of all particulars of our local history. IVIany
of the older residents in reading the book will probably recall to mind
other occurrences not yet recorded. These should form the subjects
of short articles or sketches and be given to the public through the
newspapers or otherwise. The Committee will endeavor to have all
such matters brought forward, and will also care for the collection of
historical relics and carefully preserve such documents of historical
value as from time to time are found.

Another important work for the future is the production of a com-
prehensive genealogy of the town. This branch of the work has
already been committed to competent hands, but it will be a laborious
task for several years, and the cordial support of the town, already
given, will be relied upon to carry this to completion.

The Committee desire to give public expression of their gratitude to
all those who have furnished them with documents and other historical
data, who have contributed to the collection of relics, or who, by their

* Those interested in the career of this venerable pastor will find an interesting
account in the volume published in 1892, entitled A Fifty Years' Pastorate, being
a report of his fiftieth anniversary.

INTRODUCTION. VU

kindly interest and Iielpful suggestions, have facilitated the production

of this work.

With the iiope of increasing and gratifying the historical impulse

among our people, we respectfully submit this, the first history of the

town of Cohasset.

NEWCOMB B. TOWER, Chairman,
OLIVER H. HOWE, Secretary,
AARON PRATT,
IRA B. PRATT,
E. P. COLLIER,
GEORGE W. COLLIER,
Afenibers of Committee on Town History.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

A FEW remarks, more personal and confidential than would be
appropriate in the body of this book, ou(i;ht to be made. Be-
fore this attempt to give the story of our town's life, almost no histor-
ical account had been undertaken. Rev. Jacob Flint's " Two Century
Discourses" had been written in the year 1821 ; but the nature of a
sermon could scarcely permit the introduction of much matter of his-
torical value. Fifty years later, 1870, at the celebration of the first
century of town life, Hon. Thomas Russell, of Boston, delivered an
oration remarkably full of picturesque events gathered from the public
records; but a single address was of course inadequate for a town his-
tory. Of late years a number of towns have indulged the instinct for
reminiscing by publishing their own biographies, but this town for
many years has had no one willing to become its historian, and even
ROW, but for the urgency of Samuel T. Snow, this writing would not
have been commenced.

The hand of an alien might well hesitate to record the private affairs
of a conservative New England town, but it is hoped that a spirit of
fairness and his admiration for the town may be relied upon to make
up his deficiency in blood connection. Coming to this picturesque
village from the outside world, it has been the writer's fortune to be
received into the inside confidence of many hearts. It has been a
labor of love to learn from those who have had the experience of living
some of the deep f.icts of life, and to narrate some of the circumstances
of former lives in this community.

While the pleasure of this has been constant, the labor has been
heavy and continuous for two or three years. No pathway into the
mass of historical documents had ever been opened. In fact, only the
meagerest collection of manuscripts could be found in the town's
archives, while private diaries and stories and other such memorials
were almost wholly wanting. It is regretted that no larger amount of
literary or historic bent has ever been shown by the inhabitants of
Cohasset, but some valuable docuinentary work has been done. New-
comb B. Tower a number of years ago copied many items from the
town records of Hingham which concerned Cohasset in the early days
when both were one. Many years ago Elisha Doane and his son,
James C. Doane, gathered some interesting documents which they
preserved. The late Joseph Osgood, d.d., kept an ancient map and a
copy of Parson Hobart's diary. Alexander Williams, some twenty

X THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

years ago, took the trouble of securing the inscriptions upon our cem-
etery gravestones. The late Col. T. W. Clarke made valuable re-
searches into the subject of early divisions of land. These and others
made some commendable efforts at gathering and preserving historical
data; but many are the papers and tax lists and old account books,
valuable beyond estimate, which have been lost.

Many trips to Boston have been required to obtain information at the
State archives, where reports of our fisheries and documents concern-
ing the wars had been rescued from the tide of destruction. At the
Custom House day after day had to be spent in gleaning over many
thousands of enrollments and registers to find out what vessels were
built or owned here. Searching among old deeds at the Registry and
old wills in the Probate Office in the Court House at Boston has
brought to light some interesting details, but no one ever may know
the delving in monotonous documents that was fruitless or the labor
lost in following wrong scents.

But how will the result of it all be judged.? No doubt some persons
will feel much disappointed ; so is the author. No doubt some will
say, " Our grandfathers ought to have been named at such a place;"
and probably they are right. Information which has been solemnly
guaranteed to the author by one will be point-blank denied by some
reader who is sure he knows better; but the author has surrendered
the claim of accuracy. He has become fortified by this brazen humil-
ity while seriously endeavoring to be fair and fairly thorough.

The ground covered has been from the beginning of our geological
existence up to the moment of this pen mark ; but the details of the
early settlers' careers have been more emphasized than some later
events. In fact, so much has been neglected in some periods that the
author has almost wished he had time to write another book of equal
size upon the points neglected in this. For the scientific accuracy of
matters presented in the geological chapters the author has had the
privilege of recourse to Prof. W. O. Crosby, of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Both chapters have been submitted to him,
and having his approval the author feels fairly secure from blunders in
those scientific matters. The geological reader is referred to Professor
Crosby's own books upon the Boston Basin for more complete treat-
ment of the subject. There are spots in the book which ought to be
rewritten to be accurate and lucid, and other generations following us
may find it necessary to recast the whole story which we have molded ;
but sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Many important account books and other historical data have been
collected by the author and his associates and have been placed in the
town's new tireproof vault with the fond hope of making some future

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. XI

historian happy. The town has cordially fathered our enterprise from
the day we asl<ed a Committee on Town History to be appointed until
now, when that Committee has drawn twelve hundred dollars from the
treasury to pay for printing this volume. Since the author began his
series of interviews with people whose memories were filled with help-
ful information, many of them have been taken from this life. The
latest loss was the venerable Chairman of our Committee, Rev. Joseph
Osgood, D.D., whose interest in this narrative had been most cordially
shown as the successive chapters, until nearly the last, were read in
his presence. It is a source of gratification to those who loved him
that his long career of usefulness devoted to the moral and intellectual
well-being of the town was finished in so appropriate a service as his
work for the town's history. The other members of the Committee
have aided very much by criticism and by suggestion, and sjDCcial men-
tion should be made of the fiiithful service of the Secretary, Dr. Oliver
H. Howe.

It would be impossible to name all the persons who have helped the
author generously in his search for facts ; indeed any mention of them
would be unfair to the larger number who have been more than ready
to help in the same way if called upon. The days of tramping over
pastures and through the woods with his friends, the author can never
forget. The bits of information given to him by men from their own
observations upon nature have been a constant surprise. If the facts
noted down in these pages are of a kind that interest the author more
than the reader, it is because of his mental limits that have kept him
to the things which appeal to his own peculiar nature. Several themes,
however, as the customs of dress, of language, of amusement, of work,
and the like, which appeal to the author, have been neglected because
so fev*r secure facts were obtainable in these lines. Many anecdotes of
individuals like those of Deacon Isaiah Litchfield and of Dr. Ezekiel
Pratt would have made interesting reading, but an appropriate place
for them could not be found in this brief narrative. It would be a
permanent source of enjoyment and information if a series of these
anecdotes could be committed to paper before they are forgotten.

In asking his townspeople to be considerate where he has been
remiss, the author relies upon a kindness which he has found to be
imbedded in the hearts of these people, and he hereby acknowledges
his debt of gratitude to all. If it can be done wUhout making a dis-
tinction that is invidious, he desires to acknowledge his special obli-
gation to the church of which he has the honor to be pastor for any
good work which he may have accomplished in the past seven years;
for they trusted him when a stranger, and they have supported him
with unstinted heart and hand through every work he has undertaken.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
What and Where i

Rocky Shore — Cooting — Yachting — Jerusalem Road — Granite
Wall — Livelihood — Churches — Old and New.

CHAPTER H.

Making the Rock Bottom • lo

Uneven Rock Surface — Granite forming in the Earth's Bowels —
Three Kinds — Dikes — Faul tings.

CHAPTER in.
How the Soil came 31

The Glacier — Its Formation, its Movement — Scratches — Drumlins

— Indian Pot — Tipling Rocks — Punch Bowl — The Ridges.

CHAPTER IV.
Clothed with Vegetation 54

Snow Alga and Seaweed — Lichens — Mosses — Ferns — Funguses

— The Coming of the Forests — Grasses — Trees — Shrubs.

CHAPTER V.
The Aborigines 69

Prehistoric Life — Stone Axes, Knives, Sinkers, etc. — The Algonquin
Tribes — Camps by our Shore — Gookin's Description — Winslow on
their Religion — The Indians' Yearly Program.

CHAPTER VI.
The " Quonahassit " Pioneers 93

Early Wanderers — John Smith's Discovery of our Harbor, 1614 —
Meaning of Name Cohasset — The First Appearance on a Map —
From Old Hingham to New — Our Marsh Hay — Pasture for
Hingham — The Mihtia Rebellion.

xiv CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.
A Bone of Contention 119

Natural Boundary — Encroachments for Hay — Orders by Plymouth
Court and by Massachusetts Court — The Commissioners' Boundary —
Endicott and Bradford — Threescore Acres — Laying them out.

CHAPTER VIII.

Dividing the Land I34

The Marshes First — Three Divisions — Indian Deed — Dividing
Uplands — Joshua Fisher, Surveyor — Drawing Shares — First Di-
vision — Second — Third — Highways.

CHAPTER IX.
The First Homes 158

No Log Huts — Saw-pit Boards — Cornelius Canterbury — King
PhiHp's War — Daniel Lincoln — Mordecai Lincoln — John Jacob
and his Bridge at Cold Spring — Ibrook Tower — Aaron Pratt —
Wolf Pits.

CHAPTER X.
The Autonomy of a Precinct 182

Remoteness of Cohasset Settlers — Attending Church in Hingham —
Demand for Church of their Own — Industries growing — Demand
refused — Effort to be set off as a Precinct — Granted by General
Court of Massachusetts, 171 7 — Ministers — Church Covenant —
Dame Schools — School Money.

CHAPTER XI.
" An Highway shall be There and a Way " 204

Wretched Roads — Fisher's Highways — Indian Trails — Landings

— Beechvvood Street — Main Street — Jerusalem Road — Elm
Street — Encroachments — Wood Roads, etc.

CHAPTER XII.

Industries and Firesides 219

Poverty and Ingenuity — Sheep Shearing — Spinning — Flax and
Linen — Tanning — Shoemakers — Food — " Rye 'n' Injun " — Pies

— Corned Beef — Killings — Calf's Head and Pluck — Fish — Early
Fishermen — Cheese — Butter — Soft Soap — Candles — Cider —
Church Services — Physicians — Diphtheria Scourge, 1735 — Ceme-
teries— A Wedding — A List of Personal Property, 1749.

CONTENTS. XV

CHAPTER XIII.
Separation from Hingham 247

Growth of the Community — Thirty Fishing Vessels — Sawmill and
Corn Mills — The Homes of that Time now Standing — Petition of
Precinct to be made a Town — Refusals, Petitions, Counter-
petitions — Success at last, 1770 — The Charter of Town — List of
Taxpayers of 1771.

CHAPTER XIV.
The Revolutionary War 277

Wars Preceding the Revolution — Capture of Louisburg — French
Reduction — William Pitt Medal — Tea Party — Battle of Lexington

— Cohasset Company — Bunker Hill — Persis Tower — Dorchester
Heights — Capture of English Brig — Diary of Ambrose Bates —
Not Worth a Continental — Surrender of Cornwallis.

CHAPTER XV.
Recuperating During the First Years of the Republic .... 311

Financial Embarrassment— Rev. John Brown's Diary — Vessels —
Doane's Mil — Wreck of Gertrude Maria, 1793 — Shipbuilding

— P'ish Packing — Foreign Voyages — Tanneries — Little Harbor
Meadows.

CHAPTER XVI.
The Militia and the War of 1812 335

Early Trainbands — Continental Army — Militiamen of Cohasset,
1808 — British Embargo and Kidnapping — The Little United States
Navy — British threaten Cohasset — i-ieut. Thomas Stoddard's
Account — Peace Celebration — Militia, continued till 1840.

CHAPTER XVII.
The Town's Church and its Divorce 356

Town at first supplied Religious Function — Pastor, Janitor, Deacons,
Singers, etc. — Methodist Church at North Cohasset, 181 8 — Division
at the Center — Second Church organized, 1824 — Unitarians —
Church divorced from Town.

CHAPTER XVIII.
School Progress and the Academy 373

Dame Schools — Master — First Schoolhouse — Navigation —
Beechwood School — Jerusalem — Studies — Quill Pens, etc. —
King Street School — Districts — Academy — Proprietors and Pu-
pils— Centralizing Government — High School.

XVI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIX.
The Fishing Industry 395

Early Codhshing — Mackerel — Pinkies — List of Vessels built from
181 1 to 1819 — Foreign Freighters — List of Mackerel Schooners,
1819 — Prices of Mackerel, etc. — I )eiailed Account of a Ushing
Trip — Packing the Pish — Salt-making

CHAPTER XX.
The Fishing Industry (continued) 419

More Shipbuilding, 1S19-37 — 1883 — Banner Year for Mackerel,
1848 — The Portuguese Newcomers — Wreck of the Maine —
Fishing Business Waning — Dead.

CHAPTER XXL
Stagecoach, Packet, and Railway 435

Mail Carrying — Sciluale and Boston Stage — Hingbani Boats —
Jerusalem Road Stage — The First Wagon — Packets — The Forty-
niners — Foreign Packeling — South Shore Railroad — The Cele-
bration — New York, New Haven & Hartford.

CHAPTER XXH.
Wrecks, Wrecking, and Minot Light 455

Wrecks One Hundred Years Ago — The Gulf Tragedy — Under-
writers' Agents — Wrecking, Spanish Frigate — List of Losses —
Minot Leage — Wreck of the Immigrant Vessel St. John — Tho-
reau's Account — The Iron Lighthouse — Building the Stone Light-
house — Recent Wrecks.

CHAPTER XXIII.
The Civil War 483

Abraham Lincoln's Cohasset Ancestry — Cohasset Slaves — South-
ern Sympathizers — First Enlistments — After Bull Run — Heavy
Artillery Men — Engineers, Sappers, and Miners — Navy Enlist-
ments— Three-year Enlistments — Nine Months' Call — Gettysburg

— More Navy and Army Enlistments — Women at Home scraping
Lint.

CHAPTER XXIV.
Up to Date 505

Story of Churches to Date — Methodist — Unitarian — Congrega-
tional — Beech wood — Catholic — Episcopal — Some Comparisons

— Schools — Building the Osgood School — Washington Library —
Debating Societies — Free Public Library — Waterworks — Sum-
mer Residents — Electric Lights — Recent Driveways — Changes to
come — Suburban Destiny.

APPENDIX.
Botany of the Town. A Partial List, by Miss Priscilla L. Collier . 541

ILLUSTRATIONS

Cohasset Railway Station Frontispiece

The " Stern aii'l Rock-bound Coast " 2

One Day's Bag of Coots for Four Men 4

Great Diabase Dike, Jerusalem Road 21

Gap on Windmill Point 23

Dike at White Head 24

Glacial Scratches . 36

Shell Fragments 39

Indian Pot 42

Tipling Rock 44

Bigelow Bowlder 45

Rooster Rock 46

Ode's Den 47

Burbank Bowlder 48

BlacUler Rockweed 55

Bladder Rockweed, Magnified 55

Bladder Rockweed upon Windmill Point 56

Little IIarl)or 64

The Pines, Howe's Road 67

Indian Stone Sinkers 71

Indian Stone Bobs 72

Squaw's Knife 82

Spearheads, Knife Blade 87, 90, 91

Captain John Smith 95

Wintinop Map (South Shore) loo

Haying, Eleazer's Lane 112

Wooden Bridge at the Gulf 124

Hominy Point and Bassing Beach 128

Map of Division of Lands, Rocky Nook 157

Old Souther Home 160

Turtle Island Sawmill 168

Squire Pratt's Office 174

Old Curiosity Shop 177

Settle and Flax Wheel 180

Where the Sea Lashes the Rock 186

" When Winter's Snowy Pinions Shake the White Down in the Air " . 197

Mouth of Little Harbor in Winter 201

The Pioneer's Chariot 204

Panorama of Elm Street 206, 207

The New State Road in Great Swamp 215

Plan of Southern Boundary of Town 217

Beginning of a Logbook 228

C'ut of Ship from Nathaniel Nichols' Notebook 229

Cheese Press, etc 232

Ready for Church One Hundred Years Ago 238

Mystery Millstone 251

Lincoln Homestead 254

XVll

XVIU ILL USTRA TIONS.

Home of the Late Rev. Joseph Osgood 255

Petition for Precinct Meeting, Facsimile, etc 262, 263

WiUiam Fitt Medal 282

Military Hat and Cartridge Box of Revolutionary Soldiers 291

Leaf from Diary of Ambrose Bates 301

Continental Money, Fifty-dollar Bill 305

Continental Money, Four-dollar Bill . ; 306

First Map of the Town made for the State 315

South Main Street 317

North Main Street 327

Joel Willcutt's Cobbling Shop 329

Cunningham Bridge 331

A Certihcate of American Citizenship 340

Home of Deacon Bourne 348

Summer Street in Winter 351

First Parish Pulpit 366

Methodist Church 368

Congregational Church 371

A Problem in Navigation 376

Interior Plan of the P'irst Beechwood School 378

Academy Desk, 1830 385

Winter Scene from Sunset Rock 388

Codfishing off the Banks 396

Hull of a Pinky, 1820 399

Map, 1852, showing Salt Works 414

Mackerel Schooner of 1850 421

Map of Wharves, in Fishing Days 427

Mackerel Schooner of 1875 433

James House Fifty Years Ago 436

Old Black Rock House, 1850 439

Head of the Cove, 1898 443

First Cohasset Station 448

Onset of a Wave, Pleasant Beach 453

Ice Boating on the Gulf 457

The Old Iron Lighthouse on Minot Ledge 470

Shaping Lighthouse Stones on Government Island 472

Sections of the Lighthouse 475, 478, 479, 480

Minot Light Half Grown 477

Cohasset Common (about 1840) 485

Lily Pond 492

Pleasant Beach 498

Beechvi^ood Congregational Church 508

St. Anthony's Church (Roman Cathohc) 510

Osgood School 517

Plan of Water Works in the Pick 526

Profile of Daniel Webster 528

Cohasset Savings Bank 533

Walnut Angle, Aldrich Estate 534

Colonel Pope's Residence, Jerusalem Road 537

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

CHAPTER I.

WHAT AND WHERE.

TT would be a species of impertinence to the majority of
the readers of this narrative if one should tell where
Cohasset is by the number of miles from some other
place. Here is their home ; and a long row of ancestors,
born and buried here for two hundred years, establishes
this as the starting point from which they locate all other
places, but which itself needs no locating.

But there are other homes besides this ; so for the sake
of them and of the much-traveled cosmopolitan, Cohasset
may be admitted to be distant from Boston fifteen miles
southeastward as the coot flies, but as the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railway meanders along the coast
twenty-two miles.

The blue waters of Massachusetts Bay cast their white
spray upon its rocky shore. If the long peninsula of
Cape Cod be legitimately pictured as a bended arm of
defense against the fierce Atlantic, then Cohasset is
the shoulder receiving the merciless waves that roll in
above the reach of that arm.

To the mariner of the world-swathing sea, we are
naught but a sign of danger and of death ; for the gleam
of Minot's Lighthouse, rising out of the dark sea, is a
warning most solemn of the treacherous ledges that fringe
our shore.

These rocks spread like a network to catch the unwary.
Nearly every ledge has crushed with its jagged teeth the
ribs of some luckless craft. The splinters and remnants

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

of scores of wrecks throughout two centuries and a half
have strewn these beaches.

Many a corpse, far from its native land, has been cast
up, and has lain, rolled in blankets of seaweed like a mock
burial in the sand, until the pitying hands of men have
brought it to a respectable grave.

When the northeast hurricane shrieks among the shreds
of a shivering ship, Minot's Light tells the seaman that

Photo, Miss Annie Hartwell.

The " Stern and Rock-bound Coast."

Cohasset is the one place in this world where he does not
wish to go.

But the sea, not the shore, is at fault ; for when the
waters are persuaded to be still, and the light of a summer
sun glows pink and gray and green upon the granite edge
of our grassy groves, there is no sweeter beauty to be
found. The denizens of many a baking city have fled to
this summer retreat and have bathed their lungs with its
salt air and ozone. To them the name of Jerusalem Road
is the synonym of a unique shore drive along three or four

JVHA T AND WHERE. 3

miles of Macadam at the rim of the water, where every
short turn throws before the eye a new scene of petite
beauty like the surprise of a kaleidoscope.

The carriage drives, both sylvan and seaside, are not yet
invaded by the lumbering cars of the trolley witch, and
they invite the luxurious vehicles drawn by well-muscled
roadsters to bowl along their curves. If the shades of the
ancient ox cart and of the antique two-wheeled chaise are
uneasy in jealousy of their modern successors, the blame
is to be laid upon the beauty* of the place that invited the
change.

Everywhere towards Boston, our market place, the neigh-
boring shore, except Nantasket, is marred by mud flats and
by lazy tide wash. Towards the south are cliffs of gravel
and long beaches. Here only are those massive rocks
along the shore which push off the mighty sea, and which
everywhere inland lift their heads above the greensward
like sphinxes shaking off the soil.

For geologists, our uneven surface, made up of water-
worn ledges with gravel deposits and drumlins and kettle
holes, is an important chapter for study. For them, the
long wall of solid granite with which we oppose the sea at
our northern verge is a lower jaw that has crunched the
rock deposits of Boston basin through millions of years.

The strata of pudding stone and of lava which once,
aeons ago, lay level in that basin, are crumpled and sadly
tumbled by the pressure of this granite jaw against its
northern counterpart.

But a nearer history than these geological cycles finds
here a pregnant page.

*The town has long been conscious of the beauty of its landscape. The people
have been well aware also of an unusual degree of beauty in many of their
maidens' faces, as the following local ditty will indicate : —

" Cohasset for beauty,
Hingham for pride.
If not for its herring
Wevmouth had died."

4

HISTORY OF con ASSET.

When the coast of New England first received the tides
of European immigration, the two settlements, Plymouth
at the south and Massachusetts at the north, came to-
gether at Cohasset harbor. Just as two tides meeting
each other make a choppy disturbance of the water called
the tide rip, so the expansive movement of these two
colonies made a line of disturbance that happens to be the
southern boundary of Cohasset. The account of this con-
tention, with its rich historical associations, will be a sub-
ject for perusal some pages further on ; but the importance
of that event lends interest to our town which increases
with time.

Not all, however, who are interested in this place have
the animus of history ; there are many who find sporting
the cause of their quest. From times long before Daniel
Webster snapped his gun at a coot flying along our north-

R^^U i—L, — !_

mw^

-»-■ jC^'

# .v. %

^Mk:-- y .-Mk'Ji h ^

Photo, M. H. Rean

One Day's Bag of Coots for Four Men'.

IVHA T AiVD WHERE. 5

ern shore down to the present day, gunning has been
good here. In the fall of the year, when storms drive
them from their northern feeding grounds, these birds, the
CEdeviia perspicillata, 3.x\d several other kinds journey to
the south along our way.

The incessant popping of guns in the early morning an-
nounces to the distant villagers that flocks of these black
feathered and gray birds are stopped in their flight by the
lead pellets of some boatmen anchored near their decoys.

Birds varying in size from a peep to a wild goose make
game for sporting men, and constitute a feature of the
town.

But sporting birds of another style, with white wings
after the model of Burgess or of Herreshoff, gather in
flocks within our narrow harbor, many of them bearing
the colors of the Cohasset Yacht Club. From the dignity
of an international racer like the Shadow, down to the
flit-about "half-raters," they all bring thoughts and men to
the theme of Cohasset.

But these playthings, neat and smart, are a modern
parody of the sober commerce of former 3'ears, when
fleets of sloops and schooners warped their heavy hulks
up to the various wharves, and poured out merchandise or
mackerel or codfish in countless quintals.

These ocean carrier birds are long since extinct, and
now have only the province of memory to themselves.
The wharves have been toppling one by one into the sea,
and the few that are left sigh for the friends and the
burdens of former years.

And if the fishes as well as wharves could reminisce,
they would ponder upon modern depravity ; for in the
good old days of their ancestors, there was a familiar jour-
ney for them up the channel of the Gulf and on up the
fresh water of Bound Brook, where the spawn could be
laid. But now the fish that swim the old way are a meager
mess.

6 HISTORY OF con ASSET.

Not SO badly off are the lobsters ; for these crawling
insects of the sea are still in large companies upon the
sandy plateaus under water between the ledges outside the
harbor. They find scores of little cages with food inside
left there by the fishermen, and so they crawl in to dine.
Fatal is their temerity ; for they are soon drawn up to be
cooked in boiling caldrons for many dainty dishes in dis-
tant towns. So the epicure loves us for our red crusta-
ceans. But whether for beauty of landscape, or for small
taxes, or for coots, or for anything else, it is good to be
loved.

This little town, with a population of 2,474, and an
assessed value of $5,293,371, with its third-class post office
and its second-class lighthouse, has undergone many
changes since the axe of the pioneers first resounded
among its wooded hills.

Some of the most rapid of these changes are occurring
now, for within the last decade or more this community
has been caught in the spreading environs of its neighbor-
ing metropolis, Boston, and is being steadily transformed
from an ancient New England sea town into a modern
suburb.

It will be perhaps of a broader than local interest to
trace the movement of life in its evolution at this locality.
From the first crude methods of coaxing a livelihood out
of wild nature to the present complex employments,
there is a series of significant changes. Life was at first
a hunt for game and a labor for crops. It afterwards be-
came a community of farmers who gained more than a
living, so that a surplus was bestowed upon social life.
Still later the products of the community became great
enough to overflow into the world's markets, when cargoes
of fish were salted and shipped for consumers upon oppo-
site sides of the globe.

The life of this community thus became functional to
the world's commerce. But later this stream of produce

IVHA T AND WHERE. 7

dried up, and the life of the place found wholly new chan-
nels for flowing into the sea of humanity. The coming of
a railroad invited first individuals, then streams of them,
to pour into the great city where the productive power
of the community is applied immediately to the world's
machinery. One hundred families, at a low estimate,
are thus directly engaged in urban industries. As many
as forty families gain their livelihood as employees of the
railroad, while the remainder supply these and the sum-
mer resorters with the necessary services of life. At
first, nearly everything consumed or used in the commu-
nity was made here ; but that self-sufficiency has long
since gone. In its place there is an importation of all
needed supplies, while the money to buy them is earned
for the larger part outside of the town.

Besides this general movement of life, there are specific
features whose development is worth considering. The
schools, for example, were nothing but the hard experi-
ences of life at first ; then came the dame schools, scantily
paid for scant instruction, and then the grammar school
and the high school. Private schools and public schools
have both flourished as the special means of coaxing the
intellects of the young into a useful activity. The system
to-day, having a central building to which the children
radiate from every part of the township, includes an in-
struction very different from the crude methods of the
past ; and yet it is but the natural development of all that
preceded it.

Furthermore, there is to be traced the religious life of
the community, in which the loftiest ideals of the people
have found their exercise and their culture.

The church was at first the property and function of
the entire community. For a whole century it remained
so, giving all the people an undivided property interest in
the town's minister ; but the time came when the agonies
of parturition arose. For differences in faith and for per-

8 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

sonal predilections the community became divided. The
church was no longer the town's church ; but each of
several churches became a center of devotion for separate
elements of the people. The unity once broken was yet
further divided, until now our system of spiritual machin-
ery has six churches.

The old meeting-house still stands upon the public com-
mon where the precinct placed it. The name which dis-
tinguishes it from its modern companions is Unitarian.
The Second Congregational Church is near it, and a half
mile away the Roman Catholic edifice gathers a numerous
flock. An Episcopal Church, organized within the past
two years, dwells at a friendly distance between. Two
others, a Congregational Church in Beechwood and a
Methodist Church at the northern part of the town, sup-
ply the religious life of the people who dwell at a distance
from the center.

The causes that have brought about these ecclesiastical
changes, indeed all the phenomena of religious life dis-
cernible in the history of this community, invite our minds
to athoughtful review of them.

One of the noticeable characteristics of the town is the
mixture of things crude and ancient with things of a
modern, up-to-date air. For example, an old town pump
stands in our street not far from a hydrant of the latest
public water system ; old kerosene lamp posts no longer
used are looked down upon by incandescent bulbs of
electricity ; houses whose every timber and moulding
were made by hand from the logs of our own woods
are in yards adjoining the luxurious dwellings of modern
architecture.

These and various other contrasts are apparent through-
out the town. The most prominent feature of the town,
that by which we are most widely known in the world, is
Jerusalem Road, along which so many delightful summer
homes have been built overlooking the sea.

WHAT AND WHERE. 9

No book or bit of literature has ever given us a place
in the world's fame. No public man of national impor-
tance has ever made this place conspicuous before our
nation. No historical event has ever transpired here
which has called the attention of historians. Neverthe-
less, for those whose home it is, there is no place more
important ; and the romance of both nature and human
life which may be told of this spot is doubtless able to
catch the sympathetic hearing of many who are not too
busy with other parts of the world.

CHAPTER 11.

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM.

THE narrative of Cohasset may well commence with
the romance of rock. The making of its rock
foundation is a story that nature has recorded so honestly
and so minutely that men may read what events occurred
here millions of years ago.

There is nothing so old in the town as the rock ledges
that push up their elbows and their shoulders at haphazard
places everywhere. They toe the edge of our streets,
make backs for houses to rest upon, and lift their heads
for observatories, like Sunset Rock.

Not only at the jutting-out points, but underlying every
inch of soil is the solid rock bottom.

People find it when digging down to make their cellars
or their wells. The roadmakers find it when they grade
down the streets. Every one may find it who will take
the pains to lift off the garment of soil that has been
spread in layers and in heaps upon it.

Like flesh upon a bony skeleton, the soil has clothed the
rock, hiding many deep crevices and rounding over many
jagged ledges ; but everywhere the same kind of rock is
to be found spreading under the town.

The deepest probing to find rock bottom has been done
in the meadow called the Picle,* near by the Pumping
Station, where the well-borers found forty feet in depth of
clay and sand and gravel upon that basin of rock. Forty
feet below the grass in that place means thirty-three feet
lower than the sea level, and it is fairly safe to assume

' * Pronounced by pi^ople liere Pi'kl.

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM. II

that the solid rock surface is nowhere in town much farther
below our daily vision than this in the Picle.

The highest point of solid rock is in the southwestern
part of the town, near the Hingham line, not far from
Doane Street. There the height of about one hundred
and thirty feet abov^e sea level is attained by the uneven
granite floor. From thirty-three feet below to one hun-
dred and thirty feet above the mean water line gives a
maximum undulation of one hundred and sixty-three feet.
Assuming the town to be two and a half miles wide, the
greatest unevenness would be only one eightieth of the
breadth of the town.

It will be readily seen, therefore, that the rock bottom,
in spite of all its ledges and its channels, comes propor-
tionately much nearer being smooth than an ordinary door-
step or the palm of one's hand.

But, smooth or rough, according to the standard of es-
timate assumed, the course of events which made it what
it is may be partially narrated.

It will be noticed that the rock is granite at almost
every point where it crops out, and granite is a kind of
rock which cannot be formed except under immense pres-
sure and in the presence of confined moisture. If a piece
of it were to be melted in a crucible it could never become
granite again upon cooling, but only a glassy lump of
slag ; for it needs a weight of more than fifteen thousand
pounds upon every inch of it, and also it needs a great deal
of moisture for the crystals to form as they are in granite.
Furthermore, these same quartz crystals take a very dif-
ferent shape when free from pressure.

In the granite they have accommodated themselves to
the spaces left around the black crystals of hornblende
and the milky crystals of feldspar.

Both the hornblende and the feldspar seem to have got
into shape first ; whereas in the ordinary conditions above
ground, quartz crystals harden sooner than these others.

1 2 HIS TOR Y OF COHASSE T.

Subterranean pressure and subterranean heat make a
complicated condition of affairs that cannot be reproduced
in our artificial devices, though it may be fairly well under-
stood. The facts about granite such as these noted, and
many others wherever granite is found, tell very conclu-
sively that it was not formed as limestone and sandstone
and slate and other sedimentary rocks by a deposit on the
earth's surface, but rather at a prodigious depth under the
solid ground, and by the slow crystallizing of molten sub-
stance. From two to five miles thick of other rock must
have lain upon the stuff that crystallized into granite.

In some places of the world where the layers of rock
have been turned up edgewise by the earth's upheavals,
the granite appears, and the layers that formerly rested
horizontally upon it have been measured from surface to
surface, and thus have been ascertained to be miles thick.

In the middle part of Massachusetts there is a layer of
slatestone which is ten thousand feet thick, and it shows
every indication that it once was spreading flat over all the
eastern part of the State and far out into the bed of the
ocean. It has been tipped up by a slight wrinkling of the
earth's skin, and that part which was over Cohasset has
been worn off by the waves and by the gases of the air
and by the rain washings of countless ages.

Sir William Thomson, whose opinion in matters of
the age of this earth is the most mature, estimates that
twenty-five millions of years have passed by since the
Cambrian period, — the time when our granite began to
be pushed upward by the little wrinkle that was necessary
in the skin of the earth. If this estimate be true, the
pushing was so slow that if successive generations of
people had lived on top of the wrinkle they would have
Ijeen willing to swear an affidavit that not one inch had it
moved. But nature speaks more correctly the facts than
any human testimony.

If our most reliable citizen to-day were asked whether

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM.

13

the land of Cohasset is growing higher or lower, he would
probably say, it is not changing ; and yet nature has
been recording a slow subsidence as lately as a few
hundred years past, and probably to-day it is more rapid
by far than the movement of the granite referred to.

For example, in the salt meadow of the Gulf where
the channel cuts the banks, there are to be seen when the
tide is out the protruding roots of alder trees which could
not have grown in a place so much below salt water.
Furthermore there are three feet of marsh mud on top
of the clay where those roots grew, which have been
deposited while the land has been settling. How old are
the roots .■* Certainly not four thousand years ! And yet
if the earth here at Cohasset has settled four feet in these
four thousand years, that would be at the rate of five
miles in twenty-five million years. Not half as fast a
movement of the earth's surface is claimed for the
wrinkling which brought our granite up.

There are many other places in Eastern Massachusetts
where nature has recorded the same subsidence in these
late years.

At the mouth of Weir River in Hingham, on the north
side of Rockland Street, a little way from the Cohasset
boundary, cedar stumps can be seen in a meadow which
the salt water now overflows. Again, at Sandy Cove,
Cohasset, the mud of an ancient bog on the beach is now
exposed, showing that the sea has risen several feet since
the bog was formed.

Down upon the Cape, in the town of Orleans, one may
see a forest of stumps several feet under the clear sea
water a quarter of a mile from shore.

The slow falling or rising of the land is not incredible
when the facts are so plain as these.

If the time allowance be sufficient there is no reason
therefore to doubt the ability of Cohasset to rise, even
to the extent necessary in order to expose the granite
which was made miles deep.

14

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

All the superimposed rock must have been worn off at
a rate less than one one-hundredth part of an inch each
year in order to lose two or three miles of it in twenty
five million years.

The oxygen and other gases of the air are continually
decomposing even so solid a rock as granite. The frost
gets its teeth between the crystals and bites off pieces.
The rain soaks into it and softens it and the sun blisters it.
Every stream of water that has a particle of mud in it
is scurrying away to the sea with tidbits stolen from the
hills.

All they need to have carried or corroded each year for
twenty-five million years is the mere thickness of a hair
in order to have scoured off two or three miles of rock
from the top of our granite.

But the rock which lay on top was not so stubborn and
hard as our granite ; and it probably surrendered to the
army of destruction much more rapidly than our granite
ledges are decaying.

Besides the slate already referred to, there were layers
of pudding stone. These layers of conglomerate were
nothing but stones and sand and clay which were hardened
into rock by layers of lava that oozed out time and again
from beneath, through cracks in the crust.

It is quite plain that the granite must be very much
younger than the rock under which it formed, because
that rock had to accumulate to a great thickness before
the granite could begin. The first layers were under
water, and were deposited just as clay and sand are now
deposited, from farther inland upon the sea bottom, what-
ever that was ; and it hardened into rock when there was
enough of it to press hard or when other formations
pressed it down where the internal heat could affect it.

The effect of this internal heat was enough to destroy
wholly the sea bottom upon which the Cambrian slate
was deposited.

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM. 1 5

In fact, it is suspected by geologists, for example, Pro-
fessor Crosby, that our granite may be made up of some
of that sea bottom melted over and metamorphosed.

There was plenty of time and plenty of heat and plenty
of moisture and plenty of pressure down there.

For years and for ages the process of granite forming
was continued. The grains of quartz and feldspar and
hornblende, so distinct as to give meaning to the name
granite (grain rock), came into shape very slowly. For
many years the heat remained about the same, and the
little molecules of each kind of mineral clubbed together
by a mutual affinity so that there were enough to form
quite a respectable crystal of each before the whole cooled
off and so put a stop to their gathering.

The feldspar seems to have got the start of the others
and assembled in groups according to the law of its
crystallization, with good square corners a quarter of an
inch long, and longer in many cases. The black horn-
blende was gathering at the same time, and there were
many cases where a few molecules could not reach a
larger group of their own companions because of the feld-
spar that surrounded them, and they had to form their
little crystals inside of the others. The quartz had to take
what room and shape there was left for it, in spite of the
fact that it was so bulky. It forms what is called the
magma for the other crystals, instead of taking the beau-
tiful shape of a six-sided prism and pyramid such as free
quartz naturally assumes.

Inside of this quartz are cavities containing water,
invisible to the naked eye, so small as to number a thou-
sand millions to one cubic inch in some places.

There are several other minerals to be found in small
quantities mingled with these three fundamental constit-
uents.

Scales of mica, both white and black, are found in
places ; little cubes of iron pyrite are so plentiful in some

1 6 HISTORY OF CO II ASSET.

places as to color the granite red by rusting, as may be
seen anywhere upon our rocks where the sea washes
them.

The soda and the potash are less important. In fact,
the rock which is called granite has so many accessory
minerals besides the principal three that Zirkel, the min-
eralogist, has counted as many as forty-four.

In the Whitney farm near the race track there is a
granite ledge which has become rotten by the rusting of
the iron in its crystals of black mica. The red sand of
this rotten granite has been used upon some of Mr.
Whitney's private roads.

In different places of the town one can see that the
quality of the granite changes considerably. That, for
example, which may be seen in the great ledge at the
head of Depot Court has crystals very indistinct, much
of it with no crystals, just masses of felsite ; while there
is a ledge in Beechwood where the crystals are so large as
to be called giant granite or pegmatite. This ledge is on
the west side of Bound Brook (see the map;, a few hun-
dred feet from the schoolhouse, and is approachable from
Doane Street. The surface of the rock in places has
cavities shaped like the apex of a quartz crystal — three
broad sides and three narrow ones — some of the cuplike
places being as much as six inches in diameter. Instead
of the hornblende which is a principal element of our
quartz everywhere else, there is silvery mica here in thin
scales. This ledge is called The Reach, because it extends
so far out into the meadow and is one of our natural
curiosities.

Between the two extremes of granite there are many
intervening grades of coarse and fine grains. It is rather
lighter in weight than Ouincy granite ; for a good speci-
men of the latter has a specific gravity of 2.669, while
this of ours is only 2.633.

Neither is it so valuable for building as the Ouincy

MAKIXG THE ROCK BOTTOM. I J

granite, because the cleavage is very poor ; it tears apart
irregularly when blasted instead of splitting in smooth
lines.* The poor splitting quality may be accounted for
partly because this granite was disturbed too much while
cooling. In some places it appears to have been pushed
and twisted and kneaded while it was in process of
crystallizing. In some of these snarled masses while the
crystals were being formed they were drawn into shapes
like the coils of candy. A pretty specimen of this flow
structure is to be seen in a loose bowlder on South Main
Street, about three hundred yards before reaching the
Scituate line. Other cases are to be seen in the freshly
blasted ledges along both sides of Jerusalem Road where
it skirts the north shore of the town.

While these crystals were forming into phalanxes, there
was a choosing of sides that continued apacCo The quartz
kept moving towards the lower and hotter portions of the
pasty mass, while the hornblende and feldspar gathered
most thickly towards the outside or upper part. The result
is that there are three grades of granite to be seen now
in Cohasset. The most plentiful is that middle kind
which is a fairly even mixture of quartz and feldspar with
a little hornblende.

It is light gray or pinkish in color, with larger crystals
generally than those of the darker granite which formed
above it. In the outer or darker granite there is much
more of hornblende and mica, with much less of the
quartz. The crystals of hornblende and of feldspar can-
not show so prettily because of the lack of quartz.

The third or inner sort of granite is not very visible
because only a little has ever come up to daylight. That
little has come up through the cracks in the other and

*John C. Howe, ten or more years ago, opened a quarry on the southwest
side of Town Hill, to get some stone for foundations and walls ; but the work was
very difficult. Another was worked for a short time, fifty years ago, on the shore
north of Sandy Cove. Still another has been pointed out to me in the woods a
quarter mile west of Atlantic Avenue, back of Nathaniel Treat's home.

1 8 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

appears to have only a beggar's portion of the hornblende
or mica, and the crystals are very fine. These veins of
number three granite are sometimes as thin as a knife
blade and never larger than a few feet. There are some
outcrops exposed by blasting at the roadside of Beech-
wood Street near to the lane which leads to Turtle Island.

Another exposure is on Atlantic Avenue near the
Lothrop House ; while there are many veins of it to be
seen in the rock along the edge of the sea.

While this third granite has never come to the daylight
except through narrow fissures, the outer granite has been
very much worn off so that only patches of it here and
there are to be seen. Some of it is in the ledge at the
head of Depot Court, and above it in Deacon Bourne's
Rock. There is one ledge that is perhaps the most pictur-
esque in town, composed of this first granite. It is called
Rattlesnake Den, a frightfully shattered crag of rock thirty
feet high and one hundred feet broad, lying in the deep
woods half a mile west of Lily Pond.

All along our north shore at the water side of Jerusalem
Road this dark-colored, finely crystalline granite prevails ;
and it is along this exposure of rock that the flow struc-
ture spoken of above is repeatedly to be seen.

These three kinds of granite grade into each other, and
some pieces are not plainly differentiated. Outside of
them all was a coating or scum of rock that cannot be
called granite because it lacks the quartz. Its main con-
stituent is feldspar, but not the same kind as makes the
beautiful milky crystals in the granite, being oligoclase in-
stead of orthoclase.

The name of this rock is diorite, and its color is a dark,
dirty green. Streaks and strings of feldspar are snarled
around in its dark mass. Not very much of it has been
left on top of the granite, for the eiosion of millions of
years has nearly banished it from Cohassct.

Just east of Kimball's Hotel there is a knob of it washed

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM. 1 9

by the sea. Patches are to be found along Nichols Ave-
nue on both sides. Some is on Beach Island, near Brush
Island. It crops out of the side of Kent's Rocks at the
Cove. Widow's Rock, on the southeast side of Beech-
wood Street, a few hundred yards from King Street, is an
outcrop of diorite. There is a ledge of it near the foot of
Turkey Hill, where the stone crusher has been munching
it to make roadways for men so many millions of years
since nature made it in the bowels of the earth.

It will be observed by close inspection that the patches
of diorite are enclosed usually in the first or outer granite.
In some cases there are lumps of it like plums in a pud-
ding ; and they bear the appearance of having been frag-
ments broken and mixed into a plastic magma. The cor-
ners are melted off, and the pieces are seen arranged
lengthwise with the flow structure. These pieces and
patches of diorite are accordingly the first formed of all
the rock our town affords. Nothing is older ! A man
who stands upon a mass of it has for his support the most
venerable of all nature's traditions in Cohasset. This dio-
rite and these three kinds of granite compose all the solid
rock of Cohasset, with the exception of the black dikes,
which are to be described presently.

They are called plutonic rocks, because of being formed
so deep down beneath the surface of the earth, where
Pluto was fabled to have fashioned things in nature's
smithy.

They are also called igneous rocks, because they were
formed out of melted stuff. Some kinds of granite are
said to have been formed by the slow changing of crystals
without any melting, from some sedimentary rock like
schist or gneiss ; but the granite of Cohasset was un-
doubtedly crystallized from a molten mass.

Other localities, Hingham and Weymouth and Brain-
tree, to the west of us, have great ledges of shale or slate
or conglomerate that are neither igneous nor plutonic,

20 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

but sedimentary rock laid down by the action of water,
while our distinction in the geological world is the pos-
session of plutonic igneous rocks in such mixtures as to
show their typical relations to each other.

The behavior of these kinds of rock while they were
hardening from the plastic stuff has been partly intimated.
In the course of a million years, more or less, these hard
rock beds that were spreading underneath all the eastern
part of New England, nobody knows how much farther
inland or out under the Atlantic, were stiff enough to
crack. The third kind of granite has already been
accused of thrusting itself up through the cracks in the
others ; but there was a much more serious amount of
cracking later on. Earthquakes were more in earnest in
those days, and a movement of the granite rock next to a
crack would sometimes shove one side up and the other
down so that the crystals which were broken apart by the
crack would become separated many feet from each other
without opening the crack. These cracks or faults, as
they are called, could be detected very easily in rocks
that have layers and streaks in them ; but our granite is
so evenly mixed and colored that one is never sure
whether the crystals on the opposite sides of a crack
were originally neighbors to each other or dwelt far apart.
But of this we are sure, that the cracks were as many as
thousands running in every direction through the granite
which afterwards became Cohasset,

Some of these cracks were used long afterwards by
nature as vents through which the lava from beneath
oozed up. As the granite, all under the New England
coast, was being wrinkled or humped up by one of those
movements of the earth's crust which strain our imagina-
tion now as they always have strained the rock, some of
these cracks were opened, and filled with lava forming
dikes.

Upon one occasion, perhaps millions of years after this

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM.

21

granite had been hardened and pushed part way up, there
was a belching of lava from a vent near what is now our
northern water line.

A part of the stuff that came up forms now the island
called Black Rock. It is porphyrite, a dark colored rock
with white crystals of feldspar scattered through it. All
along that northern shore there are cracks filled with the
same lava called porphyrite dikes. Seventeen of them can
be counted between Green Hill Beach and Pleasant

Photo, Octuvius Kearny.

Great Diabase Dike, Jerusalem Road at Cold Spring.
A vein of lava thirty feet thick. 1 he lines show the wails of the dike.

Beach. The thinnest of them measures about one foot in
width.

All these dikes are worn off flush with the granite, and
nobody can guess how much higher the lava had to flow
before it reached the surface as that surface was when the
lava belched forth ; furthermore no one knows how much
of it spread thickly over the top.

22 IIIS'J'ORY OF COHASSET.

But this was not the only catastrophe of earthquake
and lava.

Another came many years, perhaps a million years later,
and it pushed up a different sort of lava, through cracks
running nearly at right angles with the porphyrite dikes.

These are the east and west dikes of diabase. One
can easily feel sure that they came long after the porphy-
rite dikes, because a certain one of them cuts through a
dike of the earlier set. There may be many more
instances where the diabase dikes cut the others ; but
this one is easily seen on the north of Jerusalem Road
in the notch of the shore near Cold Spring, where the
biggest dike of the town, thirty feet thick, is exposed.

The east and west diabase dikes are very plentiful
throughout the town. Wherever ledges are exposed,
there one is apt to see a streak of black diabase running
through it from east to west.

There is one about two feet thick in the ledge at the
head of Depot Court near the engine house.

Down by the Cove at the mouth of Gulf River there is
a diabase dike of this east and west group which coincides
exactly with the dam which is built there ; nature and
man being of the same mind.

There is another east and west diabase dike which is
interesting enough to mention. It runs through Wind-
mill Point, and being more brittle than the granite which
encloses it, the waves have succeeded in tearing it all out
by dashing stones against it.

Any one who has a back yard big enough to enclose a
granite ledge is apt to be the owner of one of these east-
west dikes of diabase.

Professor Crosby has counted forty of this series of
diabase dikes, just along our shore from the beach at the
foot of Forest Avenue around to the harbor. They vary
in thickness from one foot to thirty feet.

The largest is at the north side of Jerusalem Road in

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM.

23

the notch which has been worn into the shore at the Cold
Spring opposite the Kendall estate.

There are some of this east-west system which burst
through the rock at a much later date than most of
them, and these have had to cut through the earlier ones

Plioto, Ocfavius lUain.v.

Gap on Windmill Point where a Pokpiiyrite Dike has iseen
washed out,

wherever their paths crossed. Their general direction is
somewhat south of east, while the older ones trend to the
north of east, — one on the east end of Pleasant Beach as
much as twenty-five degrees north of an east line.

24

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

An impressive example of these two distinct series of
east-west dikes is to be seen exposed on the easterly end
of Beach Island, near the outlet of Little Harbor on the
sea side of the island. One dike about three feet thick
has been cracked lengthwise irregularly, and another dike
about one foot wide has crowded its way up through the
first ; so that although they are both diabase and both
running in the same general direction, the smaller is
plainly a later eruption than the other.

There was still a third and later eruption of lava through

The Dike at White Head.

our Cohasset rocks. Whether it came as long after the
others as hundreds or even thousands of years there is no
way of knowing.

The direction of these last is about north and south, and
Professor Crosby has counted ten of them between the
Black Rock House and White Head.

The most notable of all these is the familiar one on Lit.
tie White Head. Sailboats going into the harbor are in
easy sight of it. The countless picnics of our summer

MAKING THE KOCK BOTTOM. 25

days bring many children to clamber over it in different
places. It appears so black in contrast with the white of
the granite that it is probably one of tbe places where
Captain John Smith mistook our diabase for slatestone
when he came — the first white man — into our harbor in
the year 16 14.

This dike is a little puzzling to classify because it trends
so much toward the east as one follows it into the main-
land that it seems almost a member of the first system of
east-west dikes.

In that case the part exposed on the side of Little White
Head is a wandering crack that missed its direction in-
stead of a regular member in good standing of the later
north-south system.

Another north-south dike is worthy of special mention,
because of the interesting way in which it cuts a porphy-
rite dike at a place near Jerusalem Road a half mile east
of Forest Avenue.

" The diabase dike advances obliquely from the south
until it strikes the east wall of the porphyrite dike, follows
this wall for twenty-five feet, amputating a branch of the
porphyrite dike, and then passes in a graceful double curve
diagonally through the latter and follows the west wall as
far as either can be traced, — twenty-four feet. The inter-
secting dike is a typical example of the third system of
diabase dikes — black, brownish-weathering, and beauti-
fully cross-jointed." *

All these dikes along the shore have been kept clear of
debris and are easily studied on that account, but these are
by no means all of the dikes that have filled the cracks in
our granite as the lava was being upheaved.

How many more there may be inland, covered by the
soil, it is hard to conjecture. In fact, they are more apt to
be hidden than the granite, for they were more easily worn

*Quoted from Professor Crosby's Geology of Boston Basin, Vol. I, Part I, Nan-
tasket and Cohasset, p. 128.

26 II [STORY OF C OH ASSET.

away, and their cavities have been filled by soil that con-
ceals them. In some parts of the woods or pasture lands
these black bands of diabase can be traced in straight lines
for many hundreds of feet ; they disappear under the grass
at the edge of one ledge only to reappear in the next
ledge going straight on. In some cases the band of
diabase grows narrower as it leads along, and probably it
thins down to nothing a few hundred feet farther in that
direction.

In other cases they branch, making smaller dikes that
continue to grow narrower. One of this sort is to be seen
upon the east end of Beach Island, at the edge of the sea,
a few hundred feet north of Cunningham Bridge.

Besides growing narrower as one follows them horizon-
tally, the dikes also become thinner at the surface than
they are farther down. If more of them could be seen
with a deep vertical exposure this fact would be better ap-
preciated. As it is, perhaps the best example for observa-
tion is that giant of all the east-west dikes at the notch
on Jerusalem Road next to the sea where the spring is.
There is a vertical exposure of about twelve feet at this
notch in the shore, and the dike is seen to be several feet
broader at the bottom than at the top. How much wider
it gets to be farther down no one can tell. Hundreds or
perhaps thousands of feet farther down, where the lava be-
gan to squeeze its way upward through the granite, the
crack may have been widened to several times the thick-
ness we now see upon the surface.

It has already been noticed that the sides of these dike
walls are not always exactly vertical.

The first one of the porphyrite dikes at Green Hill
Beach slants as much as twenty degrees towards the east.
Three of the east-west diabase dikes slant or hade to the
north about the same angle. Two of them are at the ends
of Pleasant Beach, and one on the east end of Beach
Island.

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM. 2/

But more than any of these, slants the familiar dike on
Little White Head. From thirty to forty-five degrees
away from the vertical, this vein of diabase hades towards
the southeast. The extension downwards may change in
direction in some cases, but in most of our dikes it is
reasonable to suppose a straight course downward to the
place whence the lava issued. The stuff of which this
diabase, the youngest of all our solid rock, is made is
nearly the same as that which made the diorite, the oldest
of all our solid rock. It is principally triclinic feldspar,
not the milky orthoclase, but the dark oligoclase.

The similarity between this lava that came up last from
beneath the granite and the diorite which formed first
above the granite leads us to suspect that at one time the
granite ceased forming for a time, say millions of years,
beneath Cohasset ; and that the molten stuff rearranged
itself again as before, with the triclinic feldspar and other
basic minerals upon the outside, and the quartz or acid
stuff beneath.

So it happened that the feldspar when it was ready to
harden into a second layer of diorite was heaved up
through all the granite and through the first diorite,
becoming dikes of diabase, and possibly overflowing on
top in great beds of diabase.

Subsequently the overlying beds of rock were worn off,
and nothing is to be seen now but the narrow vertical
vents hardened into dikes. What could have made the
granite stop forming and at the same time could have
stirred up a new mixture of molten stuff so that the feld-
spar must gather as before at the outer part of it can be
fairly conjectured. Waves of heat move no doubt from
place to place within the earth, and remeltings with mix-
ings must be continually taking place ; but the dikes are
lying silent before any one who will hazard a guess.

Besides the triclinic feldspar there are many other min-
erals in small proportions within the diabase. Epidote

28 HISTORY OF CO HAS SET.

and some chloritic minerals give the dark greenish gray
color to the east-west dikes. Traces of iron are to be
found in the diabase. In fact one of the dikes is so full of
magnetic iron that the compass goes crazy over it. It is
one of the east-west system, about nine feet thick, and is
to be seen for three hundred feet at its outcrop a little
east of the notch and spring before mentioned.

Little cubes of iron pyrites are to be found in some,
easily seen with a microscope. The diabase is about one
seventh heavier than granite, one specimen having a
specific gravity of 2.964, It is so very hard that the
marks of a date, " 18 16," upon a loose piece of it near the
water at the Black Rock House, look as fresh as though
•cut within one year instead of eighty years ago. But it is
more easily destroyed than the granite because it is so
brittle and cleaves so readily into square blocks. The
eruption of these dikes of diabase is substantially the last
event of the history of Cohasset in the making of solid
rocks.

The process of erosion had long been at work scaling
•off the top, and it was continued without interruption.

There was a series of movements in the solid rock after
its formation that has deeply affected our present condi-
tion.

It is what the geologists call "faulting," the slipping
up or down of adjacent masses of solid rock. Wherever a
steep, smooth wall of granite is to be seen, it is apt to be
nature's mute confession of a fault or slip. That ledge
may safely be charged with having been thrust upwards,
or the part which is gone may have been dropped down-
wards.

This is not always the fair inference ; because sometimes
a soft streak in the rock has yielded so much more rapidly
to the teeth of decay that the hard part is left an abrupt
wall.

The story of slipping is told sometimes by the hard

MAKING THE ROCK BOTTOM. 2<)

scratches that one piece has given to the other. In the
center of the village on the east side of Main Street, within
a hundred feet of the engine house, there are several of
these scratched places on the ledge of rock within reach
of every passer-b3^ The vertical marks show how the rock
on the west side of that ledge — possibly acres of it under-
lying the road and the railway station, that whole neigh-
borhood— was dropped downward. At the same time
the rocky ledge upon which the Grand Army Hall is
perched was borne upward by the heaving crust of earth.

There may be, indeed there must be, many other places
in the cracks of our ledges where the scratches of faulted
rock might be exposed if only a piece were to be blasted
out to show it as in this case.

Sometimes in cruising through the woods of our town
men come to the abrupt wall that terminates a ledge ; and
their guess is not very far from facts when they imagine
that where the low bog now lies was formerly the solid
rock that slipped downwards to accommodate the displace-
ments of the earth's crust beneath.

On the north side of the town next to Straits Pond,
Jerusalem Road runs along the side of a granite wall that
has lost all that used to belong to it upon the north, by
a deep faulting.

Just across the road from the granite ledge the rock is-
wholly conglomerate. Far down beneath the conglomer-
ate rock Professor Crosby assures us that there is to be
found the granite which used to be continuous with our
northern wall of granite before Boston basin slumped
downwards into the interior.

The conglomerate, and all the lava that was poured out
into this basin, is sadly jumbled and is faulted very much
more than our Cohasset rock bottom.

But the comparatively small amount of our faulting
is enough to contribute a large degree of the beauty and
the variety of our ledges and lawns. Our harbors, both

30 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Little Harbor and the Cove, are the effects of something
more than erosion ; the jolting of the adjacent masses of
granite up or down until the stable equilibrium could be
reached has given us much of our present topography of
rock.

This faulting, furthermore, accounts for our finding
masses of diorite in some places to-day upon the same
level with some batches of the second granite, notwith-
standing the fact that this granite was originally many
feet beneath every atom of diorite.

The down-drops and the upthrusts have been ended for
many thousands of years, and the rock bottom now
spreads stiff and hard and immovable, except as it is
settling in company with the whole New England coast.

But the frost is still cracking the ledges where they
protrude ; the rain and the pelting sunbeams are loosening
the particles of rock ; the gases of the atmosphere are
corroding the surface of the town everywhere ; yet the
lives of men are so very brief that all these events are
imperceptible in any generation.

Nevertheless it is just these slow changes that have
amounted to such a prodigious romance of the rock dur-
ing the millions upon millions of years since the Cohasset-
foundation commenced its formation.

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE SOIL CAME.

ALL the gravel and the clay and the loose stones that
rest now upon the rock bottom of the town are
very recent deposits.

The story of the rock was told in terms of millions of
years ; but the events that occurred in the making of our
soil require only thousands.

The hard granite rock received its uneven coating of
soil, namely, its Town Hill, its Deer Hill, its Bear Hill,
its James Hill, its Lincoln Hill, its Church's Hill, it
Souther's Hill, its Joy's Hill, all its meadows, its Meeting-
house Plain and its North End Plain — the hard rock
received all these heaps of ground material less than a
hundred thousand years ago.

It came about through the gigantic efforts of a glacier
which once formed all over the northern part of North
America, and which remained upon it for most of the
time until about seven thousand years ago, grinding up
the rock like a huge mill and heaping its grist into the
shape of hills and plains and meadows.

The marks of it can be seen as clearly as human finger
marks can be seen in putty or as the plow marks can be
seen in a field. There are scratches upon the underlying
rock in every part of the town pointing in a southerly
direction, as the glacier moved. The gravel and clay hills
of the town have all been stretched out in the same direc-
tion with the scratches. The north sides of all ledges
were rounded off and planed and scoured smooth by the
movement of the ice against that side, with its pebbles
and other fragments.

More picturesque than any of these evidences are the

22 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

perched bowlders that have been combed out of the mov-
ing glacier by the peaks of many ledges, and are now
poised, like the famous Tipling Rock, in scores of places
just where the glacier left them when it melted away.
There are few if any towns in the whole of North
America that possess a greater variety of glacial phenom-
ena than this one. Some sample of nearly all the opera-
tions of a glacier is to be found here ; and the glacial
story at this place is corroborated at different points all
across the continent north of Perth Am boy, N. J., and
Cincinnati, Ohio.

Even the upper part of Mount Washington had bowl-
ders left upon it, says Professor Hitchcock, by this great
ice sheet.

Along the Atlantic coast the ice was so thick as to
cover the highest point on Mount Desert Island, Me. ;
so that Prof. George F. Wright assures us that " at the
very margin of the ocean the ice must have been consid-
erably more than one thousand five hundred feet deep." *

To imagine Cohasset covered with a layer of ice a thou-
sand feet in thickness requires an exercise of mind quite
beyond the ordinary ; but every reputable geologist in
our country would demand it of us, and we will be humble
enough to let Nature tell her story. There are many liv-
ing glaciers nowadays engaged in the same business that
was so extensively carried on here ages ago. On the
coast of Alaska, for example, there are not less than five
thousand glaciers, great and small, according to the esti-
mate of Mr. Elliott. t

In Washington State there are several lying in the
ravines about Mount Ranier and Mount Baker ; while
even as far south as California, a little east of the Yo-
semite valley, there is a group of sixteen perpetual ice
streams.

* Ice Age in North America, p. i66.
t See Our Arctic Provinces, p. 19.

HOW THE SOIL CAME. 33

The whole continent of Greenland, about sixty times
the size of the State of Massachusetts, is now filled by
one vast bed of ice which is in many places more than
two thousand feet deep, and is spilling out through the
openings of the coast into Baffin's Bay and the Atlantic.
All these ice fields are doing the same things that were
formerly done upon the northern part of the United
States.

Competent scientists are now studying them very
carefully; and all their evidence brings an overwhelming;
conviction to those who for the last twenty-five years
have been suspecting that the whole upper part of the
continent of North America was at one time a field o£
moving ice.

How it came to be so is now fairly well determined.

Warren Upham, of the United States Geological Sur-
vey, has clearly shown that the northern region of our
continent was elevated before the glacial epoch as much
as one thousand feet in some places above its present
level.

What heaving of the earth caused it may some day
be guessed ; but the fact of it is affirmed by such careful
students as Prof. George Frederick Wright and Prof.
William O. Crosby and many others.

This great elevation pushed the heads of the White
Mountains so high into the cold that perpetual snow
clothed them. That snow chilled the air so that the
winter seasons grew longer and consequently a greater
amount of snow and ice formed to be melted during the
shortened summer. In the course of many years this,
combined with other causes,* produced glaciers in the
White Mountains as they now are in the Alps,

*Mr. Upham calls attention to the fact that the Isthmus of Panama was not
elevated until about the time of the glacial epoch, and says : " It may be true
therefore, that the submergence of this isthmus was one of the causes of the
glacial period, the continuation of the equatorial oceanic current westward into
the Pacific having greatly diminished or wholly diverted the Gulf Stream, which

34 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

These little glaciers joined forces in the valleys and
moved on, growing larger each year because the summers
were becoming less equal to the task of melting them.
By the end of a few thousand years, the weather grew so
cold all over New England that the trees were scrubby
and hopeless, the animals had disappeared to the south,
and the ice and snow inherited the land. Then followed
a period of a thousand years or more when each summer's
sun looked upon a field of arctic snow growing thicker
each year where now New England blooms.

Some snow melted, but the remnant each year was
larger than the year before, and it kept building upward;
for the snow turned gradually to ice and much of the rain
froze before reaching the ground beneath. The annual
precipitation for this region is nowadays about forty
inches ; so that if all the yield of the clouds for five
hundred years became ice upon the surface of New
England, the thickness would have been considerably
more than one thousand feet. At some period of the
deposit this ice had to begin to slide, for the slope of the
land towards the water made its footing insecure, and it
was urged onward by the pressure of the mountain glaciers
behind. But the ice froze to the soil beneath it, and its
grip was made more secure by the freezing of whatever
water might have percolated through the ground in the
melting seasons, until the only way for the ice to move
was by dragging the frozen soil.

The movement was slow, but the grinding between the
soil and the rock ledges was very fierce. By actual
measurement, the great Muir glacier in Alaska, at a place

carries warmth from the tropics to the Northern Atlantic and Northwestern
Europe." — Appendix A in Wright's Ice Age, p. 584, Probable Causes of
Glaciation.

Mr. CroU's illustrious and elaborate theory that the periods of eccentricity and
nutation of the earth constitute the main cause of the glacial epoch is not credited
now by the leading glacialists of America. The glacier was one hundred thousand
years too recent for that theory.

HO IV THE SOIL CAME. 35

where it is about one thousand feet deep and about one
mile wide, moved towards the sea forty feet per day on
the average, in the month of August, 1886.*

The grinding of rock into flour by a movement of forty
feet per day under such a pressure as one thousand feet
of ice would result in a huge grist if continued for several
thousand years, as was undoubtedly the case at Cohasset.

All the soil which existed in the town before the ice
period must have been pushed into the ocean to the
south, Professor Crosby assures us ; but soil enough was
being made by the glacier in places to the north of us
that was destined to clothe our ledges which the same
glacier had stripped. Our hills of hardpan are a witness of
this reimbursement.

But before relating the events of this reimbursement,
there is to be noted a long period of scouring which the
solid ledges nowadays tell to eyes that will observe.

The earth and stones, frozen to the bottom of the
glacier as they were sliding over the solid rock, made
grooves and scratches, much as a piece of sandpaper
does upon smooth wood.

Uphill along every stoss slope of rock the sheet was
pushed, and then bending down again it slowly conformed
to the inequalities of the rock, rounding off edges and
tearing off the lee sides. At the head of Depot Court,
where the ledge toes the east side of Main Street, the
horizontal marks can be seen by any passer daily, showing
how the under side of the glacier bent around that ledge,
scrubbing it clean and leaving the scratches. The marks
at this particular place have been preserved by the dirt
which undoubtedly laid against it for thousands of years
before white men came. Wherever the rock has been ex-
posed to the weather since the glacier melted, all the
scratches have been worn off by the destructive elements.
But the appearance that all our ledges must have had

* Professor Wright's Ice Age in North America, p. 51.

HIST UK Y OF CO II AS SET.

HOW THE SOIL CAME. 37

when the glacier left them is very clearly seen when the
protecting coat of soil is removed, showing the smooth
rounded hummocks. The making of roads and other ex-
cavations have exposed the scratches in many places now
to be seen.

On South Main Street, the highest point of the ledge in
front of Mr. Welch's stone wall, the lines are seen run-
ning parallel with the road. Judging from the lichens that
have grown in these marks, the protecting soil might have
been removed at the very earliest period of white inhab-
itants.

Another exposure very recent is on Jerusalem Road
within a few inches of the easterly wheel track on the
summit that lies between the HoUingsworth and the
Richardson estates. Again on Jerusalem Road near the
Black Rock House and along the south side of Straits
Pond the marks are to be seen. On Cedar Street, where
the road was widened last year, some clear glacial striae
were exposed to the eye upon both sides of the road in
several places. Where they have scratched across a dia-
base dike by the edge of this road the lines are beautifully
clear cut.

But further enumeration is needless, for any man may
find them in his own dooryard by peeling off the garment
of soil.

The stones which did the scratching can be captured,
many of them, in the gravel and hardpan, those that did
not have time to escape to the sea.

One huge graver is now a perched bowlder, Bigelow
Bowlder,* standing exactly in his last grooves on the ledge
a half mile west of King Street at Sohier.

By crawling under it one can place his hands in the smooth
grooves just as they were left seven thousand years ago.

* This bowlder has been known by the inhabitants of King Street as Tipling
Rock; but the Committee upon Town History lias named it after the writer, to
avoid confusion with the Tipling Rock in the Wheelwright estate.

38 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

Most of the scouring was done by smaller stones which
were themselves scratched, sometimes on both sides, as
they moved endwise more slowly than the mass above
them. The marks are not so distinct upon pieces of gran-
ite as upon the porphyrite or diabase, or especially upon
the few fragments of slate.

Frequently one of these graving stones may be found in
stone walls where the hand of man has placed it on guard,
but millions of them are lying yet untouched in the glacial
till where they stopped their sliding.

It is this till in the form of long rounded hills or drum-
lins that must now be considered ; for these hills are the
main part of the reimbursement for the soil that the glacier
froze on to and carried away. Turkey Hill, Deer Hill,
Town Hill, Reservoir Hill, and Church's Hill, in fact all of
our hills, are the aforementioned drumlins.

They are made up mostly of rock flour that has been
scoured off and heaped up by the movement of the ice just
as sand bars form in a river bed wherever the sand happens
to lodge.

When the Reservoir was dug, upon the top of Bear Hill,
picks were necessary in loosening the clay because the ice
had pressed it so hard in heaping it. Many stones were
.mixed in with the flour, some as large as a bushel basket,
and were pushed along until their corners were scoured
off and they were scratched into their present shape.

The marks of this rough treatment are to be seen on
many of them now, running lengthwise with the stone as
they moved. Every loose stone originally was broken
from some ledge, and was jagged or sharp cornered, but
they are not so now, for they meekly submitted to the
great grinder.

A very interesting illustration of the crushing move-
ment that made these hills has come to light in the dis-
covery of some fragments of clam shells in one of them.
When a well was being dug on the west side of King

HO IV THE SOIL CAME.

39

Street about fifty years ago at Charles Burbank's place,
several pieces of shells were found sticking in the hardpan
at a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface. The
shells did not grow there, but were pushed there when
the hill was heaped up, for there were no signs of a former
sea bottom such as clams always inhabit.

Hardpan, or glacial clay, was all around and above them,
and hardpan reached at least twenty feet below the shells

/ \ (Venus ~ftlercen.a.T'iQ.) / /
*x \ (ye)^u$ "hlercen«Ti a ) ' /^ \ .' '

' ^ "v^ Gtuakauo ,- ^^^ .'' ,"

' ^N--__,--'' Sea Ciam ~"'""/, ^9'

"" - ^ (,_(Tiactra SoKdi»si<2:»a^L -' '

Half natural length.

Shell Fragments found near King Street, twentv-fivf. fef.t
BELOW the Surface, in Digging a Well.

to the bottom of the well. Three of the fragments are
shown in the accompanying cut. The two smaller ones
are the smooth round clam or quahog ( Venus mercenarid),
about two and a half to three inches in diameter ; the
larger one is the sea clam {Mactra solidissimd), and meas-
ured originally five or six inches.

It is easily seen that the thin margin of these shells has
been broken off, for nothing but the heavy part, near the
umbos, could endure the rough treatment when they

40

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

were pushed out of their bed in Boston Harbor and
jammed into a Cohasset hill.

In several other hills or drumlins like the one men-
tioned, which lie south of Boston Harbor, similar shells
have been found, while in none of the drumlins north of
Boston do they occur, — evidences unimpeachable of the
glacier's violence. When these drumlins were deposited
by the moving ice the under surface of the glacier must
have been less cold than when it first froze into the soil
and carried it away, else the drumlins themselves would
have been frozen stiff and shoved into the sea.

Indeed the very rock flour that made up these hills must
have been collected by streams of running water beneath
the ice, where stones grinding upon stones made the flour,
but could not heap it into such clean masses of clay as our
present hardpan hills. In living glaciers nowadays sub-
glacial streams are seen issuing from beneath the ice,
murky white with rock flour, which they have washed out
of the coarser grist under the glacier and are depositing in
basins by millions of tons.

Some of these particles have traveled in the dark sub-
glacial channels for many miles. It is probable that in
our own hills there are many particles from the White
Mountains.

On the hill where the almshouse stands, called Scituate
Hill by the early Hinghamites because it lay on the trail
towards Scituate, but now renamed Town Hill, a well was
dug in the barnyard some fifteen years ago ; here, at the
depth of about twelve feet, the men found a streak of blue-
black dock mud, about as thick as a hand, with some
small spiral shells or whelks in it broken into bits. The
same kind of hardpan is beneath as that above, and it is
possible that this hill was half made when a period of
warmer weather left time for mud to accumulate in Boston
Bay again with its shells ; and then the glacier froze into that
layer of mud and pushed it along as a bottom crust. It is

I/Oir THE SOIL CAME. 4 1

conceded among glacialists that there was a long interim
of thousands of years between the first ice period and the
second. If this almshouse dock mud is an evidence of
that glacial interim, it adds another item of lasting interest
in the formation of our town.

Another important glacial enterprise was in progress
at about the close of the drumlin formation ; it was the
digging of potholes in the rock. All glaciers have streams
of water upon their tops, and some of these streams, find-
ing cracks in the ice where it bends over steep ledges,
pour into these crevasses and bore large holes, or moulvis,
to the bottom. If any stones are washed in, and plenty of
them are mixed into any glacier, these stones will whirl
like a mill-wheel, wearing holes in the rock. In any moun-
tain stream where the water falls fiercely these potholes
can be seen in progress. The so-called " Indian Pot," on
the east side of Rice Island in Little Harbor, was formed
in this way. The prettiest of the group nestles at the
edge of the water, drinking the tide over its rim. More
than thirty-five gallons it holds, and the rim of it narrows
in as smoothly as a round iron kettle.

On one side, above the rim, the rock is hollowed out
upwards about four feet, showing how much deeper the
original hole was. The rock that formed originally the
south side of the great hole was torn off and pushed away
into the harbor as one of the last deeds of violence by the
glacier. Two more holes were spoiled by that fracture,
and their remnants are only one-sided hollow places a
few feet above the Pot.

About one hundred feet north of these, upon another
rock scarp, is a larger hole called " Indian Well." Like
the Pot, it is perfect only at the bottom, with one side
extended upwards ten feet. The south side of this Well
must have been torn off long before the water ceased to
flow, because the rounded edge where the water swirled
out of the Well is very much worn.

42

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Besides these four, there are other fragments of pot-
holes, or perhaps embryo ones, lying between, about

-'-**»tt>i^

lilMik.

' .C'j^'"

/ ■

\

\

\ ■ •

1

/
/

,

r

4

7

\

'I'mjmmmgm^B^^. :]^^B^^^^

1^^

^ ^..^

Photo, M. H. Ream;.

Indian Pot, Rice Island in Little Harhor.
The seaweed at the water's edge.

twenty feet from the Pot. The upper one is shallow like
the bowl of a spoon, about a foot wide. Two others

HO IV THE SOIL CAME. 43

below are connected with it by a rounded channel. All of
these potholes were formed by water from the same
glacial stream, catching stones or pebbles and whirling
them so that they ground off particles for the water to
carry away. Many stones were worn out in the task, but
at least one of them remained in its place for about seven
thousand years for men to witness it. This was taken
out of the Pot by some one, and is now in the possession
of Charles S. Bates. It is a typical pothole bowlder
about four inches in diameter, of granite, worn very
smooth and round by much rolling. In other parts of the
town similar cavities have been dug.

One of the most famous is the " Devil's Armchair,"
only a foot across and nine inches deep. It is to be found
south of Beach Street on the highest part of the ledge,
two hundred feet back of Daniel Tower's home. A
smaller hole two feet below the chair is called the " Heel
Print," and a smooth channel connects them running, as
in the other cases, southeasterly. Government Island has
two more of these hollows, very shallow, side by side on
the southeasterly shelf of its rock, called "Adam's and
Eve's Seats " ; while another cavity, called a " Footprint,"
is just behind, about one rod to the west.

How many more of these interesting formations are
covered by the soil it is hard to estimate. There is one
more important one, near the Black Rock House, on a
bare surface of granite sloping down to the sea, only two
or three feet above high tide. It is a pear-shaped basin,
thirty-three inches by forty-one inches in diameter and
eighteen inches deep at one end.

After the formation of these potholes the great ice
sheet must have drawn its long labors to a close. Its
movement ceased, and all the bowlders which had been
pushed along from the direction of Hingham and Hull
stopped their pilgrimage to rest upon the ledges where
they now are. The most famous of these is Tipling Rock,

44

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

perched upon a ledge in Edward Wheelwright's estate,
about a half mile west of Jerusalem Road at Bow Street,
and a half mile north of Main Street at Albert S,
Bigelow's driveway. It greatest length is twenty feet,
breadth twelve feet, and height twelve feet. A rough
estimate of its volume is over i,ooo cubic feet. Count-

Photo, M. H. Reamy.

TiPLiNG Rock.
Estate of Edward Wheelwright.

ing its specific gravity 2.633, or 164.5 pounds to the foot,
its total weight is about ninety tons. All this weight
rests upon a few inches of the ledge, giving it an unstable
appearance, which accounts for its name ; but many have
tried in vain to tip it.

HO IV THE SOIL CAME.

45

The largest perched bowlder of our town is about a
half mile south of the almshouse, and a half mile west of
King Street, at the point where Sohier Street ends.

It has been named Bigelow Bowlder, weighs twice as
much as Tipling Rock, and it rests upon two points with
its under side so bent up as to allow a man sufficient room
to crawl under, where the glaciated surface of the ledge is
as smooth to the touch as when the bowlder first glided to
its place.

Fhcto, INr H Kiaii y.

Bigelow Bowlder.

The largest glacial traveler in the town, resting on a ledge half a mile west
of King Street, from the head of Sohier Street.

Bigelow Bowlder is granite, as all the large bowlders
are ; but there is a little bowlder of conglomerate, about a
cubic yard in volume, only twenty feet to the southeast.
This piece of pudding stone must have been torn from
some ledge outside of Cohasset, for this town has no such
ledge. The nearest one, in Hull, in the direction of the

46

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

glacial movement, is in the vicinity of Straits Pond, two
miles away.

If this block of conglomerate and Bigelow Bowlder
were traveling companions, Hull, or perhaps Hingham,
might have been the origin of both ; but if the big bowl-
der was later in getting started or slower moving, because
the ice could n't drag it as fast as its own movement, or
if the big bowlder came to a stop sooner than the other,
then the big one may be a Cohasseter, while the little one
is from Hull. Here they have been dwelling together
for about seven thousand years.

There is another notable
bowlder about a half mile
south of Bigelow Bowlder,
on the left of Howe's
Road as one goes, towards
the stone bridge, about
one hundred and fifty
feet from the road. It is
called Rooster Rock, be-
cause it is perched five or
six feet high upon the top
of another bowlder. One
edge is propped up by a
different kind of stone
block, and a person won-
ders how the block hap-
pened to get in there just
in time to keep the bowlder from toppling over into the
valley below.

This bowlder and its companions, originally joined,
form now a group, with a circumference of one hundred
and twenty feet.

Another group, much larger and more famous, is about
one hundred and fifty yards farther along the road and
farther in to the left.

Photo, M. H. Reamy,

Rooster Rock.
Southeast side of Howe's Road.

I/OJr THE SOIL CAME.

47

It is Ode's Den, so called because one, Theodore Pritch-
ard, about scv^enty years ago, made his abode there under
a large fragment of rock.*

The whole group is over eighty feet across and one hun-
dred feet long, stretched towards the south. The glacier
tugged long at it, but the blocks could not be far separated.

A really beautiful poising of a bowlder is to be seen
farther on in the woods. It is Burbank Bowlder, two
hundred yards from Rattlesnake Den, a quarter mile south-
east of the Piggery, and a quarter mile north of Doane
Street. It was in the old
cart track near this bowlder
that Ode's corpse was
found. One must feel the
delicacy of the bowlder's
poise as he looks through
to daylight underneath it,
and sees the two points
upon which its sixty or
seventy tons are balanced.

But the glacier did a
much larger business in
bowlders than we have
room to enumerate, es-
pecially in the rocky dis-
trict to the west of Lily
Pond. As many as twenty-
five notable ones have been
counted by the writer in that very limited district of the
town. Elsewhere many are perched, and many more were
deposited where the soil now covers them.

*" Ode " was discouraged with life. He lostiiis home on Sohier Street near the
present railroad crossing, and went to this Den, living upon such things as people
gave him. In the latter part of the winter he was missed. One day in the spring
when the snow was thawing, Isaiah Litchfield, sledding wood about a half mile
south of the Den, suddenly came to a stop. The horse shied and would not go on.
There lay the dead body of Ode Pritchard, partly exposed, in the icy ruts.

Photo, M. H. Reamy.

Ode's Den.

Southeast of Howe's Road, near Brass

Kettle Brook,

48

HISTORY OF COHASSRT.

Lion's Den is perhaps best referred to as an event in
the bowlder episode. It is made of rocks that are still in
touch with the parent ledge, lying southeast of Beach
Street in the woods near Daniel Tower's estate. Just as
Ode's Den, this has been a human resort, and several
stone implements which were found there by some Co-
hasset boys now living, prove that the Indians before us
were indebted to the glacier's labors for their resort, or
perhaps for their home.

Photo, M. II. Ream

BuRBANK Bowlder.

About seventy tons weight. A glacial traveler now resting in woods east of
Howe's Road, near Doane Street.

In estimating how far the glacial bowlders of Cohasset
have traveled, short distances of a few miles have the pre-
sumptive favor. Indeed, not one of our Cohasset bowl-
ders needs to be referred to a ledge north of Boston
Harbor for its explanation. It was the underneath side of
the glacier that dragged these huge fragments from their

HOW THE SOIL CAME. 49

ledges, and there the ice movement must have been very
much slower than upon the top, just as a stream of water
tumbles along the pebbles on the bottom sometimes not
one hundredth part as fast as the bubbles are scudding
upon its top.

The bigger the bowlder the shorter its travels, is a fair
rule for a guesser of the origin of our bowlders. Along
our shore upon the beach there have been found some little
pebbles of red felsite which came undoubtedly across Bos-
ton Harbor from their ledge in Saugus, eighteen miles
away. A darker kind of red felsite has been rubbed
off from a ledge in Hingham near Bradley's Hill, and
scores of the pieces have been lodged in Beechwood,
five miles away, where they have been used in building
stone walls by settlers who never suspected the origin of
them.*

The same kind of filching from the ledges of Hull,
northwest of Straits Pond, and from Planter's Hill and
other parts of Hingham has supplied us with pudding
stones scattered at intervals over the town. No ledge of
pudding stone exists in the town, save a small outcrop just
at the edge of Straits Pond.

Speckled pieces of porphyrite and fragments of slate
from out of town were brought to us ; but nearly all of our
large bowlders are homemade from granite ledges within
a few miles or less of their present abodes.

At about the same time when the bowlders came to a
standstill beneath the ice, the ice itself grew weary of
crawling. It lay deep and thick in every low place, while
every high ledge over which it bent made cracks through
it and hastened the sun's work at that point.

For many dozens of years, perhaps hundreds, the
separated fragments of the dying glacier lay melting
between the ledges. They were covered with dirt which

*Dr. Oliver H. Howe has noticed fourteen of these red felsite stones in the
walls by the roads. He has carefully marked their positions upon a map.

50

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

had been mixed * in the ice. This dirt was left by the
melting ice, much as it is left upon hummocks of snow
nowadays at the edge of the sidewalk when the clean
snow has all been melted off.

On the coast of Alaska, upon the top of the Malaspinat
glacier, the soil is so deep that huge trees grow upon it.
No casual observer would suspect that hundreds of feet of
solid ice lie beneath.

The sand and gravel which covered the patches of ice
in the meadows of Cohasset played an important part in
our history. It hindered the melting of the ice until
the freshets of many years had heaped it and spread it as
we now see it.

For example, Little Harbor was all covered by a great
irregular fragment of ice one hundred feet or more in
thickness, so that the broad swift stream of water from
the melting glacier farther inland heaped up against the
western side of it that great bank which we now call
the Ridges. The contemptible stream which has been
dignified by the name of James River (properly James
Brook) was immensely larger in the days of the dying
glacier ; for the freshets of early summer were augmented
by the rains and snows of many scores of years, hitherto
kept in ice. This vigorous stream washed its way among
the masses of ice, carrying small stones and gravel and
sand into eddies or angles and bearing away the fine clay
into the sea.

This same stream was probably the one that had
carved out Indian Pot years before when it flowed along
in the same general direction upon the top of the glacier.

What is now North Main Street was a j^art of this

* Professor Crosby explains how this dirt got mixed into the glacier. It came
originally in the bottom part of moving sheets of ice which were shoved up on top
of th(! main glacier before the latter had got started in its movement. (Article
upon Englacial Drift in Technology Quarterly, Vol. IX, Nos. 2 and 3, 1896.)

t See Wright's Ice Age, p. 600, Report of Mr. I. C. Russell's trip to Mount St.
Ellas, 1890.

HO W THE SOIL CAME. ' 5 I

broad river bed when the ice had been melted from
beneath.

One can easily see upon the map or upon the land
that an eddy or corner must have been made by the edge
of the rock along the north side of what is now the
Albert S. Bigelow estate, and by the ice which lay in
Little Harbor. In this angle were lodged thousands of
tons of gravel by the stream as it swept around over what
is now the town Common, past the ledge at Depot Court,
and thence into the Cove. That the ice really did lay in
Little Harbor, reaching a hundred feet or more in height,
is proved by the great steepness of the banks of gravel in
some places along the margin. Gravel cannot be made
any steeper than it is just at the roadside in front of
Albert S. Bigelow's estate. If it had been heaped up
against a perpendicular wall more than fifty feet high and
then the wall were taken away carefully, that gravel bank
along the Ridges would not be steeper than it is now.

The stealthy melting away of a wall of ice is the only
explanation that Professor Crosby entertains for this
gravel ridge. A similar explanation must be given for
the steep point at the edge of Charles S. Bates' estate
and for the other banks between.

This story is still further corroborated by the punch
bowls that are formed in the soil in this vicinity.

The Punch Bowl proper is in the yard of James H.
Nichols, at the head of Beach Street. It is a basin 117
feet across, nearly round, and fifteen feet deep. It is a
beautiful specimen of the work of a glacial stream in
heaping gravel around a huge block of ice so that when
the ice melts away the dirt caves in to form a gigantic
basin.

Meeting-house Pond is another such bowl, where a
stubborn fragment of ice long stood resisting the genial
sun. Farther up the stream in this long angle or eddy
there were many more islands of ice, where now are Bates

52

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Pond and those several deep holes west of the North
Schoohouse.

Another lies along the middle of Levi Tower's estate,
and Green Street dips down into it between Sohier
Street and North Main Street. People who climb the
little steep in front of the Sohier estate on North Main
Street are put to that trouble just because a large fragment
of the glacier happened to stay unmelted at that hollow,
when the soil was being spread by the glacial stream.

Prof. George F. Wright, in his investigations at the
Muir glacier, Alaska, caught one of these fragments of
ice in the very act of making a punch bowl. The dirt
which covered the little hill of ice kept sliding down to the
edge as the melting progressed, so that there was nothing
to be left in the middle when the ice should have
disappeared.

Wherever one digs down into the gravel anywhere in
this region of North Main Street he can see how the
water laid it in strata, some coarse, some fine, according
as the successive seasons changed the rapidity and the
course of the stream. One feels a shock of conviction
upon seeing these sure signs of running water, added to
the fact that all the fine stuff, like the clay, for example,
has been carried off. The Edward E. Tower gravel bank
on North Main Street is possible only because that glacial
stream carried away thousands of tons of fine dirt, while
the gravel was being left. Much of it may be lying now
in the broad meadow where the Catholic Church stands,
and much has gone to sea.

This gleaning out has made good roads an easier matter,
and has furnished excellent drainage for cesspools ; but it
leaves the North End plains a poorer kind of farming soil
than that which is upon the sidehills, the drumlins that
have kept their clay.

There is another important sand plain in the town made
in a similar way, and furnishing another convenient site

HOJV THE SOIL CAME. 53

for a village. It is the region of Beechwood. This water-
washed gravel and sand is heaped against the side of such
drumlins as are in that region.

Ledges are partly covered by it near the schoolhouse,
and the valley of Bound Brook is more or less filled by it.
One reason for the existence of Lily Pond is that the de-
posits of the glacier have choked up the natural channel
to the sea. It is a fairly safe rule, in the interpretation of
nature's story, to regard what are now the low places and
marshes as the spots where the ice lingered the longest
when the great glacier melted away.

Not many are the years since men have been able to
read what nature has to tell of the ice age in this land.
At first the romance was too large to be comprehended or
believed by many ; but once having had their minds
opened by the indisputable marks of a continental ice
sheet, men who are familiar with nature's words have
come to count the glacial period as no longer a theory,
but a chapter, in the history of our land, most prodigious
in its effect upon our human careers.

Well pleased are we that the town of Cohasset has
many beautiful specimens of the great glacier's work.

CHAPTER IV.

CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION.

LTPON the bare rocks and the naked hills a garment of
J verdure was spread, after the glacier melted. The
process of clothing Cohasset was very slow for many
years, because every cell and fiber of vegetation had to be
made in its own place by the feeble germs of life in the
face of great opposition. The hard rocks resisted every
root ; the clay upon the slopes of every drumlin was baked
hard by the sun or gullied by the rains to resist the en-
croachment of vegetable life ; the salt air of the ocean
and the lingering coldness of the glacial times added to
the difficulties. But life is mightily persistent ! Even
before the glacier died, plants of a very low order had pre-
empted places for themselves upon the snow and ice.

The red snow alga which is still to be seen in the arctic
regions was spread like a fine red powder upon the snow ;
and wherever any soil was exposed upon the ice or at the
edge of the melting fragments, there was the alga mak-
ing a red mould, just as it may be found nowadays some-
times upon the wet ground of a cold spring day.

Some higher kinds of alga had begun already their life
in the salt water along our shore. They were the sea-
weeds clinging to the rocks. The snow alga was a tiny
globule, but the sea alga grew to be great ribbons waving
in the tide or bunches of Irish moss carpeting the depths.
The dark brown varieties gathered nearer the surface of
the water than the pale Irish moss, where some of it even
dares to be exposed to the sun for a few hours at low tide.
The most plentiful of these darker algae is the bladder
seaweed or rockweed that fringes the rocks near the low-
tide mark. It is so named because of the little empty

54

CLOTHED wrrn vegetation.

55

Tip of one kind of rockvveed, showing

spore and air bladders, one half

natural size.

bladders in the stalks and
the margin of its fronds
helping them to float.

But not all the bladders
are empty, for the pimpled
ones contain the spores,
the most important part
of the plant. When these
little germ cells are let out
they swim in the water
until they collide with some
hard substance, where they
stick. They never travel
again ; but in due time
they develop into a thallus
that becomes another sea-
weed.

A larger and more useful variety of these dark algae
is the kelp which grows in deeper water, but reaches up its
fronds on the top of a long stem to float in the swift cur-
rents. The roots, which always grasp on stones or shells
or anything solid upon the sea bottom, are not roots for
supplying nourishment as the roots of trees, but only for
holding their place. Their nourishment is absorbed from
the water at any part of their surface. When storms roll
heavy waves along the bottom at low tide, these over-
grown algae are torn from the
liottom and hurled up to the
beach along with millions of
rock weeds where men load
them into carts for manure.
For many years men have
been fertilizing their farms in
this town with seaweeds that
are the direct descendants
of the pioneer algae which

\ sac, with spores magnified loo
diameters.

56

mSTOKY OF CO H ASSET.

came timidly to our rocks after the old glacier had re-
treated.

Another tind of lowly vegetation, so hardy as to be
satisfied by a beggar's dole of nourishment, was gaining
a settlement here at the same time with the alga. It
was the tribe of lichens ! The air could carry the spores

Photo, Octavius Reamy.

Bladder Rockweed upon Windmill Point.
Showing the Glades House through gap where a dike has been washed out.

of lichens from places farther south where the glacier had
not invaded or was sooner melted off, and even a rock
was good enough for lichens to grow upon. Not a
ledge in town and hardly a stone in our fields but bears a
lichen whose ancestry might lead back through perhaps
seven thousand years of Cohasset history.

Some of it is in the degenerate form of hard, gray,
pebbly skin upon the rock, scarcely distinguishable in
many cases from the rock itself. Mere blotches upon the

CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION. 57

granite they grow, with widening periphery, some lighter
and some darker in color. But there are nobler lichens
than these crustaceous kinds. Some, instead of being
pebbly, are scaly, and others even leafy in appearance.
One of these large leafy varieties was found last winter
(1896) which measured nine inches across the leaf.

This one {Umbilicaria dilleiiii) was a brown leathery
pad with a black under surface fastened flat to the rock by
a short cord or umbilicus in the middle. They love damp-
ness and pure air, avoiding the smoke of cities and the
hot sunshine. The ledges of Cohasset which have a
northwest exposure were early sought out by these
humble plants where they might hang in pure air, being
bathed by drippings from above. They asked no food
from the rock, but only a j^lace to hang out.

Some of the larger ones are probably the most vener-
able of all settlers ; for it is said that no lichen ever died
of old age, and it may be that some of these now living
could span a thousand years, so that no living thing about
them can rival them for antiquity.

Some of the lichens of these later days take the lead
of all winter beauties. They are the brilliant red-orange
patches upon the bark of trees or upon the rocks. Hardly
an elm on our streets but has for its adornment this touch
of beauty, when colors are scarce and flowers have fled.
This red kind {JTheloscJiistes parietind) is contrasted often
upon the same tree trunk with a rich brown lichen
{Collcvid) and a gray lichen {Parnielia) and several other
varieties besides mosses, making a brilliant spectacle of
color even in winter.

When the hot sun deprives lichens of their moisture
they close up their pores, according to their immemorial
custom, and wait for months if necessary until the drought
is ended and their nutriment comes again.

In the early post-glacial times, when other plant life was
scarce, the lichens composed a larger proportion of the

58 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

garment of vegetation than now ; but the number of
lichens is probably greater to-day than it was then, for
myriads of their spores now float in the air from scores of
different varieties, while formerly only a few were floated
to these barren hills. It is not improbable that the native
Indians used Cohasset lichens to make paints, for the pig-
ments of lichens have long been used by both savage and
civilized men for dyes.

Their utility for the land, however, is not to be com-
pared with the usefulness of the mosses, which are next to
be considered.

The mosses are a step higher than lichens in their struc-
ture and their reproductive system. They almost have
roots, and their stems and leaves are nearly as respectable
as those of a fern. However, they get their living, as the
lichens and algae, not through the roots, but by absorbing
it directly into the thallus. They can endure great cold, so
they hesitated not to come in colonies while the glacier was
lying in the swamps. The foggy atmosphere produced by
the cold ice fragments in those days was just their element.
They hastened to cover with velvet the clay hillsides, keep-
ing them from being too rapidly washed by the rains.
They caught the grains of soil which were loosened from
the rocks, and built up a vegetable mould by their own de-
cay which might produce higher plants.

The work of the bog moss, for example, is shown im-
pressively in a place near the Beechwood schoolhouse. It
is the wet meadow that borders Bound Brook. Farmers
have dug down through this peat as deep as six feet only
to find the same dead moss all the way down. Indeed
poles have been thrust down to a depth of eighteen feet
through the soft bog.

The moss is still growing at the top, while deep under-
neath are the remains of what grew many hundreds of
years ago. Beavers' homes are buried in the bog, and
their teeth marks are still to be seen upon the ends of the

CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION. 59

bits of wood that they heaped up for their abodes ages
ago.

Some of these heaps which have been cut into by ditch-
ing, measure as much as four feet high; but the moss and
other material have grown up around them since they
were made, building the meadow so high that the beavers'
homes can be found only by digging through ancient peat.*

Another impressive growth of moss, aided by various
peaty accumulations, is the bog which Doane Street crosses
a few hundred yards before it reaches the Hingham line.
The road kept settling down through the bog year by year
as the gravel was carted on, and the county commission-
ers found upon examination that this vegetable deposit was
nineteen feet deep. Other swamps in the town have been
built up in a similar way. If Breadencheese Swamp, for
example, lying in Henry M. Whitney's estate in the north-
ern part of the town, were examined, the work of mosses
would be still further witnessed in the making of Cohasset.

Very lively peat will grow as fast as a foot in a century,
but ours may not have grown a quarter as fast. Neverthe-
less, a very considerable amount of our good soil is the
product of moss.

The rich brown velvet and the spongy gray beds of many
varieties are not merely to lend beauty to the woods, but
to hold moisture and to furnish a fertile mould that will en-
courage the seeds of higher plants in their sprouting days.
There is a plant very closely allied to the mosses called
liverwort, which grew in moist places, and which has been
esteemed as a liver medicine because of the fancied re-
semblance of its leaf to the shape of a liver. It is some-
times called " scale moss " from the appearance of its
leaves upon the stem.

The most prized of all for human uses is the club moss, or

* Ira B. Pratt has called my attention to these interesting heaps of sticks with the
beaver teeth marks, many of which he has found while ditching near the Reach.
The wood is all decayed and falls to pieces when exposed a few moments to the air.

6o HISTORY OF C OH AS SET,

ground pine, which is gathered every year to make Christ-
mas wreaths and festoons.

In the coal beds of Scotland some fossil forms of these
lycopods of gigantic size have been identified ; but the
lycopods of Cohasset were the same small variety as
now, in those early post-glacial days thousands of years
before Christmas days or Christmas decorations were
thought of.

The coming of the ferns needed not to be delayed long
after the mosses, for the rock fern buries its root snugly
under them and sets up its business of weaving fronds and
scattering spores for more vegetable growth.

Brakes and maidenhairs and polypodies found the soil
more congenial than the rocks for their growth. The ferns
are the first we have yet considered which root themselves
into the ground for nourishment. It was a new experience
for the clay or rock flour of these drumlins when it first
was wedged apart by the rootlet of a fern seeking the
juices of life for its fronds.

Undisturbed for many years, those heaps of rock flour
had lain after the ice mill had made them. The gases of
the air had been slowly reddening the clay and preparing
it for vegetation.

Now after the mould had formed upon it the spores of
ferns, brought by the wind, could germinate there and grow
into a little green scale wherever the dampness was right.
On the under surface of these scales little hairs clutched
the mould, and upon the upper surface grew little cells,
some of which had the power to grow into a fern if they
were touched by others of a different kind. When these
"eggs" or "seeds" upon the top of the scale began to
grow, then roots of the simplest order began to pierce our
hillsides and plains. From that day onwards the drumlins
and plains have been unable to shake off their garment of
vegetation. The ferns have multiplied in as many as
twenty different varieties.

CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION: 6l

They suck up the minerals of the soil to make stalks
and fronds which die annually to enrich the soil for other
plants. The roots live on for many years, transforming in
this way the soil for a better vegetation. Since the small
overtures of the first days, the continuous toil of the ferns
has been so great that the many tons of earth transformed
would be hard to calculate.

All of these lower orders of plant life are propagated by
spores, and it is easy to see how the winds would carry
them each year a little farther towards the face of the re-
treating ice sheet. Other plants of a higher order cast
forth their seeds doubtless, upon the winds : but it is
obvious that the lower kinds of plants would earlier get a
footing in the cold new soil, because they were less fastidi-
ous about their climate and their food. The seeds of
grasses, for example, might have started northward at every
fresh breeze of summer, but many thousands of them
would rot in the cold moisture where the spores of the alga
and lichen and moss and fern would be happy.

Yet all of these low-grade plants, mean as the circum-
stances are which they find endurable, thrive better when
accompanied by the nobler kinds of vegetation. The
fungus, for example, although next in order to the lichen,
needs a rich deposit of vegetable mould, the corpses
of a million generations of other plants, upon which to
thrive.

The puffball is one which grows now in Cohasset to an
enormous size, two having been found in the year 1896 which
measured thirty-three inches in circumference. It is ob-
vious that the early post-glacial times could not furnish so
good conditions for the growth of this great fungus {Lyco-
perdou giganteujn). The funguses need such things as
decaying trees or leaves to grow upon, and therefore
they could not colonize in Cohasset until thick woods of
long standing had been made.

But how did the woods come .''

6 2 HIS TOR Y OF COHASSE T.

Prof. Asa Gray * has given a convincing account of
the retreat of the North American forest to the south be-
fore the growing glacier, and of its return to its present
state upon the departure of the glacier. How slowly the
edge of the prehistoric forest spread towards the north
when the arctic rigors retreated is left to be imagined.

Each tree casts a myriad seeds ; some few take root.
Perhaps a favorable wind might be able to bear a maple
seed a quarter of a mile, or some gale of winter might rap
a pine cone against a limb so as to loosen a seed that would
sail even farther towards the barren hills. After fifteen or
twenty years perhaps those seeds might have become trees
large enough to send their progeny still farther pioneering
towards the north. Steadily onward the vanguard of the
forest made its way, while every shrub and vine and grass
kept pace with the migrations, when a favorable wind
could be chartered or some animal or bird induced to bear
the seeds along.

The pilgrims that came first to Plymouth, after Plym-
outh Rock itself got pushed there, were the enterpris-
ing: trees from the south. Cohasset was reached not
long after, and the plant settlement grew thicker each
year upon the drumlins which had remained comparatively
bare for perhaps several hundred years.

The covering of pines and oaks and ashes and beeches
and birches and savins was interlaced by witch-hazels and
sumacs and laurels of shorter growth, and by the still
shorter shrubs and by vines. The grasses were a very
important textile in the garment of vegetation. There
was none of the good fleshy English grass such as had to
be imported for the cattle of our pioneer ancestors ; but
even the wild grasses increased the fertility of the soil,
and one kind of native grass, that gigantic variety known

* Forest Geography and Archaeology, a lecture before the Harvard University
Natural History Society, April 18,1878. Printed in American Journal of Science,
Vol. CXVI, pp. 85-94, 183-196.

CLOTHED W'fTir VEGETATION. 63

as Indian corn, or maize, was an extremely valuable prod-
uct. The marsh grasses did some building of land much
after the pattern of the bog mosses. At the mouth of
Bound Brook as before noticed (page 13), all the salt
meadows, including the Conohasset meadows of Scituate,
have been built up in some places as much as three feet
by the growth of grasses. Underneath this marsh, three
feet or more below the present surface, is the original sur-
face of clay as the glacier left it, with the roots of swamp
alder still lying in it : the eelers find the roots sometimes
to their grief in spearing under the edge of the channel;
and before the tide gates were last put in at the Gulf
bridge, the low tide left many of the roots exposed along
the muddy banks.

A shovelful of the marsh muck that lies on top of the
original clay surface will show any one who examines it
spears of grass, besides the roots of grass. The first
spears of grass lie flat upon the clay just where they fell-
hundreds of years ago. Their roots are still to be seen
in the clay. As each successive crop of grass grew and
fell over, uncut by any man, a slight coating of decayed
grass lifted the next year's growth a little higher, so that
at the end of many years the marsh has been brought to
its present height above the original clay surface.* The
slow subsidence of the land, spoken of in the first chapter,
has facilitated the accumulations ; but the work has
been done by the grasses.

Another marsh, that of Little Harbor, has been built
up in a similar way. Three or four feet below the muck
at the foot of the Ridges, pieces of old logs and roots are
to be found buried under the accumulations of decayed
grass and other stuff.

These logs are probably the remains of a growth of

* William Veale, of South Main Street, who has dug through the marsh back
of his house, has called my attention to these facts about the formation of the
marsh.

64

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

trees which existed at the place mentioned before the land
subsided so as to let in the salt sea. But these accumula-
tions of half-decayed grass with roots and particles of dust
are possible only where there is sufficient dampness. The
grass upon uplands never grew very much nor resisted long
the forces of decay. Trees and bushes were more adapted
to the conditions of upland life, and they were so greedy
for sunshine as to lace their tops together, making a deep
shade in most places, quite discouraging to the grass.
Even trees of the dwarf kind were thus bullied out of

Photo, Miss Annie Hartwell,

Little Harhor from ihk Kiik.ks over the Savins.

place. Along the bleak shore, where rocks were many and
the soil scarce, the savin trees could get a fair chance with
the sun ; but in places where big pines and oaks and many
broad-leaved tall trees could grow, the sunlight was so
monopolized that the little savins gave up the struggle.

The climate is such in New England that the richest
variety of trees in the world was here accommodated.
The pine trees could endure the cold winters and the hot
summers because there was a good degree of moisture fall-
ing each year.

CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION. 65

The oaks and birches and beeches and hickories and
chestnuts and many other trees with juicy leaves could
flourish here, because the summers were so hot and moist
that a large growth was made each season, before the bit-
ing frosts could nip off the leaves. Too little moisture or
long periods of drought cannot be endured by these trees.
On the Pacific Coast, where the average temperature is
much milder, these trees get far outstripped by the cone-
bearing trees, because the summers or growing periods are
so dry. These drumlins of ours, furthermore, are able to
hold moisture on account of their clay, so that trees may
flourish evenly throughout the summer. The great bright-
ness of our summer days favors the growth of all our de-
ciduous or falling-leaf trees, because it shines through the
heaviest shade that the evergreen trees can make. In the
British Isles where the fogs are thick, and so many days of
summer are dark, nature, unaided by man, was never able to
nourish so many varieties of deciduous trees as we have here.

Our pine trees and spruce and hemlock and other coni-
fers do not grow so large as the pines of Georgia or the
spruce of Canada, but that gives all the better chance for
the hard-wood trees.

The fact is that nature has been very impartial here to
the different families of trees, giving such a mixture of
sunshine and showers, of heat and cold, of rocks and sand
and clay, that at least seven different varieties of cone-bear-
ing trees and over fifty of the other kind have flourished.
Not in vain was this richness of variety, because it afforded
wood for many different industries in this community before
the railroads and other means of transportation brought the
woods of many distant forests to the needs of every town.

The oaks made good ship timbers, the pines good masts
and good boards. The hickories made springy, tough axe
handles and oxbows and chairs. The chestnuts and elms
were good for cart making and other common uses. The
little ash and birch trees were split for barrel hoops in the

66 HISTORY OF con ASSET.

days of fish packing. The walnut and the hornbeam and
the beech and the maple have all been honored by special
uses in the economies of a self-sufficient community.

The trees which were standing here in a great virgin
forest when first the Anglo-Saxon devastator landed, were
the direct descendants of the first post-glacial comers ;
but many generations of forest had lived and died. The
oldest of trees did not reach perhaps more than three
hundred years before some heavy storms or lightning
strokes would take advantage of their decrepitude to
shatter them. Then the mosses and lichens and funguses
would creep upon their prostrate forms, and other roots
of young ambitious trees would feed upon the relics of
those patriarchs. Living and dying, each tree had its
little romance. The living cast their seeds to make more
life, and dying they left their richness to the soil. They
protected each other from the winds, and all grew taller by
the compact. They helped each other and they murdered
each other. The grapevines would ask the privilege from
some tree to climb up into the sunlight where its grapes
might be held up to ripen ; but its broad leaves would
take so much of the sun as to stunt the growth of its
benefactor. The woodbines twisted upwards around some
growing tree until the bark of the tree was no longer able
to expand, and, choked to death, it fell a victim to the
vine's embrace.

Meanwhile the roots of all were feeling their way
through the gravel and the clay, searching for moisture
and for food. Those which felt among the rocks would
sometimes wedge into a crack, and would swell by growth
enough to loosen tons of granite from the ledges. Thickly
intertwined both by roots and by branches was the fabric
of vegetation. Like any garment, it was subject to the
fretting of moths ; but its living energy repaired all waste,
and it grew steadily thicker until the hand of man was
set to its depletion.

CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION.

67

A fair impression of the primeval verdure that covered
these hills may be gained by a view from the top of Tur-
key Hill across the billowy drumlins towards Bound Brook.
Many shades of green are seen — the light-colored copses
of young beech trees off to the right, the deeper green of
the oak groves, and the dark patches of pine trees, and
the thick stumpy savins clustered about the rocky ledges
of the shore. No cultivated fields broke the view, all
was a heaving sea of variegated green lying beside a
heaving sea of blue, with the white spray dashing between.

The principal difference between this and the original
scene is in the matter of the pine trees. These were

Photo, Miss Harriet A. Nickersun.

The Pines — Howe's Road near Doane Street.

probably much more plentiful at first than they are now.
The plain where the town Common spreads, was covered
says tradition by a dense growth of pines. The sandy
knolls in the upper part of Beechwood, such as Barn Hill,
were pine lands. Artificial selection is somewhat different
from natural selection of favorites, so that elm trees have

68 HISTORY OF COIIASSET.

now usurped the place of many of nature's evergreens
throughout the village. The vines and underbrush have
thrived in pastures where the shady pines have been cut,
but they have lost their grip in places where men have
taken a notion to uproot them.

The Indians formerly burned the horsebriers and the
roses and the bayberry and raspberry and blackberry in
order to make for themselves pathways and cornfields, and
the hands of white men have been even more ruthless;
but these vines and shrubs have adopted the stone walls
for their friends, and by their protection they thrive and
fill the air with fragrance. These small members of the
vegetable kingdom have been the benefactors of men.
The berries have fed many an Indian, perhaps many a
bear. The bayberries of later date made candles. The
swamp milkweed was the hemp for Indian fish lines and
fish nets. Many other uses, besides gratifying the sense
of beauty, were subserved by these minor strands in the
fabric of nature. But all of nature's products are interest-
ing for their own sakes. The life fortunes and mishaps of
a single tree are sometimes romantic ; much more so are
the complex events of a myriad forms of plant life.
Through seven thousand years of their struggle for exist-
ence they have been weaving the superb garment of ver-
dure that adorns the hills of this New England sea town.

CHAPTER V.

THE ABORIGINES.

HITHERTO our story has been the annals of nature,
but now begins the narrative of man. Savage man
made "history here for centuries, and probably for thou-
sands of years, before a white face ever peered into a New
England forest.

It has pleased the Anglo-Saxon immigrants to call the
aboriginal dwellers savages ; but the Anglo-Saxon ances-
tors in Europe were just about as savage as the Indian
forbears of New England.

The higher the reach of civilization above savagery, the
more impressive is the fundamental sameness of human
nature under all its garbs.

The prehistoric human life of Cohasset is a part of the
great hidden drama of man, which was being enacted here
for several thousand years after civilization had begun
about the Mediterranean Sea. The records of that abo-
riginal life are as wordless as nature's, but they can be as
clearly read as nature's were.

The romance of the rocks was read by the shapes of
crystals, and by the cracks and colors and chemicals of the
ledges. Likewise the tragedies of the ice age were in-
ferred from glacial scratches, from rounded hills of hard-
pan, and from the perching bowlders. So the story of the
aborigines is to be read from a few stones and a few bones
and a few shells which they left, taken with the written
descriptions of Indian life as the first white settlers saw it.
Occasionally a farmer nowadays, in plowing, turns up a
stone of an odd, unnatural shape, which attracts his eye.
No other stone among millions is so interesting to him,
because this one has on it the marks of human tampering.

69

70 HIS TOR Y OF COHA SSE T.

Who shaped it so ? and when ? and why ? No civilized
men make such things ; so the imagination easily leaps
back to the uncounted years when savages roamed these
hills. Some one of them must have shaped the peculiar
implement, by patiently pecking at it with another stone,
until it suited his purpose. The red hands which once
held it are gone forever ; the dark eyes which looked
sharply upon it to shape it accurately are dead, with all
the picturesque events of that primeval life. Only the
stone is left. The handle which once was bound to it
has been released by the decay of nature, to mingle with
the invisible gases. Because so much has gone forever,
the stone is the more precious, and antiquarians grow to
love stones for their indestructibility. So many of these
implements have been found, of so great a variety, in
such scattered places, that the whole town is easily con-
victed of a long period of Indian settlement.

Stone axes from Barn Hill, in Beechwood, and from
Pond Hill, near Lily Pond, and one from the Osgood
school yard, and from many other places, have been found
within a few years.

A neat tomahawk, with a groove around it, just like the
grooves around the axes, for binding on the haft, was
plowed up on the border of Straits Pond some thirty
years ago, and is now in the collection kept in the town
library.

An adze, measuring over five inches long, with an edge
polished smoothly two and a half inches broad, was found
near Lily Pond about fifty years ago. It has no groove
for the handle, neither has any other of the several adzes
thus far collected. They were used with short han-
dles for digging out the inside of canoes, and could be
bound very firmly without grooves, as can be seen by ex-
amining some specimens still hafted, in the Harvard
Museum of Anthropology.

A gouge, very thick and clumsy, but polished smooth

THE ABORIGINES. J I

by some other stone to an edge nearly two inches broad,
comes from a farm in the south end of Beech wood.

These edge tools are usually badly nicked, not because
the Indians were careless, for a stone implement cuts
slowly enough when sharp, but because these hills have
been plowed over for two hundred years, and there has
been every opportunity for the cattle's hoofs, and for the
plowshare, and for other stones to strike the brittle edges.

Broken arrowheads, not a few, have been found where

No. I. No. 2. No. 3.

Reduced to one third diameter.

Three Kinds of Stone Sinkers made by the Indians.

No. I found at Straits Pond. No. 2 found at Lily Pond. No. 3 found in Beech-
wood, near Doane Street.

they last led the arrow shaft, which long ago has rotted
off.

Stone knife blades, the longest measuring three inches,
are among our collection, and any one who knows the uses
to which wild Indians nowadays put their knives may
guess what blood may have followed some of these stone
blades.

Spearheads, one of them found on Government Island,
are among the hints of Indian fishing art.

72

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Sinkers, two with a hole through the stone, and one
with a groove around it the long way, are in the showcase
among the recent " finds."

A little fragment of a stone drill is there, and is a fair
suggestion to account for holes in softer stone.

Pestles, made almost good enough by nature, and used
by the Indians for pounding their corn, are among the
hints of Indian women's work.

Stone Bobs, made by the Indians for spinning, or weaving,
or something else.

There are three specimens of spinning bobs that are
probable evidence of one of the Indian modes of spinning
hemp into fish lines and ropes and other cordage.

One of them, the size of a hen's ^g^, with a little knob
on the end, was stirred out of its long slumbers in a field
on Sohier Street, on the side of Deer Hill.

Another, a very much heavier stone, eight inches long,
with the same sort of a knob, came from North Main

THE ABORIGINES.

73

Street, and would have twisted a cord as large as a clothes-
line, if that had been its use. The other one of the three
was dumped upon Border Street, one day, with a lot of
gravel from Edward E. Tower's gravel pit.

One of the most interesting of the collection of Indian
relics is a fragment of soapstone, weighing about a third
of a pound. It is five eighths of an inch thick, and has
an even curvature that proves it to have been a part of a
kettle, such as the Indians used to cut out of the steatite
ledges of New England. The ear holes of one side happen
to be in this piece ; in fact, they are what drew the atten-
tion of the finder, saving the piece from the indifferent
fortune of common stones. This kettle must have been
brought from a distance by the Indians, perhaps from the
steatite ledge of Johnston, R. I., where more than sixty
little cavities in the rock show the exact spot where
many such kettles were worked out of that famous
quarry by the Indians.

These three or four dozen stone implements, which have
lately been gathered by the writer for our town's collec-
tion, are probably but a small percentage of the many
which the white inhabitants have discovered in their two
hundred and fifty years of soil scratching; for fully half
of these have been found during the last ten years. How
many there may be still hiding their story from us can be
guessed by the amount of haphazard luck used in the dis-
covery of these. To a keen observer, every artificial
mark, where a chip of the stone was broken off in shaping
it, starts a long series of inferences back to the mind of the
maker, and his human or natural surroundings.

How far one can look into the life of the aborigines
depends, therefore, very much upon his mental power of
tracing causes and effects in the human activity which
the circumstances of nature here occasioned.

The date determined by the best glacial authorities for
the melting of the ice sheet leaves about seven thousand

74 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

years, during which human life might have been comfort-
able at this place. There is no respectable doubt nowa-
days that the aborigines of Cohasset were descended from
the Indians, who dwelt south of the front edge of the
glacier when it lay freezing and melting for many years
upon these northern lands. Indeed, there is very con-
vincing evidence in the famous Trenton gravels that
human life prevailed in these northern %\.2l\.q.?, preceding the
formatio7i of the ice sheet. The stone implements which
have been found in those New Jersey gravel banks, that
make the terminal moraine of the glacier, have been found
lying in such positions as proves to almost any doubter
that the glacier pushed them there from farther north,
along with the gravel. One may see this great col-
lection of thousands of implements in the Harvard Mu-
seum where C. C. Abbott has deposited them ; but the
evidence of their antiquity may be read in the careful
discussions of Professor Wright's book, which we have
already quoted. The further corroborative evidence
which has come from the moraines of Minnesota, and
from California, and from the clay image of Idaho dis-
covered three hundred and twenty feet below the surface,
beneath basalt rock, all of these, and many more discov-
eries scientifically authentic, have been forcing the archae-
ologists of America to a belief in the preglacial existence
of man upon this continent. But since no evidence of
this life has yet been discovered at Cohasset, brought
here in the glacial drift from farther north, our only con-
cern is with the life which has come later than the glacier.
Doubtless the first Indian explorers from the southern
lands came to Cohasset upon fishing and hunting expedi-
tions, while the glacier was dying ; but when the climate
became warmer, and the vegetation spread itself for homes
of wild animals and birds, then such Indians as found life
more agreeable here came to this rocky shore to live.
Their habits and customs and language, as well as their

rilE ABORIGINES.

/D

corn, came from southern seed. Whether in these seven
thousand years there may have been more than one dis-
tinct race of people spreading over this region is quite
beyond the power of archaeologists, at present, to deter-
mine. C. C. Willoughby, of Harvard Museum, whose
recent discoveries of extremely ancient burial mounds in
Maine have given him valuable scientific data, suspects
the existence of a race more primitive than the Algon-
quins and preceding them.

But the Algonquin Indians, who were the one dominat-
ing family of Indian tribes when white settlements began,
had spread from Virginia to Labrador, and from the At-
lantic to the Mississippi River. Their language is the
basis of dozens of the various dialects in those regions.
Take, for example, the word " Mississippi," meaning Great
Water, the first part, Missi, meaning Great, is identical
in essence with the first root of Massachusetts, meaning
Great Hills,* and the last part, ippi, meaning Water, is
seen in the name of our neighboring pond, called Assi-
nippi. Rocky Water.

These words at these far distant extremities of the Al-
gonquin nation are enough to illustrate the spread and
the variation in the one dominant tongue. How long it
must have taken for this nation of red men to have spread
itself and its language over so broad an area is a matter
of guesswork. The Greek nation had a written language,
and an enterprise vastly superior to anything seen among
the Algonquin tribes, and it took them, perhaps, two thou-
sand years to spread their dialect half as broadly.

If four or five thousand years are a fair estimate for
the age of the Algonquin language, our original name of

* Dr. H. M. Dexter, in Lib. of New England Hist., I, 124, Ed. 1865, 4, says
that Massachusetts means " a hill in the form of an arrow's head ; " but it means
more than that. Any sharp hill was an " adchus," but a large one was a " massa "
"adchus " ; while a place of large hills was indicated by an " at " or " ut " ending'.
" Massa "" adchus "" ut," therefore, referred to the region about the Blue Hills,
where the tribe so named inhabited.

76 IHSrORY OF C OH ASSET.

Conohasset may be as ancient as Athens or Corinth, and
these Indian relics as antique as Dr. Schliemann's from
ancient Troy.

Winter* settlements were here in the ancient forests,
probably along the course of Bound Brook.

Fresh water was brought in buckets of birch bark from
the stream a few rods off, where a stone axe swung by a
swarthy arm might have broken the ice in winter for their
domestic comfort. Settlements along the shore for sum-
mer resorting must have been many, for at least three
places have been rich with relics of Indian life.

One of these summer camps was upon the edge of
Straits Pond, north of Jerusalem Road, in the very yard
where Bostonians now resort. An orchard grows now
where heaps of shells were discarded by the Indians.
Thomas Hudson in plowing here, thirty years ago, en-
countered those kitchen heaps, and found several stone
implements, among which were the grooved tomahawk,
and the grooved codfish sinker, before mentioned. No
such shell heaps are here in Cohasset as have been found
upon the banks of the Damariscotta in Maine, where piles
of huge oyster shells have reached the height of twenty-

* The following account of some stone " fireplaces " in Beechwood, upon Barn
Hill, may possibly have mistaken the beds of ancient charcoal pits for Indian
wigwams; but even if the Indians here were not in the habit of building stone
hearths in their lodges, still their abodes in many places of Cohasset are sufficiently
proved by the implements discovered.

The field on Barn Hill had been plowed over by several generations, and the
stones in certain spots were allowed to trip the plow without any attempt to clear
them out.

Finally, one day about thirty-five years ago, Ira B. Pratt, then at work with his
father, started to dig out these troublesome stones. But upon scraping away the
dirt from some of them, there were bits of charcoal found in the crevices, and they
were so placed together as to make a pavement five feet in diameter, such as nature
is not in the habit of making. There were five such nests of stones within an area
of two hundred feet in width. Fragments of a stone axe and a gouge, also spear-
heads and arrowheads, were found in the field near these nests. These all may be
evidences of an ancient Indian settlement; for each wigwam had a fireplace in the
middle of it, where fish and birds and other game could be roasted, while as many
as a dozen hungry redskins were gathered about its rude liearthstone.

THE ABORIGINES. 77

five feet ; but many hundreds of savages may have re-
sorted to those famous oyster beds, while only a modest
few of our local Indians feasted here upon their clams.

The Indian women with wooden spades dug out of their
mud beds the bivalves of Cohasset birth and breeding for
the hungry braves, that might have grunted their appre-
ciation, or scolded their disapproval. Domestic scenes of
the same sort have left their traces in the ground of
Cooper's Island in Little Harbor, where Thomas Farrar
has plowed out a dozen or more of stone tools. Some one
has called attention to the little bulbs of wild garlic
which can be found growing on Cooper's Island as a late
witness of the Indians' kitchen gardens.

The still water of the harbor was, no doubt, attractive
to their cranky little dugout canoes, and the soil was good
for their corn, while near enough to the fish that were
used to manure it. The third place of abundant relics is
the sloping ground at the north end of the bridge over the
entrance to Little Harbor. Several workmen who have
dug the soil at this place tell of axes and hatchets and
arrowheads and other sure evidences of Indian camping
grounds.

One stone mortar for grinding corn, the only stone mor-
tar so far reported in Cohasset, was said to have been
found here. Wooden mortars were much used when white
settlers first came to New England, but decay has long
since banished them, so that the few stone ones in exist-
ence are the more valuable.

Many more relics from this spot at the entrance of Lit-
tle Harbor may be discovered some day, when the sod
fetters are loosened. What tragedies may have darkened
this lovely slope during the many generations of abo-
rigines are not denied by the quiet now reigning there;
for, neither does it tell of a score of dead bodies which
lay spread there from a terrible wreck, within the memory
of livinsr men.

78 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Another place of Indian life must have been near the
Cove ; for Captain John Smith, the first white visitor,
found savages there, as we shall see in the next chapter ;
but the white settlements have so long occupied the place
that all tradition of Indian remains found there has per-
ished.

Just inside the Gulf Stream, on the Bryant place, at
least one grooved tomahawk was found twenty years ago.
As late as the summer of 1896 an Indian fireplace was
found on the border of Little Harbor, at the Manning
estate, and a pestle was dug up there. What further sea-
side settlements may be brought to light will only add
evidence to what is already proved pf the Indian life at
Cohasset.

The inland nooks, among the pine trees near springs or
streams of fresh water, furnished a shelter from the furious
winds of winter ; and the hunters were nearer their game
in the woods, when the fishing on the sea was unsafe or
uncomfortable.

One of these inland lodges was in Beechwood, at the
southwest corner of Beechwood and Doane Street, seventy-
five feet from either, where formerly an embankment
sloped towards the sun near Bound Brook. Isaiah Lincoln
dug up the old fireplace, finding a stone adze and a bit of
jawbone containing one double tooth.

Besides the settlement on Barn Hill, of which we have
taken account, there was another winter resort of which
an authentic tradition tells the story. It was near a pond-
like widening of Bound Brook at the Falls upon the Scit-
uate boundary, a half mile in a straight line from the
Bound Stone. At this place there is a long hill sloping
towards the south, and here, where the warm sunshine
softened the rigors of winter, the Indians are said to have
resorted even as late as the time of white settlements.
Near the top of the hill under a rocky ledge a heap of
clam shells was dug into by Francis Lincoln about

THE ABORIGINES. 79

fifty years ago near his stone wall. His father, Isaac
Lincoln, reported the same "find " having been made fifty
years before that. Although some digging there by the
writer was unrewarded by so much as a clam shell, the tra-
dition is very reliable.

Just how closely these discoveries comport with the tes-
timony of eyewitnesses of our New England Indian dwell-
ings may be seen by the following account from Daniel
Gookin in 1674. Gookin was the first Indian commis-
sioner in America, appointed by the government, and he
was thorough in his investigations : —

Their houses, or wigwams, are built with small poles fixed in
the ground, bent and fastened together with barks of trees oval or
arbourwise on the top. The best sort of their houses are covered
very neatly, tight, and warm with barks of trees, slipped from
their bodies at such seasons when the sap is up ; and made into
great flakes with pressures of weighty timber, when they are green ;
and so becoming dry, they will retain a form suitable for the
use they prepare them for.

The meaner sort of wigwams are covered with mats, they make
of a kind of bulrush, which are also indifferent tight and warm,
but not so good as the former. These houses they make of sev-
eral sizes, according to their activity and ability, some twenty,
some forty feet long, and broad. Some I have seen of sixty or a
hundred feet long, and thirty feet broad. In the smaller sort they
make a fire in the centre of the house, and have a lower hole on
the top of the house, to let out the smoke. They keep the door
into the wigwams always shut, by a mat falling thereon,, as people
go in and out. This they do to prevent air coming in, which will
cause much smoke in every windy weather. If the smoke beat
down at the lower hole, they hang a little mat in the way of a
skreen on the top of the house, which they can with a cord
turn to the windward side, which prevents the smoke. In the
greater houses they make two, three, or four fires, at a distance
one from another, for the better accommodation of the people be-
longing to it. I have often lodged in their wigwams ; and have
found them as warm as the best English houses. In the wigwams.

8o HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

they make a kind of couch or mattresses, firm and strong, raised
about a foot high from the earth ; first covered with boards that
they split out of trees ; and upon the boards they spread mats
generally, and sometimes bear skins and deer skins.*

For several reasons as deep as nature the Indians at
Cohasset probably had the meaner sort of houses that
Gookin speaks of. The rocks were too plentiful in this
region to support the best vegetation for animal life or to
raise the best corn for human life.

Hunting was probably never so good upon this corner
of land, because it lies outside of any highway which
animals like deer and moose and bear may have taken.

The Indian life was consequently much thinner here
than it was in southern Massachusetts or about Boston
Bay. The Conohasset tribe of Indians were unimportant,
living upon the boundary between the Massachusetts
tribes and those to the south under Massasoit.

The approach by sea was dangerous, and by land a side
track, while not much was to be had here besides the
scenery and the sea. The domestic habits of the Cono-
hasset Indians were probably the same as other tribes, and
Gookin's description is as authentic and as quaint as
any : —

Their food is generally boiled maize, or Indian corn, mixed
with kidney-beans, or sometimes without. Also they frequently
boil in this pottage fish and flesh of all sorts, either new taken or
dried, as shads, eels, alewives or a kind of herring, or any other
sort of fish. But they dry mostly those sorts before mentioned.
These they cut in pieces, bones and all, and boil them in the
aforesaid pottage. I have wondered many, times that they were
not in danger of being choaked with fish bones ; but they are so
dexterous to separate the bones from the fish in the eating
thereof, that they are in no hazard. Also they boil in this fur-
menty all sorts of flesh, they take in hunting : as venison, beaver,
bear's flesh, moose, otter's, rackoons, or any kind that they take

*See Mass. Hist. Col., Vol. I, p. 14S.

THE ABORIGINES. 8 I

in hunting ; cutting this flesh in small pieces, and boiling it as
aforesaid. Also they mix with the said pottage several sorts of
roots ; as Jerusalem artichokes, and ground nuts, and other roots,
and pompians, and squashes, and also several sorts of nuts or
masts, as oak-acrons, chestnuts, walnuts : these husked and dried,
and powdered, they thicken their pottage therewith. Also some-
times they beat their maize into meal, and sift it through a basket,
made for that purpose. With this meal they make bread, baking
it in the ashes, covering the dough with leaves. Sometimes they
make of their meal a small sort of cakes, and boil them. They
make also a certain sort of meal of parched maize. This meal
they call nokake. It is so sweet, toothsome, and hearty, that an
Indian will travel many days with no other food but this meal,
which he eateth as he needs, and after it drinketh water. And for
this end, when they travel a journey, or go a hunting, they carry
this nokake in a. basket, or bag, for their use.

Their household -stuff is but little and mean. The pots they
seeth their food in, which were heretofore, and yet are, in use
among some of them, are made of clay or earth, almost in the
form of an egg, the top taken off, but now they generally get
kettles of brass, copper, or iron. . . . Their dishes and spoons,
and ladles, are made of wood, very smooth and artificial [artis-
tic], and of a sort of wood not subject to split. These they
make of several sizes. Their pails to fetch their water in, are
made of birch barks, artificially [skillfully] doubled up, that it
hath four corners and a handle in the midst. Some of these will
hold two or three gallons : and they will make one of them in an
hour's time. From the tree where the bark grows, they make
several sorts of baskets, great and small. Some will hold four
bushels, or more : and so downward, to a pint. In their baskets
they put their provisions. Some of their baskets are made of
rushes : some of bents : others, of maize husks : others, of a
kind of silk grass : others, of a kind of wild hemp : and some, of
barks of trees : many of them, very neat and artificial, with the
portraitures of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers, upon them in
colours. Also they make mats of several sorts, for covering their
houses and doors, and to sleep and sit upon. The baskets and
mats are made always by their women : their dishes, pots, and
spoons, are the manufacture of the men. They have no other

82

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

considerable household stuff except these : only of latter years,
smce the English came among them, some of them get tin cups
and little pails, chests of wood, glass bottles, and such things they
affect.

The Indians' clothing in former times was of the same matter
as Adam's was, viz. skins of beasts, as deer, moose, beaver, otters,
rackoons, foxes, and other wild creatures. Also, some had man-
tles of the feathers of
birds, quilled arti-
ficially ; and sundry
of them continue to
this day their old kind
of clothing.

Their weapons
heretofore were bows
and arrows, clubs and
tomahawks, made of
wood like a pole axe,
with a sharpened
stone fastened there-
in ; and for defence,
they had targets made
of barks of trees.
But of latter years,
since the English,
Dutch, and French
have trafficked with
them, they generally
disuse their former
weapons, and instead
thereof have guns,
pistols, swords, rapier blades, fastened unto a staff of the length
of a half pike, hatchets, and axes.

For their water passage, travels, and fishing, they make boats,
or canoes, either of great trees, pine or chestnut, made hollow
and artificially ; which they do by burning them ; and after with
tools, scraping, smoothing, shaping them. Of these they make
greater or lesser. Some I have seen will carry twenty persons,
being forty or fifty feet in length, and as broad as the tree will

Stone Hide Scuapkk, ok a Squaw's Knife.
King Street.

THE ABORIGINES. 83

bear. They make another sort of canoes of birchen bark, which
they close together, sewing them with a kind of bark, and then
smearing the places with turpentine of the pine tree. These
kinds of canoes are very neatly and artificially made, being
strengthened in the inside with some few thin timbers and ribs ;
yet they are so light, that one man will, and doth, ordinarily carry
one of them upon his back several miles, that will transport five
or six people. When in their huntings or wars, they are to pass
falls of rivers, or necks of land, into other rivers or streams, they
take up their canoes upon their backs, and others carry their arms
or provisions ; and so embark again, when their difficulty is past,
and proceed in their journey or voyage. But these kind of
canoes are much more ticklish and apt to overset, than the former.
But the Indians are so used to them, and sit so steady that they
seldom overturn with them ; and if they should, they can swim
well and save their lives, though sometimes they may lose their
peltry, arms, and provisions.

They used to oil their skins and hair with bear's grease hereto-
fore ; but now with swine's fat, and then paint their faces with
vermilion, or other red, and powder their heads. Also they use
black and white paints, and make one part of their face of one
colour; and another, of another, very deformedly. The women
especially do thus ; and some men also, especially when they are
marching to their wars ; and hereby, as they think, are more
terrible to their enemies. The women, in the times of their
mourning, after the deaths of their husbands or kindred, do paint
their faces all over black, like a negro ; and so continue in this
posture many days. But the civilized and christian Indians do
leave these customs. The men, in their wars, do use turkey or
eagle's feathers, stuck in their hair, as it is traced up in a roll.
Others wear deer shuts, made in the fashion of a cock's comb
died red, crossing their heads like a half moon.

They are addicted to gaming ; and will, in that vein, play away
all they have. And also they delight much in their dancings and
revellings ; at which time he that danceth (for they dance singly
the men and not the women, the rest singing, which is their chief
musick) will give away in his froHck, all that ever he hath, grad-
ually, some to one, and some to another, according to his fancy
and affection. And then, when he hath stripped himself of all

84 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

he hath, and is weary, another succeeds and doth the like ; so
successively, one after another, night after night, resting and
sleeping in the days ; and so continue sometimes a week together.
And at such dancings, and feastings, and revelHngs, which are
used mostly after the ingathering of their harvests, all their
neighbors, kindred, and friends, meet together ; and much im-
piety is committed at such times. They use great vehemency
in the motion of their bodies, in their dances, and sometimes the
men dance in greater numbers in their war dances.*

Thus were the habits of our New England predecessors
described by Daniel Gookin, the first Indian commissioner,
over two centuries ago. For how many generations of
Indians before the advent of white men this description
may be true, no one can tell. But for many hundreds of
years probably these habits prevailed because they were
about as simple as savage life can be, and there is no race
more unchangeable than the North American Indian.
What little religious life these men manifested was more
closely scrutinized by the Pilgrim fathers than by any
others, and Edward Winslow writes as follows : —

At first, whereas myself and others wrote that the Indians
about us are a people without any religion, or knowledge of any
God : therein I erred, though we could then gather no better. For
as they conceive of many Divine Powers, so of one, whom they
call Kiehtan, (Ancient One) to be the principal and maker of all the
rest; and to be made by none. ''He" say they "created the
heavens, earth, sea, and all creatures contained therein." Also
that he made one man and one woman ; of whom they and
we, and all mankind came : but how they became so far dispersed,
that know they not.

Kiehtan dwelleth above in the heavens ; whither all good men go
when they die, to see their friends and have their fill of all things, f

In comprehending the nature of the aboriginal pos-
sessors of this locality, it must be remembered that they

*Gookin's narrative in Mass. Hist. Col., Vol. I, p. 148/".
fGood News from New England, by Edward Winslow.

THE ABORIGINES. 85

•were devoid of one trait which seems most conspicuous in
the Anglo-Saxon, namely, the passion to accumulate.

They had scarcely more impulse to lay up possessions
of any sort than a respectable squirrel has.

Just enough food or clothing to meet the season's re-
quirements was provided. Fish in the summer time was
the principal food, and some surplus was hung up inside
the wigwam, where it was smoked thoroughly for the
winter needs.

Wild animals were hunted in the winter, and the native
corn, or maize, was relied upon to eke out their narrow bill
of fare. Houses or barns were unnecessary, for they
wished to lay up nothing. Roads were not made through
the woods, for they had nothing stored that needed a road
to be hauled upon.

The total possessions of an Indian family could be car-
ried upon their backs in one trip, so innocent were they of
the passion for owning things.

How greatly reduced are the functions of life by the lack
of the desire to accumulate may be readily seen. Indeed,
we may dare to give a narrative of the annual order of
events in the Cohasset Indian life that will be fairly ex-
haustive of it.

Beginning with the early months of summer, the male
inhabitants get their canoes launched into the water from
their winter covering of mats and boughs. There may be
a dozen or more of them at the Cove and a few of them at
Straits Pond, If any Indian finds that his craft has been
stolen by some sneak when he was dwelling in his winter
wigwam in the woods, or if he needs a new one because
the season cracks are large, or because his family is grown
too numerous, he goes into the woods to make him a new
canoe. A pine tree or an oak or a chestnut of proper size,
free from knots, is chosen, and with his stone axe it is
felled and cut to the proper length. After barking it and
shaping it fore and aft, the long job of hollowing it out is

8 6 J^IS TOR V OF CO II A SSE T.

undertaken. For this he uses fire and adzes and axes,
and most of all patience. With stones a spark of fire is
struck, and it is kindled into a blaze with pitch pine or
birch bark ; then the top of the log begins to be eaten into
by a series of little fires that are diligently kept from burn-
ing the edges by applying water that the birch bucket has
brought from a neighboring stream. At night the fire is put
out, lest it spoil the boat by burning through the side. The
next day from his camp fire he takes a coal to rekindle the
industrial flame in the log. Two inches thick of unburnt
wood must be left, so that when the stone adze trims off
the blackened surface the sides will be about an inch thick.
A large adze with a handle two feet long may be used for
roughing down, but it is finished by a small one, much
like a chisel, set into a piece of horn or bone for a handle.
The canoe then is scraped smooth by shells. The breadth
of beam in these dugouts may be increased by filling the
finished canoe with water made very hot by dropping in
stones from a fire until the wood gets well softened, and
then by pressing in stretchers between the edges.

Ten or twelve days, and sometimes a month, will be
used in the making of a small canoe, or tnishoon, as they
called these dugouts.*

After getting their canoes into the water, when it comes
time to leave the winter quarters in Beechwood. or else-
where, the men choose a place and build some sort of a
lodge at the shore, for the winterwinds have demolished
the old ones. Then the women begin to lug the household
goods to their summer residences.

They tie up a huge bundle of pots, and wooden spoons,
and stone knives, and bone needles, and fish lines with
stone sinkers, and fish nets, and their half-finished handi-
work of mats or baskets ; then they get this burden of
perhaps a hundred pounds in weight upon their stooping-
backs, hanging it by a band across their foreheads. They

* See Roger Williams' Key to the Languages of America, p. loo.

THE ABORIGINES.

87

hold their heads by clasping their hands over them, thus
easing the strain upon their necks. On they go single
file through the woods by the old trail that leads to the
beach down Bound Brook or Rattlesnake Run.

Half-grown girls carry little bundles for their mothers
wrapped in beaver skins, and if you look in at the top you
see the most stolid little red-faced baby with black eyes

Seven eighths natural length.
Side and Edge View of Stone Spearhead.
Barn Hill, Beechwood.

Stone Knife Blade.
From Lily Pond.

and putty features, that endures silently any amount of
jogging.

Toddling behind the women are little boys with moose-
hide moccasins and leather garments, so cunning that
their mother laughed heartily at them when first their little
bodies were thus adorned. The burdens are rested upon

88 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

a fallen tree here and there next to the trail, and the birds
or squirrels catch glimpses of the strange procession as it
moves through the woods to the shore. However tired
the women are, they must broil the fish for their husbands
or cook the lobsters the men have speared.

The lobsters were best captured upon very calm days at
low tide as Josselyn tells us, " going out in their canows with
a staff two or three yards long, made small and sharpened
at one end, and nicked with deep nicks to take hold.
When they spye the lobster crawling upon the sand in two
fathom of water, more or less they stick him toward the
head and bring him up." " I have known thirty lobsters,"
says Josselyn, "taken by an Indian lad in an hour and a
half." *

Cohasset lobstering began many years ago ; but perhaps
this is the biggest catch on record.

But while the men are fishing for lobsters or cod or
mackerel or bass, the women are engaged in the laborious
vocation of farming.

There are places inland and along the coast where
the soil is favorable for raising corn. These places have
been cleared by burning since time immemorial, and every
year the women with sharp sticks loosen up the soil in
places two or three feet apart among the roots and stones
and stumps.

Into the little holes which they dig a fish or two is
placed for manure, and a little soil is sprinkled on top ;
then four or five kernels of ripe corn are dropped into the
hole and covered. The women plant as much as they
choose each day, leaving their babies at a convenient spot
near their work, where children are playing or squabbling
as the moods of nature prompt. They plant in April and
May, reaping in September, when it is stored in pits in the
ground.

*John Josselyn's Account of Two Voyages to New England, 1674.

THE ABORIGINES. 89

This corn, or ewachim* as Governor Winslow tells us the
Indians call it, is a most remarkable cereal. No other
grain yields as much for the labor expended, and none can
be so easily garnered as the large ears full of this luscious
grain. It is food when green as well as when ripe, and the
leaves of it make useful mats for Indian homes. One of
the misfortunes to the crop which rouses the wrath of the
female farmers is the pillaging by wolves at seedtime.
These hungry beasts, prowling across a cornfield just
planted, sniff the fish in the ground and dig them out for a
savory meal ; so that a night watch is sometimes posted for
about two weeks until the fish have rotted. Through the
long lazy summer its growth is protected from the crows
and the wild turkeys. The season draws to its end.
During the hot days the Indians about the Cove are doz-
ing in the shade of bushes or bathing in the tide or pad-
dling out in their canoes to where their fish nets are set,
or going on a visit to some friend among the Massachu-
setts to the north, or the Wampanoags to the south.

At night, after the last meal has been devoured, fish,
berries, corn cake, clams, lobsters, whatever the women of
the household have been able to make ready, the evening
campfires cast a glow upon a group of red faces that shine
with social enjoyment and with grease. Young braves
banter each other until peals of laughter burst upon the
evening air, or they plan some escapade for the morrow,
or they growl over the misfortunes of the day, until nature
lays them low in sleep while the silent tide creeps in and
out.

In the fall of the year they gather bunches of swamp
milkweed {Asclepias incarnata), which has a tough fiber
just inside the bark, from which their hemp is spun into
threads, fish lines, and ropes. Their skill is praised by Wil-
liam Wood, writing in 1671, who says : " Their cordage is so

* Good News from New England, Gov. E. Winslow, in Arber's Story of Pilgrim
Fathers, p. 594.

90

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

even, soft, and smooth, that it looks more like silk than
hemp."

The spinning is done in their winter homes, to which
they migrate in the fall, and there too is carried on their
tanning and curing of skins. Large animals are caught
by nooses made from their strong hemp ropes. The noose
is attached to a tree held down by a trigger on the ground

where the animals
browse. When the
hoof steps in, the
trigger is sprung,
and up flies the tree-
top with a tight
noose about the leg
of the struggling
animal*

The death blow
must be dealt by the
clumsy stone axe
or the spear with its
jagged stone head.
But with these rude
implements great
skill is acquired. In
throwing a toma-
hawk the Indian aim
is most unerring.
" Their boyes," says
Captain Edward
Johnson,! will ordi-
narily shoot fish with their arrows as they swim in shallow
rivers. They draw the arrow halfway, putting the point of
it in the water; they let fly and strike the fish through.

* Mourt's Relation, p. 8, tells how Gov. William Bradford was caught in one of
these traps and " horsed up by the leg."

See also, for similar incidents, Thomas Morton's New jinglish Canaan, p. 200.
t History of New England, 1628-1652, p. 227.

Side and Edge of Spear or Knife Blade.
Government Island.

THE ABORIGINES.

91

Among the other occupations of their wigwams in win-
ter and summer are the making of wampum, or money, and
the fashioning of stone implements. The latter has al-
ready been mentioned, and much skill is necessary in
chipping one stone by striking it with another. Some of
them are smoothed by long rubbing. Bits of quartz with-

Three quarters natural length.
Upper— A Reject. Stone Knife Blade.

Lower— Spearhead from Punch Bowl. From Government Island.

out any smoothing, after being chipped into flat, triangular
points, are fastened into arrow shafts either by a hard gum
or by sinews.

Pieces of felsite are most used for edge tools, because
they chip with a conchoidal fracture instead of cracking
straight through. How to bore a hole in stone without

92 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

the use of steel may be a puzzle, but the Indian solves it
by whirling a stick with sand and water in the cavity.

For softer stones, like soapstone for tobacco pipes and
slate for sinkers, a drill of harder stone is used.

The only metal used in the arts is copper, and that very
sparingly in these regions ; but stone implements are sat-
isfactory, since nothing better is known.

For the small amount of commerce carried on, a money
is used which comes from a familiar seashell. It is the
quahog, or, as Roger Williams spells it, poquahock.*

It is the same species of clam ( Venus mercenarid) which
the glacier pushed out of Boston Harbor thousands of
years before in making our hills.f Williams says: "The
Indians wade deep and dive for it, and after they have
eaten the meat, in those which are good, they break out
about half an inch of a black part of the shell, which they
make into their black money." A cheaper kind of money
corresponding to our silver " is the wampum or white
money, made of a periwinkle shell," says Williams.

Thus do the commercial and private affairs of the
Indian life move on from year to year. Petty jealousies
and noble courage, progressiveness and fogyism, romances
and drudgeries, all the fundamental experiences of human
life, are enacted yearly in this remote corner of Indian
habitations, without any significant changes, until one day
a paleface is seen — eight or nine of them in a strange,
broad boat, which enters the harbor with the paddles
sticking out horizontally on both sides, instead of going
straight down into the water as any sensible Indian
would have them.

• Key to Language of America, p. xoif. fSee p. 39.

CHAPTER VI.

THE " OUONAHASSIT" PIONEERS.

THE first white man known to have entered our
harbor was Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas fame,
with eight or nine English sailors, in the summer of 1614.
That was six years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth,
and sixteen years before the Puritans were established at
Boston.

The coming of that rowboat, with its European crew,
into the channel of Cohasset Harbor discovered a secret
hitherto held by nature and by its savage inhabitants.

Great excitement was aroused by these intruders, as
though by instinct the savage heart felt the far-reaching
consequences of that visit. It is true that rumors of pale-
faced strangers upon their coast had floated for many years
from tribe to tribe among the Indians ; but to see these
mysterious strangers was an exciting experience.

Ever since the year 1498, when John Cabot and his
son Sebastian explored the east coast of North America,
adventurous mariners had made occasional landfalls upon
the coast.

In the year 1568, forty-six years before John Smith
appeared at Cohasset, an Englishman named David Ingram,
with nearly a hundred companions, had been abandoned by
Captain John Hawkins on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
David Ingram and two others made their way afoot along
the Indian trails for many tedious months, until they reached
the New England coast ; and Ingram was finally picked up
at the mouth of the St. John River (N. B.) by a French
ship.

We shall never have the satisfaction of knowing whether

94

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Ingram's weary feet ever honored the soil of Cohasset, but
the story of him and of others must have been retailed here
in the Indian gossip.

After the year 1600 the visits of mariners to the coast
of Maine were frequently described in the written docu-
ments of that period, and some of these adventurers no
doubt came in sight of the Cohasset rocks. Perhaps the
narrowest escape from a visit was when Martin Pring, in
the summer of 1603, was searching for a cargo of sassafras
in Massachusetts Bay, first on the north shore and then on
the south. But his vessel was too precious to be risked
among the rocks that stud our shore, and he sailed south-
ward till he came to the smooth harbor of Plymouth.*
There he loaded two vessels with sassafras ; and, after an
amusing adventure with the Indians, who were terrified by
Pring's two huge mastiff dogs, he sailed home to Bristol,
England.

Two years after this, in the summer of 1605, again Co-
hasset narrowly escaped discovery. Samuel de Cham-
plain says in his " Voyages " : " On the eighteenth of June,
1605, Sieur de Monts set out from the island of St. Croix,
with some gentlemen, twenty sailors, and a savage named
Panounias, together with his wife whom he was unwilling
to leave behind," as guides to explore the coast of Massa-
chusetts Bay. They passed the islands of Boston Harbor,
July 15, which, says Cham plain, were covered with trees,
and they were met by great numbers of canoes with
Indians.

On Sunday, the seventeenth of July, this little bark of
fifteen tons sailed past Point Allerton along in full sight
of the white granite rocks of Cohasset, outside of our

* Palfrey and Bancroft, following the lead of Belknap, have taken Pring's visit to
terminate at Edgartown Harbor in Martha's Vineyard instead of Plymouth Har-
bor; but Dr. De Costa (N. E. Hist, and Gen, Reg., Jan., 1878) locates it at Plym-
outh, called by Pring " Whitson Bay." After a careful study of Pring's narrative
in Purchas' Pilgrims, Vol. IV, p. 1654, I am convinced thai Dr. De Costa is
right.

THE " QC/0JVA//ASS/7'" PIONEERS.

95

murderous ledges, past Scituate and Marshfield, anchoring
for the night not far from Brant Rock.*

It is quite obvious that the obscure and rock-fringed
harbor of Cohasset would not be discovered until some
explorer in a rowboat might venture in between the
uncharted rocks.

This deed was reserved for Captain John Smith, the ver-
satile and brilliant hero of the Virginia Colony.

It was in the summer of

I'j^l-IPy-

1614 that Smith's two ves-
sels lay at Monhigan Island,
off the coast of Maine, tak-
ing cargoes offish. "Whilest
the sailers fished," says
Smith, " my selfe, with eight
or nine others of them that
might best bee spared, rang-
ing the coast in a small boat,
wee got for trifles neer 1 100
Bever skinnes, 100 martins
and neer as many Otters."
He drew a very creditable
map of the coast line, the
first really good one, from
Maine to the bottom of
Cape Cod,

He visited about forty
Indian villages, and gave the
names of about twenty

different tribes. One of them is spelled Ouonahassit,
and it is perhaps the most interesting word to us in all
of Captain Smith's "Description of New England."

It is immediately recognized as the original name from
which Cohasset has come. It was the Indians' own name

CJH' '"■ •'•cLmu ihxtfu^ ,ky Tacc.l.-t A.-f

rrhaifuw thy Ora.CC and Cflory; hr,Aur hcc
cry l^irc-DfcoutrU, and rovTlc. - Ovirrkn^a

Of Salva^Ci.mucK CivMizJ. ty the
.■^tfijluii/ tfy Sjirit.atid a it Clory r.^^JtC ,
^ St.'/wu art Braf?e wi.-iciut.iu^ ^olrii MTithtn/lS

Captain John Smith.
The Discoverer of Cohasset.

* Champlain's Voyages, Chap. VII, Prince Publication.
neers of France in the New World, p. 254.

Cf. Parkman's Pio-

96 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

for their own home, spelled as they pronounced it to Smith's
expert ear.

The meaning of it is a fair object of inquiry, for the
Indian names of places are almost invariably descriptive
words.

Parson Flint, in his "Century Discourses," said that
" Conohasset was an Indian name, signifying a fishing
promontory ; " but this meaning is undoubtedly a mistake.*
No part of the word means fish, and there is nothing in it
to signify a promontory. The Indian word for fish is
nainis or nahvios, and a "place of fish" is neviaskct or
some allied form of the word. By carefully comparing
ours with several other Indian words that are similar, the
first part of the word, or Q?iona, is proved to mean " long."
It is to be seen in the old spelling of Connecticut River,
namely, Quonnaticut, meaning a long tidal river. In
Pennsylvania the following Indian names for rivers show
the same root, meaning "long": Conodoguinet = long
way nothing but bends. Conequenessing := long way
straight. The same root with a disguised spelling is in
the familiar Kennebec River of Maine, meaning " long
river." Koine or cojine or cono or quona are the differ-
ent spellings of substantially the same Indian sounds.

The second root discernible in our name is Jiassi, which
undoubtedly means "rock" or "rocky." Six different
dialects of the Algonquin language have a word similar
to this, meaning rock or stone : Jmssim, assene, ossin^ assin,
akhsin, asenneJi. The nearest to ours may be the so-
called " Old Algonquin " form of assin.

The t ending of our name is a familiar sound at the end
of many Indian names for localities. The terminal at, et,
it, ot, nt, etc., was indicative of place or the name of a
locality.

* Deane's History of Scituate, written ten years later, continues this error, quoting
from Flint (p. 4) ; also Solomon Lincoln's History of Hingham, 1627, only si.x
years after Parson Flint's Discourses, retails the same blunder (p. 32). Parson
Flint may have taken some traditional meaning without investigating it.

J

THE "QUONAHASSir'' PIONEERS. 97

Thus Ouona-hassi-t meant a " long-rocky-place," and
was the natural descriptive which the natives must have
used from the beginning. How far back into the pre-
historic centuries the name might be traced depends
upon the length of habitation assigned to the Algonquin
race ; but it is not impossible that our name is much older
than Rome.*

But John Smith did more than writing our name for
the first time in the world's literature ; he shed the first
blood that is laid to the charge of white men in this place.
For some reason Smith and his men enraged several of
our Indians at the Cove. Whether by some insult or
rascality which the sailors were not above doing, no one
can ever tell ; but Smith remembered the fury of these
Indians. "For," he says, "upon a quarrell we had with
one of them, hee only with three others, crossed the
harbor of Quonahassit to certain rocks whereby wee must
passe ; and there let flie their arrowes for our shot, till we
were out of danger." In telling the same incident at
another place in his book he adds, "yet one of them was
slaine, and another shot through his thigh."

It would satisfy some curiosity to know the exact place
of rocks from which the Indians "let flie their arrowes."
Hominy Point, f near by the channel which separates it
from Bassing Beach, seems the most probable place of am-
bush for this first Indian revenge against the white intrud-
ers. A clump of granite rocks in the marsh on Hominy
Point, near by the channel at the end of Bassing Beach,
has been named Smith's Rock by the Committee on Town
History, because it is supposed to be the ambush from
which the Indians shot at Captain John Smith.

Smith's remarks about the appearance of the rocky
shore bring his observing mind vividly before us after

* For authorities on Indian names see S.G.Boyd's Indian Loeal Names, and
ArcliKologia Americana, Vol. II, p. 2°7ff-
t Now the property of Dr. John Bryant.

gS HISTORY OF COHASSET.

nearly three hundred years. He speaks of the " white
cliffs of rocks," and mistakes our granite for limestone,
such as he was familiar with in Devonshire, England.
One can almost imagine him looking at White Head
while he makes this blunder.

He even noticed our black dikes of diabase, which he
thought to be slate stone, and speaks of the ledges being
"strangely divided with tinctured veins of divers colours."

He probably noticed the familiar diabase dike on Little
White Head,* which is so conspicuous from the water side.
Smith's prophecy of slate quarries for us could hardly
come true, seeing that it is not slate after all, but
only diabase and porphyrite that make the dark veins
of our rock. His prediction of salt manufacture, however,
did come true within two centuries, as we shall see in
another chapter.

Between the visit of Captain John Smith and that of
the pioneers who settled here, a frightful pestilence swept
away the greater part of the Indians along the Massachu-
setts coast. It was in the year 1617, three years after
Smith's visit. No one is sure to this day just what the
disease was, but the natives sickened and died so fast and
so mysteriously that the terrified remnants left the yellow
corpses unburied, and fled from their villages throughout
the whole region from Buzzard's Bay to Maine.

The old Indians told Gookin that the warriors of the
Massachusetts tribe numbered about three thousand be-
fore the plague and only three hundred after it.

It was a terrible calamity, which, however, our fore-
fathers counted a Divine providence toward them in deci-
mating the enemy.

The proximate cause for the plague might have been
the filth of overcrowded wigwams, for nature permits the
expanse of population only upon rigorous observance of
sanitary laws.

*See p. 25.

THE " QUONAHASSIT" PIONEERS. 99

It is probable therefore that the swarms of natives seen
by Captain Smith were more than could ever be seen
again upon this coast.

When the Pilgrims were at Plymouth during the first
winter, 1620-21, there was no journey taken to the harbor
of Cohasset ; at least, none has ever been related in Pil-
grim narratives. When they first visited the Indians of
Boston Bay, they sailed past our ledges in their shallop
without turning in on Wednesday afternoon, September
18, 162 1,* returning three days later.

In the following year, 1622, the additional and unsavory
men whom Thomas Weston landed upon the Pilgrims
cruised along our shore, looking for a place to settle. If
they came into our harbor at all they thought it un-
desirable, for they concluded to establish their colony at
Weymouth, which was then called by the Indians Wes-
sagusset.

This abortive and miserable colony made a failure.
Some t of them turned into savages, and the rest were
saved from starvation only by the pluck of Phineas Pratt,
the ancestor of our Cohasset Pratts.

Near the end of that starving winter, 1622-23, when
some of them had to eat roots, and one had to be hung
for stealing corn from the Indians, they were threatened
with utter destruction by the savages. Then it was that
Phineas Pratt made his desperate run overland by the old
trail to Plymouth for help. An Indian chased him, but
fortunately Pratt lost the trail, and while he slept over-
night in a deep hollow place his pursuer passed on.
A tradition has claimed that this Cohasset ancestor slept
that night in our boundaries ; but a careful reading of
his own account of his flight discredits it. The valiant
Captain Miles Standish, with some good soldiers, went

* Mourt's Relation of Our Voyage to the Massachusetts ; and What Hap-
pened There.

t Winslow says that only one became a savage; but judged by their behavior
several must be called savages.

lOO

HISTORY OF CO II ASSET.

'X^-j',

<^ 'r \

THE " QUONAHASSIT" PIONEERS. loi

by boat to Wessagusset, and rescued the colony after
having stabbed the two bragging braves, Wituwaniat and
Pecksuot.*

Many pioneers must have passed silently and alone over
the Indian trails of Cohasset, and many without leaving
any written record must have explored in boats our Cove,
as well as other inlets and rivers of Massachusetts Bay.
The characteristic rocks of our Cohasset shore are shown
upon Alexander's map as early as the year 1624.!

Besides this, at least one good map maker must have
found our harbor and our hills before any settlements were
made even in Hingham.

This unknown explorer wrote the name Conyhassett by
an inlet upon his map, and marked with the letter " m " the
rocks at the entrance of the harbor. Hills and woods he
indicated, and the old Indian trail leading from Dorchester
to Plymouth he traced in dotted lines several miles south
of Cohasset.

Hingham had no name nor settlement, though the few
houses at Weymouth Fore River were named Wessagus-

* For full account see Gov. E. Winslow's Good News from New England.
tSee Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. Ill, p. 306.

The Winthrop Map on the opposite page may be better understood by the follow-
ing key : — ■

"The wayeto Plimouth," shown from " Dorchester" village across " Naponsett"
River near an Indian village, is traced by dotted lines somewhat away from the
mouths of rivers, until it passes off the margin of the map several miles south of
Cohasset.

" Conyhassett " harbor or river is shown, with the characteristic ledges outside.

Turkey Hill, Town Hill, and others are indicated.

No Hingham village nor Bare Cove settlement is shown, for the map was made
at or before 1633.

" Wessaguscus " (Weymouth) is shown, the only settlement between Dorchester
and Plymouth.

The Blue Hills are seen on the extreme left.

Boston shows a flag flying from Fort Hill.

" Rocksbury," "Stony River," "Muddy River," " Charls River," " Newtowne "
(Cambridge), " Watertowne," and some other places are named upon the map,
though very illegibly.

The original map reaches far enough north to include the Merrimac River.

102 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

cus. The pioneer who made this map gave it no date, but
the year 1633 is probably not far from correct, and the
chief interest for us is the fact that it is the first known
map which bears the name of our town.*

Having found now the first mention of our name by
Captain John Smith, in 1614, and the first map which
designates our place, 1633, we may search for the settlers
who first came to claim our acres and to gather our harvests.

They were the hardy and sturdy Englishmen who be-
came so disgusted at the unjust treatment long in vogue
from the rulers of their mother country, that they were
willing to venture across a wide ocean to establish new
homes in a virgin forest.

The throne of England, after the accession of Eliza-
beth in the year 1558, was determined to have uniformity
in religious affairs ; but many subjects, with the same
resoluteness, were determined to have their religious free-
dom. The conflict meant death and imprisonment to
many subjects and a great uneasiness to the throne.
After about seventy-two years of increasing rebellion on
one hand and of tyranny by Elizabeth and James I and
Charles I upon the other, a relief came to the strained
conditions by the project of colonizing the new continent.
This safety valve was opened wide about the year 1630.

The malcontents began to pour out of the troubled
realm to the shores of New England. In ten years, be-
tween 1630 and 1640, about twenty thousand persons
were seized with this colonizing fever and came flocking
to the western shore. Some hundreds of these voluntary
exiles were humble dwellers in the county of Norfolk,
England, in and near the town of Hingham, about
seventy-five miles north of London, and thirty-five miles
from the University of Cambridge.

There was one family named Hobart, with four grown-

*The map is in the British Museum among the Sloane manuscripts. See Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1884, p. 211 ; or see Narrative and Critical History of Amer-
ica, Vol. II I, p. 381.

THE " QUONAIJASSIT " PIONEERS. I03

up sons and two daughters and several grandchildren,
whose determination to seek a land of no tyranny has
profoundly influenced the affairs of Cohasset. In the
year* 1633 the head of this family, Edmond Hobart,
with his wife and their son Joshua and their daughters
Rebekah and Sarah, came to Charlestown, New England,
bringing their servant named Henry Gibbs.

Edmond Hobart, Jr., with his wife, and Thomas
Hobart, with his wife and three children, came the same
year ; as also did Nicholas Jacob, with his wife and two
children and his cousin Thomas Lincoln, a weaver.

There was much prospecting to be done by these
pioneers to find land well situated near the water, because
no roads had been hewn through the primeval forests, and
they did not wish to scatter far. When the Hobarts and
Nicholas Jacob arrived, most of the available spots had
been preempted. Salem and Saugus and Ipswich and
Charlestown and Medford and Watertown and Cambridge
and Boston and Roxbury and Dorchester and Weymouth
had begun their careers. No pioneer with an eye for
agricultural needs would choose the rocky harbor of
Cohasset. But there was another harbor lying inside of
the peninsula of Nantasket that was still vacant and
somewhat inviting. It is true that that cove looked very
bare when the tide withdrew its water; but the channel
could be used at any time for a small boat, and the adja-
cent land was fertile. Consequently this Bare Cove, as
they called it, had so much favor with the Hobarts and
their friends that they decided to establish a community
there. Which of these men were the first who squatted
upon this land at Bare Cove in order to claim it as a town
site can never be known.

According to an order passed by the Massachusetts Bay
Company in England five years before, in the year 1629,
any man was allowed fifty acres of land wherever he might

* Daniel Cushing's manuscript, as quoted by Solomon Lincoln in his Centennial
Arldress.

I04 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

choose it, if he would only cross the Atlantic at his own
expense.

Some adventurous men were at Bare Cove, enough of
them to be taxed as a "plantation," on September 25,
1634.* They must have been few, perhaps only fourteen,
for their tax to be paid to the colonial government was
only twenty dollars {£4), the least of all the twelve settle-
ments, and only one twentieth the size of the largest ones.f
In the summer of the next year their number was much
augmented, and their career under the name of Hingham
was commenced.

Twenty-eight more persons in the year 1635 came out
from the vicinity of old Hingham to join their cr/ends
upon this distant shore. Among them was one who be-
came the most famous of all our pioneers. It was Rev.
Peter Hobart.

A minister was necessary to any colonial town, and the
Hobarts had one in their own family. This son of Edmond
Hobart was about thirty-one years of age, with his father's
great sturdiness, and an education such as a graduate of
Cambridge, England, might have gained at that time. For
several years he had preached in the vicinity of his old
home, but the king's suppression of free speech, and the
general prejudice against a Puritan minister, made life at
home unendurable.

Two years after his father's family had gone, he fol-
lowed across the sea, and upon June 8, 1635, with his
wife and four children, he arrived at Charlestown,J where
he found his relatives.

Cotton Mather says that several towns addressed Peter
Hobart to become their minister ; but the little settlement
at Bare Cove was more to his liking, where the majority,

*The exact date of the Bare Cove settlement cannot be ascertained. We may
guess at the date 1633, but September 25, 1634, is the first mention of Bare Cove
in the Records of Massachusetts.

tSee the Records of Massachusetts, Vol. I, p. 129.

:[:This is the first entry in Peter Hobart's Journal.

THE " QUONAHASSrV PIONEERS. 105

including his own family and friends, might be of the town
of old Hingham, England. Here they could knit together
the strands from their old home, and could draw to them-
selves others whom they had left.

The name of Bare Cove naturally had to give w^ay to the
name of Hingham. The pioneers of New England, in
nearly every settlement, took names for their towns with
vi^hich they had been familiar in their native land.

On the second day of September of the year 1635 the
Massachusetts court allowed the change of Bare Cove to
Hingham ; and under this new name, on the eighteenth of
the same month, the first twenty-nine proprietors of Hing-
ham drew their house lots.

They were situated along the valley of Town Brook on
North Street.

The old landing at the mouth of this brook, where the
boat loads of new settlers drew up, was near the foot of
Ship Street, where ducks nowadays play in the mud, and
the steam cars hourly go plunging by.

The wild acres voted away on that eighteenth day of
September were more than building lots ; they also had to
vote themselves into ownership of separate "planting"
lots and "meadow" lands and "Great" lots in different
parts of their new realm. Not all of their land was thus
at once divided, because they hoped for newcomers, and
held open room for their settlement. Thus they left
undivided all the land which is now Cohasset.

A.11 cedar and pine swamps were reserved on accounr
of the timber.

Furthermore they voted, that same day, that any man
who wished to sell his land must offer it first to the town.

The privilege of owning so many acres of land and of
slicing it up freely to the several inhabitants must have
been an exhilarating experience to these men who had
grown up under the tightly locked tenures of English
land.

I06 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

The Massachusetts Colony owned all the land as far
south as the Plymouth Colony, by virtue of their charter
from King Charles in the year 1628-29. Accordingly,
when the colonial government granted to the Hingham
settlers their town site on the east side of Weymouth Back
River, those few men came into possession of over twenty
thousand acres of land.

They were prudent and frugal enough to keep the larger
part of it undivided, dealing it out piecemeal as it was
needed, and always having left over a large acreage for the
encouragement of newcomers, — a veritable public treas-
ury from which to draw any needed capital. For about
two and a half years there was no considerable increase of
population. If Daniel Cushing, the third town clerk, is
accurate, there were only forty-two persons who came to
live in Hingham before the year 1638.

Their clothing was badly worn, their supply of money
with which to buy necessary imported articles at Boston
was about exhausted, and in this plight they labored inces-
santly to subdue the land. Delicacies and conveniences
which might easily be had in old Hingham were only to
be longed for here.

They learned how to raise Indian corn, and they planted
other grains and vegetables from foreign seeds. Apple
trees were set out, currant bushes and gooseberries planted,
all the familiar schemes of getting food were resorted
to ; but it takes more time than two or three years to
conjure up a self-supporting farm on these New England
hills.

A corn mill at Weymouth was the nearest place for
grinding, and the old road leading to it was a necessary
highway. It may be that this road was frequently blocked
by trees that men felled across it in clearing their land, for
on April 1 1, 1637, it was voted, that if any man should fell
a tree across a highway and it be not removed within one
day, so that a man with horse and cart could pass, he

THE " QUONAHASSIT'' PIONEERS. IQJ

should be fined twelvepence. Horses and cattle* and
sheep and goats and hogs had been brought from England
to the colonies in hundreds by this time, and Hingham had
a few. That these creatures were inspired with certain
offensive ideas of freedom seems plain, because insecure
fences were very early forbidden. On the same date of
April 1 1, 1637, another fine of twelvepence was ordered to
be imposed upon any man for every rod of paling not high
enough or not securely fastened into the ground.

The goats and some cattle could browse upon trees, and
the hogs could root for a living ; but working cattle and
horses needed a respectable diet, and to obtain sufificient
hay for them was not easy. The meadow lands where grass
would grow after a little clearing were valuable, and espe-
cially so were the salt marshes which needed no clearing.
All the meadows near by the settlement were divided at the
very first ; but more hay being needed, Lyford's Liking to-
wards Cohasset was next divided on June 12, 1637. But the
men came farther in their boats, and without dividing the
marshes of Cohasset they all took what they needed from
the coves along our shore. On these trips, which took
some of the men several days at least to do the cutting
and the drying, Cohasset was a temporary camping place.

The shore was thoroughly explored again and again.
Landing places were found for their hay boats, and many
excursions must have been made through the woods and
upon Indian trails, encountering often the homes of the
Indians. These pioneers spied out the promised land of
their children ; for not until the second generation was
this Cohasset reserve to be divided and settled.

The earliest individual ownership of Cohasset lands was
in the fresh meadow called Turkey Meadow, at the foot of
Turkey Hill, sometimes called the region of Rocky Nook.

* The Lion's Whelp set to sea on March 17, 1628-29, with twenty cows and
bulls, and ten mares and horses, for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Talbot,
on the sixteenth day of the next month, shipped 140 head of cattle and 40 goats to
the colony.

I08 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

These acres, where now the Whitney farm spreads, were
begun to be divided on March 5, 1637, which was really
1638, because since the year 1752 we have reckoned from
January i instead of March 25. These grants, about
fifteen acres, were to eke out the supply of grass for the
settlers' live stock.

In dividing grass lands the committee was instructed
" to allow three cows to a person for stock," "other stock
of lesser cattle or goods proportionable as it amounteth to
a cow," " according to a rule nearest to the rule of the
Word of God." Such was their indefinite standard of
division and their lofty ideal of equity.

Besides this little batch of Cohasset real estate there
was a bit of marsh land voted to "an individual, but not
located until several years afterward. Thomas Andrews,*
probably the oldest man in the settlement, was voted into
possession of " 6 acres of salt marsh at Coneyhassett in
lieu and recompense of 5 acres of salt marsh in the Home
Meadow, which he had next to Joseph Andrews his son."

This son Joseph had been chosen clerk, on the previous
November i, to record grants, sales, and exchanges of
lands, and to give certified copies at fourpence each.
There was need of this first registrar of deeds, for in
1638, the year following his appointment, the ship
Diligent of Ipswich, England, brought over to the little
settlement one hundred and thirty-three more seekers of
American homes. Before they came the general business
of the town had been committed to nine picked men
who should have the authority to receive any persons
into the municipality, " to give, grant, let and set, all
for the good of the whole," except that they should not
fix the rate of taxation. These first selectmen were as
follows : Edmond Hobart, Sr., Nicholas Jacob, Clement
Bates, Henry Tuttle, Henry Rust, Thomas Hammond,
Anthony Eames, Samuel Ward, Thomas Underwood.

* Peter Hobart's Journal says, August, 1643, " O'f' Thomas Andrews died."

THE " QUONAHASSIT'' PIONEERS. 109

It was a proper stroke of public business to institute
this body of selectmen, because they had already found it
hard to get the whole number of the settlers together for
their business meetings held in their little old log meeting-
house. On the fourteenth of May preceding this election
they had voted a fine of one peck of Indian corn to be
paid by every one who willfully absented himself from
their meetings.

The year 1638 was a fair sized boom for the new town.
Carpenters, weavers, shoemakers, and other workmen
with kits of tools were strong additions to the industrial
capital of the settlement.

One public industry promising a large food supply had
been already inaugurated. It was a fish weir at the
stream over towards Cohasset which thereafter was called
Weir River.* Thomas Loring, Clement Bates, Nicholas
Jacob, and Joseph Andrews were granted the herring f
monopoly of that stream, April 19, 1637, on condition that
they build at once and sell their fish at no more than ten
shillings and sixpence per thousand.

The newcomers, with their cattle and hogs and sheep
and goats, began to hew and to eat their way farther into
the forest upon every side.

The clearing fires became too indiscriminate and care-
less, so that in the following February men were forbidden
to set any fire to the woods on ungranted lands, upon
penalty of twenty shillings and payment of damages.
No man, furthermore, should fell any tree upon the

* These men were granted the " river called Lyford's Liking to build a weare to
take fish." Since the river became Weir River, the name Lyford's Liking has
been applied to the marshy waterway between the mouth of Weir River and
Straits Pond. The Lyford whose name is thus perpetuated was a preacher from
Ireland who came to Plymouth in 1624, but was dismissed on account of his
treachery. He was a settler at Hull (Nantasket) in 1625, before Hingham was
planted, and the name Liking may refer to his preference of this river mouth for a
settlement.

tThe Indians called this fish alwoof, which became readily upon English tongues
alewife.

no HISTORY OF COHASSET.

reserve land for the purpose of split boards, without the
consent of Constable Edmond Hobart, Sr.

Loose hogs were a nuisance, and in April, 1639, double
damage was assessed for hogs in the cornfields or the
meadows. The offensive rooters when caught must wear
thereafter a yoke.

This hog nuisance was so prevalent in all parts of the
colony that the General Court ordered each town to pro-
vide a pound. The first poundkeeper in Hingham was
John Stoddard ; and from April 22, 1640, no hogs were
allowed to run loose, upon a fine of twelvepence.

The rail splitting and grubbing of stumps and breaking
of ground was going on with much energy, and neces-
sarily so, because there were about three hundred people
gathered here by the year 1640.

The newcomers were not given lands immediately, but
made private arrangements with the earlier pioneers for
places to dwell and pastures or planting lots for their
livelihood. Of course some were dissatisfied with this
method of getting a pioneer's portion ; but the first comers
had appropriated to themselves all the choice land where
their houses were built, and the new ones were not willing
to carve out a new settlement upon ungranted lands.

The marshes at Cohasset, however, were desirable for
hayfields and for pasturing cattle in the fall ; so a move-
ment was begun to have them divided.

Accordingly, on July 6, 1640, it was "agreed by joiDt
consent that, after the newcomers which come short and
of others, the old planters' accommodations be made up
by equal proportions, according to their stocks and neces-
sities— that the remaining part of Conyhasset shall be
divided by equal proportions according to the men's heads
and stocks — 25 pounds in stock to go by equal propor-
tion to a head."

This ambiguous ordinance meant a provision for the
newcomers' live stock and a bit of good meadow in Co-

THE " QUONAHASSIT" PIONEERS. \ i I

hasset for each man, even though he had no live stock.
Settlers who had not been fairly treated in former grants
were to receive enough of Cohasset meadow to make up
their lack. The "old planters," as they called themselves
because they had been pioneers for three or four years
before the others came, intended to divide among them-
selves what was left after the others were provided.

A man who had a hundred and twenty-five dollars'
worth of live stock was to receive just twice as much as
the man who had none.

A good cow was worth from thirty to fifty dollars at
that time, so that three or four cows were equal to the
rights of one man. To him that had much, much was to
be given.

The nine men chosen to prosecute this division were,
Joseph Peck, Henry Smith, John Parker, Nicholas Baker,
Thomas Hammond, Clement Bates, Henry Tuttle, Ed-
mond Pitts, Nicholas Jacob.

The first man Joseph Peck, and the last man Nicholas
Jacob, we may be sure, were Cohasset pioneers of some
prominence ; for their names have been attached to two
of our meadows from the first.* Peck's Meadow is crossed
by Jerusalem Road at the foot of the Hollingsworth and
Richardson hill on the north side of the hill, where a
brook runs into the salt marsh. Jacob's Meadow is crossed
by South Main Street near the Roman Catholic Church.

These nine men did not get immediately about their
work of dividing the Cohasset marsh land ; for, as late
as September 12 of that year, 1640, one Thomas Turner,
who sold his property to one Thomas Thaxter, could not
describe his Cohasset share except by saying, "half the lot
at Conehasset if any fall by lot, and half the commons —
which belong to said lot."

*Hingham Town Records, January i, 1650, state: "William Woodcock given
a piece of meadow east of Upland whicli lies east of Mr. Joseph Peck's meadow,
etc."

I 12

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Indeed, for some reason, several years passed by with-
out any serious effort to get these marshes divided.

On June 20, 1644, Henry Tuttle, one of the committee,
sold to John Fearing " what right he had to the Division
of Conihassett meadows."

This was four years after the division had been ordered ;
but now occurred that militia turmoil, the Hingham rebel-
lion, which confused and delayed the town's industry for
two or three years more.

Before speaking of that disgraceful affair of our fore-

Plioto, Mrs. v.. E. Ellms.

Havim;, near Eleazer's Lane, looking south towards the head of
lACoii's Meadow.

fathers, it may be well to note some of the events that
were transpiring in the Cohasset woods and meadows.
Stray cattle found the Indian trails and roamed through
clear places in the woods, browsing upon young trees or
munching grass by the brooks and the shore.

Cleared land with good English grass was not very
plentiful about the Hingham settlement, and consequently
only the milch cows and working cattle or horses could be

THE " QUONAHASSIT'' PIONEERS. \ I 3

supplied ; while the young cattle, good only for the future,
were compelled to shift for themselves, Cohasset was an
asylum for such unfortunates, and these cattle were the
first to come regularly as summer resorters from the
abodes of civilized men.

In the winter of 1644 the hay in the Hingham barns
must have been sorely taxed by their increasing live stock,
for on December 2, before the winter had got well started,
the town ordered that "all dry cattle shall be kept in a
herd at Conyhassett or elsewhere to begin the middle of
April until six weeks after Michaelmas . . . etc." This
was a long summer, from the middle of April to the mid-
dle of November, and if any Indian cornfield was then
in cultivation the young cattle must have been abominated
by the aborigines.

Whether for this reason or to keep the cattle from get-
ing too wild, at any rate a " keeper to keep the young
cattle at Coneyhassett " was ordered to be hired in the year
1646. Swine were also ordered to be " kept in a herd at
Coneyhassett " as early as were the cattle, and these rooters
were probably not slow in learning the art of clam digging
at our harbor.

On February 14, 1650, " It was ordered that any towns-
man shall have the liberty to put swine to Conahassett
without yokes or rings, upon the town's land."

Goats especially must have enjoyed running loose
in these rocky wilds, and possibly it was in the re-
gion of Cohasset where some goat owners were in
the habit of cutting down green oak trees for brows-
ing.

July 17, 1640, the town passed an ordinance prohibit-
ing men from felling oak trees upon the common lands
" for to feed goats, upon penalty of twelve pence each
offence."

But there were more serious damages being done to our
garment of vegetation than by the goats ; for no small

114 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

business was the logging * that some pioneers had already
inaugurated.

On the same seventeenth of July, 1640, it was ordered
that men should no longer fell the pines and swamp cedars
and hemlocks of the common lands to transport out of the
town without paying for them.

Twelvepence for every thousand feet of boards cut
from these trees was an export tariff to the town.

But for exporting oak trees a heavier price was charged.
Ten shillings for each tree Edmond Hobart and Nicholas
Jacob were instructed to collect, one half of it to be their
own fee. These ordinances were for the common lands in
Cohasset as well as in other parts of Hingham ; but for the
common lands nearer to the settlement, within three miles
of the meeting-house, no oaks at all were allowed to be
cut for transportation after September 4, 1641.

The rapidly growing settlements about Boston were
making altogether too rapid a market for our timber, so
that the virgin forests were being robbed.

The extent of a year's logging may be inferred from the
fact that on September 4, 1641, twelve loggers were re-
ported to the officials as having taken eighty-nine trees
from the commons, for which a tariff of eightpence a tree
was charged. From money which came out of this a town
drum was purchased for the militia.

And this was probably the drum which passed through
the bloodless Hingham rebellion.

This military fracas among our pioneers began in the
year 1644, when Lieutenant Anthony Eames, provoked by
some awkwardness of the Hingham militia company, re-
fused angrily to drill such a set of men. Eames had been
recently reelected captain of the company, but the author-
ities at Boston had not yet confirmed the choice by ap-
pointing him. In order to punish him for his hasty anger,

* February I, 1638-39, Ralph Smith bargained to give 500 merchantable cedar
boards, delivered out nf the swamp, for three acres of planting ground.

THE " QUONAHASSIT'' PJOXEERS. \ 15

the company sent in another name, Bozoan Allen, in
his place. But the authorities would not concur in this
attempted punishment, and so sent home the opposite
parties, commanding them to keep the old officers until
the next meeting of the court. That meant the retaining
of Eames as drillmaster. But the majority of the town
naturally sided with their brothers and fathers in the
ranks, whom Eames had offended by his angry rebuke. If
the matter had gone no further than a neighborly squabble
among the sixty or more families of Hingham, the major-
ity might have got their revenge upon Eames without
themselves falling into a worse error than his ; but alas
for the " might-have-beens " ! Their anger against Eames
tempted them to defy the command of the colonial court.
Worse than that, their pastor, Peter Hobart, sided with his
brothers, the Hobarts, and attempted to excommunicate
Eames upon an unproved charge of lying about the
matter; and he furthermore encouraged the men in their
defiance. When two thirds of the company refused to
drill with Eames, word was sent to the magistrates in Bos-
ton, who immediately ordered the arrest of the principal
offenders, three of the Hobart family and two others.
These were bound over to appear at the next Court of
Assistants for defying the military authority as constituted
by the Massachusetts Bay government.

Others were arrested for alleged untruths spoken
against the magistrates. These refused to give bonds for
their appearance at court. The deputy governor, Win-
throp, patiently labored with these men, warning them of
the outcome of their defiance of law, but in vain ; for they
insisted upon a larger range of individual independence
and of town independence.

Two of these the deputy governor saw one day in Bos-
ton and committed them to jail to await the Court of
the Assistants. But before this court met the General
Court convened, and to this highest court about ninetv

I I 6 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Hinghamites, led by Rev. Peter Hobart, presented a
petition.

They asked to liave the deputy governor trieciiox binding-
over the Hobarts and others, and for causing the arrest of
the two men that had refused to give bonds for their
appearance in court. It seems incredible to us at this day
that nearly the whole town of Hingham should have so
underestimated the authority of the government in com-
pelling its disobedient citizens to appear for trial. With
a marvelous graciousness the deputy governor took his
place willingly at the prisoner's bar to be tried — for
what .'' — for enforcing the military law ! Nowadays the
man who places a hand upon military commands to resist
them gets court-martialed quite abruptly ; but there in
Boston was the chief executive being tried upon the peti-
tion of that little Hingham settlement which had defied
military authority.

One of the angry militiamen of Hingham had said he
would die at the sword's point if he might not have the
choice of his own officers. How absurd such a demand is
may be easily seen ; for the militia of those days was the
government's standing army, and how can soldiers be
allowed to elect their own captains without official confirma-
tion } According to the enactment of the General Court in
1636, this very John Winthrop, deputy governor, was of
course made colonel, then equivalent to commander-in-chief.

That Winthrop's authority should be so questioned, and
that he was willing to be tried at court for enforcing
a colonel's proper commands, is a startling commentary
upon the anxiety for individual liberty which both magis-
trates and people felt at this time, a century and a quarter
before the Revolutionary days.

The principle of municipal independence, to say nothing
of individual independence, was enormously overworked
by these our ancestors of Hingham ; and that the other
towns were not much less at fault is obvious from the fact

THE " QUONAI/ASSir" PIONEERS. 1 I 7

that one half of their deputies in the General Court were
willing to curtail the power of the central government.

The Puritans plumed themselves upon not being sep-
aratists like the Pilgrims ; but here they were in large
numbers at Boston advocating a principle of separatism
more deadly to a central government than ever the Pilgrims
of Plymouth had espoused : for military separatism is the
most damaging of all schisms ! But the deputy governor
was vindicated. The petitioners of Hingham were refused,
and their petition, after "divers days " of hot contention in
the House of Deputies, was declared "false and scan-
dalous."

The whole affair having thus been taken up by the
General Court instead of the Court of Assistants, the
rebellious petitioners were all fined in various sums accord-
ing to the degree of contempt which they had shown
against the magistrates.

Joshua Hobart, who was one of the two deputies from
Hingham, was fined for his specially flagrant misdemeanor
twenty pounds ($100). Rev. Peter Hobart was let off very
lightly at first ; but when he afterwards refused to pay his
fine, and encouraged others to defy the government, he
was again brought to Boston and for this second defiance
was compelled to pay as much as his brother Joshua's fine.
The total penance money that was levied upon the town
of our forefathers was six hundred dollars.

Eames, for his-little offense, could not of course be pun-
ished by the court, but who can estimate the misery he
must have suffered beneath the popular hatred of the
majority of his town }

Three years of angry contention blighted the industry
of the town, plunged the church into an unholy turmoil,
and made family feuds for generations.

Many peace-loving persons moved out of the town to
Rehoboth and elsewhere, among whom was Joseph Peck,
whose name had already been left upon one of our
meadows.

I 1 8 HIS TOR Y OF COHASSE T.

But the lesson in popular self-government which our
pioneer fathers paid for so dearly, came to the advantage
of all other towns of the colony ; for all needed to be
brought by these painful object lessons into a maturer
conception of true democracy.

That the error and misery of Hingham could be so used
in the preparation of our colonies for a permanent Union
is no small alleviation of the sad affair. And another
permanent gain out of the conflict was the remarkable
speech of Winthrop after his vindication. It has become
a classic in legal and ethical literature for its concise dis-
tinctions between natural and political liberty ; as long as
the milestones endure which mark the progress of juris-
prudence in this Republic, so long will this lucid and pro-
found utterance of Winthrop receive the homage of men
and bend their eyes to the pioneers of our own town.*

*The whole controversy is told with marvelous candor and fairness by Win-
throp himself in his Journal. The proceedings of the trial are recorded in the
Massachusetts Colony Records (to be found in our Town Hall).

Solomon Lincoln's History of Hingham quotes fully from Winthrop's Journal;
and the later History of Hingham prints bodily what Solomon Lincoln wrote.
(Winthrop's History of New England, Vol. n, pp. 221-236.) Anyone who wishes
full material for making up his own judgment of the affair may find it in these
accessible sources.

Hon. Thomas Russell, in his Centennial Address at Cohasset, speaks of the
turbulent opposition of Peter Hobart, and commends it; but I am wholly unable
to praise a principle and a practice which mean disloyalty to State and to nation;
for it is a gross exaggeration of both individual and municipal rights.

CHAPTER VII.

A BONE OF CONTENTION.

THE waters that press in from the sea through Cohasset
Harbor to the mouth of Bound Brook make a natural
boundary between Scituate and our town ; but men have
refused to abide by this natural division of the land.

The result is a chapter of discord and contention that
has troubled every generation from the first peaceful Pil-
grims to the generation just passed. As soon as the
Plymouth settlement was made, there went forth explorers,
both by sea and by land, searching in every nook for miles
around their little frontier.

Those who turned the bow of their boat northward
along the coast found the broad marshes that have since
borne the name of Marshfield.

In two or three hours more they could pull their boat into
another harbor with marshes that we now call Scituate.

There were only a few more miles to another harbor
called by the Indians Ouonahassit, and which was fringed
on the Plymouth side by many scores of acres of salt grass.
There was food for numberless cattle upon these marshes,
and consequently they invited settlement to their borders.
The pioneers of Scituate could harvest a crop here without
any plowing or planting, and, what was more important,
there was no clearing of woods necessary nor grubbing of
stumps.

The rights of separate individuals in these virgin hay-
fields were not determined closely at first.

In the year 1633, on the first day of July, the following
order was passed by the General Court at Plymouth : —

"That the whole tract of land between the brook at

I 20 fllS TOR Y OF CO HA SSE T.

Scituate, on the norwest side,* and Conahasset be left un-
disjoosed of till we know the resolucion of Mr. James
Sherley, Mr. John Beauchamp, Mr. Richard Andrews, and
Mr. Tymothy Hatherly. . . ."

This is the first mention of Cohasset Harbor in an official
document, and it announces an indecision regarding those,
salt marshes which has been perpetuated through many
documents.

Meanwhile the settlement at Boston had spread towards
the south, and there were enterprising pioneers who settled
at Bare Cove which became Hingham, only four or five
miles to the north of the undivided marshes of Cohasset.
It was naturally necessary for these two colonies, with
their separate charters, the Massachusetts Bay at Boston,
and the New Plymouth at Plymouth Bay, to have some
boundary line distinctly drawn between them. Before this
could be done, however, the inhabitants of Hingham had
urged their boats into Cohasset Harbor to get the salt hay
so bountifully spread by nature upon the Plymouth side !
The Pilgrim colony had not granted these marshes- in
severalty because they lay at so great a distance from its
settlements. The Puritan colony at Boston, on the other
hand, could not grant any marshes that were reasonably
within the natural bounds of the Plymouth people.

Individual settlers, however, aggressive and alert for
their own advantage, more than this, urged by the need of
hay to feed their cattle, might press into the marshes of
the peaceful colony on the south.

In the year 1637, on the seventeenth of May, the affair
of a mutual boundary was taken up by the vigorous court
of Massachusetts Bay, by the following order : —

Mr. Timothy Heatherly, and Mr. Tylden with Mr, William
Ashpinwall and Joseph Andrews, were appointed to view the
bounds betweene us and Plimouth, and make retuine how they find
them lye to both Courts.

* At Scituate Harbor, not North Scituate. »

A BONE OF CONTENTIOiSr, 12 1

Now this first member of the tribunal, named " Mr. Timo-
thy Heatherly," is the Timothy Hatherly of Scituate who
was so prominent a freeman of Plymouth Colony, and his
colleague " Mr. Tylden " is probably the Joseph Tylden who
was a fellow pilgrim with Timothy Hatherly and who had
been with him before on a survey.* These men had no
commission from their own colony, and their appointment
by the Massachusetts court, so irregular, must have been
obtained by an urgent appeal of these Scituate men against
the enroachments of the Hingham haymakers.

Our surmise is strengthened by the following order of
the Massachusetts court on the twenty-second of May,
two years after, in 1639 • —

Whereas this Court did take order for a meeting to bee had
betweene our commissioners and our neighbors of Pliniouth, for
seting out the bounds between us, and that nothing hath bene
done therein, in regard that their commissioners had not power to
conclude anything, and for that it appeareth unto this Court, that
our people of Hingham stand in great neede of hay, it is ordered,
that they may make use of so much of the ground neere Conihassett
as lye on this side the ryver whereupon the bridge is, (which lands
are undoubtedly within' the limits of our grant,) untillsome further
order bee taken for a final! determination of the difference be-
tweene us, and till the Court shall make other disposition thereof.

This was a very safe procedure indeed for the colony ;

but it did not mean much hay for Hingham, because it

was plainly on the farther side of Cohasset Harbor that

the bone of contention lay in the broad marshes, so visible

I
now and so worthless in these later times. But in those

days the cattle in the Hingham barns were glad to thrust

their noses into the bunches of salt hay brought around

the rocky shore in boats every summer.

The next public document upon the case was a very

dignified one bearing the appointment of the two most

♦See Plym. Rec, Vol. I. p. 81.

122 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

eminent men of Plymouth Colony, the governor, William
Bradford, and Edzvard Wiuslozv, gefitleman : —

Plymouth June fourth 1639.
To all Christian people to vvhome these presents shall come,

greeting &c.

Whereas for the avoyding and preventing of all differences and
controversies that might arise about or concerning the extents and
limmitts of the patents of New Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay,
and for the continuance and mayntenance of the anncient love
and amytie wee, the said inhabit's of the gourment of New Plym-
outh, have alwayes most zealously desired to hold, observe, and
keepe with our neighboures, the inhabits of the said Massachusetts
Bay, know you that we, the Goun'r, Counsell of Assistants, and
the rest of the whole cominaltie and body of freemen of the
sd gour'nt of New Plym. being this day in publike Court
summoned and assembled together, have, with mutual and joynt
assent and consent made, constituted, deputed, assigned, and
authorised our right trusty & vvel-beloved William Bradford,
gent., and our Gournor, and Edward Winslovv, gent., our joynt
and prp deputies, agents and commissioners, to solicite, conferr,
commune, and entreate with thedep'ties, agents, & com'rs, deputed,
constituted, authorised, and appoynted by the gouer'nt & inhabit's
of the said Mattachusetts Bay appoynted for the like purpose on
their pts & behalf, and finally to finish, determine, & sett forth the
extents, limmitts, and boundaries of the lands betwixt the two said
pattents and gourm'nts, so as they may remayne and bee forevr
hereafter unalterable & invyolable prpetually without any further
question, contention, controursie, debate or differrence whatsoeur.

And whatsoeur our said deputies, agents, & com-ers shall doe,
conclude, determine, & finish, or cause to be donne, concluded,
determined, & finished, in, about, and concerning the said prmiss's,
shalbe, and ever taken to bee, as ample, authenticall, & effectuall
to all the said ends, intents, & purposes as if the same had beene done
& prformed by the whole body & cominalty of the Gourn'r,
Counsell of Assistants, & freemen of the gou'nt & corporacion
of Plym. afores'd in theire owne prsons, and so to remayne abso-
lutely without any controdiccion or question whatsoever hereafter,
and to be entred upon record at the next Genrall Court after the

A BONE OF CONTENTION. 123

returne of our said com'rs tSic. provided this warrant & commis-
sion remayne in force the space of six months next after the date
hereof, & no longer.

In witness whereof, &c.*

A few months later, September 9, 1639, men of equal
eminence in Massachusetts Bay Colony were appointed to
meet the magistrates of Plymouth.

Remembering the abortive effort of two years previous
they ordered : —

Mr. John Endecott and Mr. Israeli Stoughton were desired
againe to meete with our brethren of Plimoth, and have new
commission to settle the bounds betweene us and Plimoth and
have full power given them so to do.

The time allowed to the Plymouth commissioners was
only six months from June 4, 1639, '^'^^ here it was Sep-
tember 9 before the joint members had been appointed
from Massachusetts. Accordingly, on the third day of
March following, there was eked out to them a little further
authority, as follows : —

Ordered : " That the Commission directed to Mr. Bradford
and Mr. Winslow for the setting of the bounds betwixt the Two
patents of Plymouth and Mattachusetts Bay be renewed for six
months."!

About two months after this, before it was hay-cutting
time, the Massachusetts court passed the following ordi-
nance : —

It is ordered, that such land and medowe at Conihasset as
shall fall within this jurisdiction shalbee confered upon Hingham,
and that Mr. Duncan, Mr. Glover, William Heathe, and William
Parke or any three of them, shall have power to dispose thereof
to the inhabitants there, according to their number of persons and
estates, for the most benefit of the towne, haveing consideration
of such quantities of land and medowe as have bene formerly

*PlyiTi. Rec, Vol. I, p. 127. + Plymouth Col. Rec, Vol. XI, p. 34.

124

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

aloted to the said inhabitants, so much as have fallen short in
former distributions may have supply by this.*

By this order Hingham had to shoulder the responsibility
of running the lines that should separate the property of
individuals in Cohasset marshes.

The four commissioners appointed by the two colonies
had plenary powers of determining what lands the Hing-
ham people must not filch from the Scituate people.

Accordingly these famous men undertook the task of

I'hoti.. M. II. Rfanr

The old Wooden Bridge at the Outlet of the Gul#.
Before the last dam was built, looking towards the mouth of Bound Brook.

settling for all time this dispute over their respective do-
mains.

Whereas there were two Commissions graunted by the two
Jurisdiccions the one of the Massachusets Gourment graunted
unto John Endicot gentleman and Israeli Staughton gent. The
other of New Plymouth Gourment to William Bradford Esq.
Governor and Edward Winslow gent. And both these for the setting
out setling and determining of the bounds and limmitts of the

* Mass. Rec, X'ol. I, x>. 290.

A BONE OF CO ATTENTION. I 25

lands betweene the said Jurisdiccions whereby not onely this pres-
ente age but the posteiytie to come may live quietly and i)eaceably
in that behalf.

x-^nd forasmuch as the said Comissioners on both sides have full
power so to do as appeareth by the Records of both Jurisdiccions.

Wee therefore the said comissioners above named doe hereby
vvitii one consent and agreement conclude determine and by these
presents declare That all the Marshes at Conahasset that lye of
the one side of the River next to Hinghame shall belong to the
Jurisdiccion of the Mattachusets plantacion.

And all the Marsh yt lyeth on the other side of the River next
to Scittuate shall belong to the Jurisdiccion of New Plymouth
excepting Threescore acres of Marsh at the mouth of the River
on Scittuate side next to the Sea which wee doe hereby agree
conclude and determine shall belong to the Jurisdiccion of the
Massachusets.

And further we do hereby agree determine and conclude that
the bounds of the limmitts betweene both the said Jurisdiccions are
as followeth vizt From the mouth of the brooke that runneth into
Conahassett Marshes (which we call by the name of Bound
brooke) with a straight and direct line to the middle of a great
pond that lyeth on the right hand of the upper payth or common
way that leadeth betweene Weimouth and Plymouth close to the
payth as we go along which was formerly named (and still we
desire may be called) Accord Pond lying about five or six miles
from Weimouth southerly, and from thence with a straight line to
the Southernmost pt of Charles River and three miles southerly
inward into the Countrey according as is exprest in the Patent
graunted by his Ma-tie to the Company of the Massachusetts
Plantacion Provided alwayes and nevertheless concluded and de-
termyned by mutuall agreement betweene the said Comission-
ers yt if it fall out that the said line from Accord Pond to the
Southermost part of Charles River and three miles Southerly as is
before expressed shall straiten or hinder any part of any Planta-
cion begunn by the Gourment of New Plymouth or hereafter to
be begun within the space of tenn yeares after the date of these
Presents That then notwithstanding the said line it shalbe law-
full for the said Gourment of New Plymouth to assume on the
Northerly side of the said line where it shall so intrench as afore-

I 2 6 HIS TORY OF COHA SSE T.

said so much land as will make up the quantytie of eight miles
square to belong to euery such Plantacion begun or to be begun
as aforesaid which wee agree determine and conclude to apertaine
and belong to the said Gourment of New Plymouth And
whereas the said line from the mouth of the said brook vvch run-
neth into Conahassett salt Marshes (called by us bound brooke)
and the pond called Accord Pond lyeth neere the lands belonging
to the Towneships of Scittuate and Hinghame Wee doe there-
fore hereby determine and conclude that if any divisions already
made and recorded by either the said Townes do crosse the said
line, that then it shall stand and bee of force according to the
former intents and purposes of the said Townes graunting them
(the Marshes formerly agreed on excepted) And that no Towne
in either Jurisdiccion shall hereafter exceede, but containe them-
selves within the said lines before expressed. In witnesse whereof
we the comissioners of both the Jurisdiccions do by these pres-
ents Indented set our hands and scales the ninth day of the fourth
month in the sixteenth yeare of our Souraigne Lord King Charles
and in the yeare of our Lord 1640

JO: ENDECOIT. WILLIAM BRADFORD, Gotir.

ISRAELL STOUGHTON. EDW : WINSLOW.*

The full text of this document is given, for its impor-
tance merits a large place in our local history and even in
our national history. This boundary dispute over Co-
hasset Harbor has the dignity of an event that was forma-
tive and epochal in our nation. The appointment of this
joint commission for the settlement of this intercolonial
difificulty was the first step of federation that culminated
in the Colonial Congress and then blossomed into the
United States. These two colonies had separate charters,
and according to strict adherence to the authority of the
court of St. James, they would be expected to appeal to
their King Charles across the Atlantic to define their
boundaries ; but instead of that, they undertook to meet
each other as two sovereign states, and to determine their

* Plyin. Rec, Vol. IX, p. i. .Acts of tlie Commissioners of the United Colonies
of New England, Vol. I.

A BONE OF CONTENTION. 12/

own realms in mutual agreement through their authorized
deputies. The compact in the cabin of the Mayflower is
sometimes referred to as the germ of our United States,
but it is more properly the seed of a single State.

For individuals to bind themselves voluntarily in the
maintenance of a government is distinct in principle from
the federation of states.

Before this Cohasset trouble there was no commission
of the united colonies ; but afterwards a permanent one
was speedily formed. The practical necessity of settling
the dispute over our salt marsh gave the two colonies an
experience in confederation which convinced them of the
feasibility of a permanent joint commission.

A meeting at Cambridge two years before, in 1638, had
been held, in which representatives of the separate colo-
nies had theorized somewhat over the practicability of
confederation, but to no success. Here, however, was an
actual case of forced consultation and joint action ; and
the way was straight from this temporary commission to
a permanent one.

Before two years had elapsed, the compact was made
out and signed which federated the four New England
colonies for mutual protection and action. It is not,
therefore, unreasonable to find at least one of the roots of
the Colonial Congress in the " three score acre marsh " at
Cohasset Harbor.

In coming to a decision about the details of this boundary
line, either some or all of the men in the commission must
have seen personally the places described. They call
themselves the namers of Bound Brook ; and their reason
for so naming it was, not because it traces out the bound-
ary of the colonies, but because a certain rock ledge at
the mouth of it was one end of a straight boundary line
to Accord Pond. That rock is now partly covered by a
recent building ; but it is still there, rising six or eight
feet above the stream on each side of it, and marked l)y

128

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

nature with a band of dark trap about six inches thick.
It is not too fanciful to imagine that these noted men
looked with their own gaze upon it, when they decreed
that so many generations of posterity must fix their
attention there.

It would be pleasant also to think that Accord Pond was
named by these same men as a sign of perpetual agree-
ment, but they confessed that it already had been so named.

Photo, JI. H. Roamy.

Hominy Point. Bassing Beach and Whitf. Head.
Taken from Government Island. Showing some of the Tlireescore Acres of marsh.

But where were the Threescore Acres of marshes .'' It
is about a mile from the mouth of Bound Brook where the
Bound Rock is, down to the sea. Yet the marshes are so
named as to lie " at the mouth of the river on Scittuate
side next to the Sea." There is only one marsh of such a
size next to the sea, and that is outside of the reach of
Bound Brook, and is the marsh which terminates in Bass-
ing Beach upon its westerly extremity.

This marsh has about sixty acres of grass, and is almost
surrounded by inlets, Briggs' on the east and Bailey's

.4 BONE OF CONTENTION. I 29

Creek upon the west and south — a very convenient loca-
tion for the boats of the Hingham haymakers. As we
shall see presently, the four commissioners did not deter-
mine the bounds of this "three score acre" concession
from Plymouth. The Hingham settlers asked for "three
score acres," meaning that particular marsh, and the
award was just as definite as the request; but it left room
for trouble. Who should say where the Hingham men
trenched upon the land up to threescore and one acres .''
Or who would restrain a Scituate farmer from scrimping it
to fifty-nine .■'

Two years later, in 1642, the exact boundary was not yet
settled, and consequently the Plymouth court, in defining
the bounds of Scituate, March 7, 1642-43, said that the
line should run from Accord Pond " by the lyne that is
the bound betwixt Massachusetts & Plymouth."*

Eight years more of harvesting salt hay passed by with
out any official marking out of the Threescore Acres.

But these were not years of undisputed rights. The
haymakers from Hingham had an additional reason by
this time for knowing exactly their own acres. It was the
division of all the meadows and salt marshes on the
Hingham side of the harbor on February 28, 1647. This
division assigned lands of certain dimensions, as we shall
see in the next chapter, to individuals, so that there could
no longer be an indiscriminate cutting of the nearest or
best grass in sight by any one who might come. But this
division upon the Hingham side must soon be followed by
a similar division of the Threescore Acres that lay upon
the Scituate side. Probably it was an appeal by them to
their colonial court at Boston which evoked the following
order : —

There being a difference betweene the inhabitants of Hingham
& of Scituate about sixty acors of meddow on the other side of

• Flym. Rec, Vol. II. p. 54.

I30

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Conehassett River, the said inhabitants of Hingham complayninge
of theire grieveance to this Court, & desireinge redresse, the Court
thinkes meete to referre the consideracion of the matter to the
commissioners of the colonyes, to whom it properly appertaynes
to put issue thereunto.*

While this matter was pending upon the commissioners'
pleasure, it was not possible for the town of Hingham to
be idle, as is revealed By the town records during that
summer : —

At a legal meeting holden at Hingham in the County of Suf-
folk on the thirtieth day of September 1651 by joint consent of
the Town Nicholas Jacob, Joshua Hubbard and Nathanael Baker
are chosen to get the sixty acres of meadow measured out which
are upon the other side of the River at Conohasset and every per-
son that hath meadows there, shall pay for the measuring, as the
other men did ; and what charge more the aforesaid persons be
at about the measuring of the said sixty Acres of meadow, or for
any suit that shall arise about the said meadow the Town doth
promise to bear it.

The liability of action at law over this tract of land is
yet further suggested by the Plymouth records ; for it
was probably in answer to complaints from Scituate men
that their legislature, or court so called, in the next year,
June 29, 1652, passed the following order : —

Conserning the difference betwixt the jurisdictions of the Mas-
sachusetts and Plymouth about the lands that hath been in differ-
ence betwixt the Massachusetts and us att Conahassett, the Court
have refered the determinacion therof unto the commissioners
att theire next meeting, according to the articles of confederacion.

This was twelve years after the first commission com-
posed of Bradford and Winslovv, Endicott and Stough-
ton, which had decreed the Threescore Acres, unmeas-
ured, to the Massachusetts side. Whether the matter

* Mass. Rec, Vol. Ill, p. 236. Cf. Mass. Rec, Vol. IV, Part I. p. 56.

A BONE OF CONTENTION. I31

ever came before this later and permanent colonial com-
mission has not been discovered by a close scrutiny of
their records. It is jDresumable, however, that they refused
to entertain the question of the boundary any more ex-
plicitly than the first commission had settled it. If this
refusal was really made, it would account for the following
act passed by the Plymouth court two years later, which
was a tardy ratification of the first commission's decision : —

The Court doth declare that both the propriety and jurisdiction
of the three score acres of marsh, lying on Scittuate side of Bound
Brooke, att the rivers mouth, next unto the sea, according to the
order of the commissioners, doth belonge unto the goverment of
the Massachusetts.

The colonial commissioners were busy about Indian
and Dutch affairs, devising a common defense for all four
colonies, while this little boundary dispute concerned only
two of the four colonies, and they might well refuse to
act upon it.

Both colonies were therefore left where they had been
since 1640. The Massachusetts court tried to put a stop
to this tedious affair by ordering:

that Capt. Wm. Torrey and Capt. Richard Brackett are ap-
pointed by this Court to appointe both time and place for the
meeting with such commissioners as shall be chosen by the
Gennerall Court of New Plymouth, and joyne with them to lay
out that marish lying at Connahassett, belonging to this juris-
dicion, according to the former agreement betweene the commis-
sioners of this jurisdicion and New Plymouth, as thereby may
appeare, making theire returne to the next Court.*

These men were promptly about their duty as the Mas-
sachusetts records testify : —

Capt. Wm. Torrey & Capt. Richard Brackett are appointed
as commissioners from this Court to joyne with two from Plym-

* Mass. Col. Rec, Vol. IV, Part I. p. 230.

I 3 2 HIS TOR Y OF COHA SSE T.

outh on the i8th of November next, to meet at Walter Briggs
house, at an eleven of the clock, to lay out the sixty acres of
meadow according to the agreement betweene our and Plymouth
commissioners, and in case they agree not, they fower are to
choose a fifth and any three of them are to determine it, making
retourne of what they shall doe to the next Gen'l Court. This to
be done at the charge of Hingham.*

Now there is no statement in the Plymouth records of
the time between 1655 and 1657 that tells of the appoint-
ment of any Plymouth men to meet these of Massachu-
setts, but the following report of the committee has the
name of Josias Winslow, a Plymouth man, upon it : —

Wee, whose names are hereunder subscribed, being appoynted
by the Gen'l courts of the Massachusetts & New Plymouth to
settle a difference between the townes of Hingham & Scituate,
referring to 60 acors of salt marsh graunted to the Massachusetts
lying on the east side of the River Conehasset, and in obedience
to the said order mett accordingly upon the place, and upon a
survay of the said land could not find any bound markes appear-
ing, according as it was set out by Hingham men, but understood
that Hingham men had run the lyne a little higher upon the river
then Scituate men had done, and thereby had taken 6 or 7 acors
of land upon the river, which Scituate men had layd out near the
sea, which we conceive was not so agreeable to the commissioners
order as the first lyne and doe therefor conclude and agree, as a
full issue of the case, that the said lyne as it now stands marked
& bounded by Scituate men, shall stand firme & good, & the
other lyne, run by Hingham men, be voyd and of none effect.

Subscribed by
WM. TORREY & JOSIAS WINSLOW.

Capt. Brackett being not so cleare in this determination, was
not willing to subscribe.!

Following this immediately the record says : —

* Mass. Col. Rec, Vol. IV, Part I, p. 285.

tMass. Col. Rec, Vol, III. p. 437. Cf. Vol. IV, Part I, p. 294.

A BONE OF CONTENTION. 133

"The Court doth approve of the returne of the Com-
missioners in reference to the land above mentioned."

But how could two men fix the boundary when three
were made necessary by the words of the court order?
Nevertheless, here stood the names of two substantial
men, one for Massachusetts and the other for Plymouth,
and they were practically enough to annul the survey of
the Threescore Acres made by Messrs Jacob, Hubbard,
and Baker, appointed by Hingham six years before to
divide the marsh.

The house of Walter Briggs, where they met upon
November 18, 1656, was built four years before, and is
still standing with its huge oak timbers at North Scituate
Beach.*

The streams of human change for two hundred and
forty years have flowed by that house, leaving it to bear
witness of the first proprietor of that region, as well as of
the bone of contention which lay in sight of it towards
Cohasset Harbor, a mile to the west. Elsewhere along
the boundary between the two colonies there was trouble
enough and expense enough in laying out the lines. John
Jacob of Hingham, and Timothy Hatherly of Scituate,
led the opposing contestants for real estate, and the
boundary line has been bent and rebent until the year
1840, when the present boundaries! were defined by the
State Legislature.

The Threescore Acres are no longer ours, but their
tradition is ours, with the record of those famous colonial
leaders with whom to be connected is a rare historical
setting.

*It is owned by our fellow townsman, E. Pomeroy Collier, a descendant of
Walter Briggs, and is used with its modern addition as a summer residence.

t Since the above was written several minor changes have been made in the
boundary between Cohasset and its adjoining towns.

CHAPTER VIII.

DIVIDING THE LAND.

AFTER the militia turmoil of 1644-47 the bitter ani-
mosities among the pioneers at Hingham increased
their demand for exact boundaries between their marshes
at Cohasset. It will be remembered (page 1 10) that
seven years before this, July 6, 1640, an unsuccessful
effort was made to get the Cohasset meadows divided.
Another committee of nine men was therefore appointed
February 28, 1647-48, to get this thing done.

Three of the old committee were reappointed, Thomas
Hammond, Clement Bates, and Nicholas Jacob ; and added
to these were William Hersey, Anthony Eames, John
Otis, Joshua Hobart, Matthew Cushing, and Joseph Un-
derwood. One of the original committee, Henry Smith,
one of the first two deacons of the Hingham church, lay
dying that same year in Rehoboth. Another, Nicholas
Baker, had removed to Hull.

This new committee of nine were to divide the land
" according to equity," and the grantees were to pay for
the expense of measuring it.

In the mean time, as early as 1645, the dry cattle were
each year pastured and properly herded without too much
injury to the hay crops upon the marshes. This distin-
guished function of being a pasture for Hingham was the
main fact about Cohasset for a whole generation. If any
herdsman, in driving cattje to and from Cohasset, allowed
to join his own cattle any of the young herd kept by the
town herdsman, he should forfeit two shillings for every
beast so brought home, and he must drive it back within
one day, upon penalty of twelvepence a day for every day
it stayed away from the herd. What trail was followed

DIVIDING THE LAND. I 35

may be guessed. It may have been about the course of
our present North Main Street ; for that was the shortest
distance to our Little Harbor meadows from the Turkey
Meadow, which meadow at that time had been used for
cattle several years. Who the cowboys were, and the
swineherds of those pioneer days, the writer has been
unable to find out from the Hingham records ; but it is
they who were the first white dwellers upon our domain.

At the same meeting which ordered the division of
Cohasset marshes, February 28, 1647-48, a committee of
four* were chosen "to hire a herdsman to keep the dry
cattle at Conye Hassett," and here he was living when the
committee came to measure the land.

The method of measuring these marsh lands must have
been more crude than our present exact surveys. The
irregular boundaries of the marshes, where they butt against
the uplands, could not be marked out without needless
expense, and the exact number of acres in some ragged
pieces had to be guessed at.

With their measuring chain and wooden stakes these
unprofessional surveyors marked off first the marshes
about the margin of Little Harbor. Their first concern
was to reimburse some of the Hingham settlers, whose
grants of land in Nantasket had been taken from them by
the Massachusetts General Court for the simple reason
that Hingham never had any right to grant her own
settlers, lands belonging to the Nantasket settlement.
Accordingly, this First Division was made up of twenty-
nine lots, containing a total of forty-eight and a half acres.

In the record of these grants there are certain bound-
aries indicated at the four cardinal points ; but to under-
stand the location from our present map would take more
than a day's hard study. There is no map or sketch of
the division to be found : probably none was ever made.

* Anthony Eames, Nicholas Jacob, John Otis, and John Beal. (Hingham Town
Records.)

136 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Cooper's Island was indicated as the south boundary of
Thomas Barnes and David Phippeny ; also the east
boundary of William Cockerum and Thomas Lincoln *
(cooper). " The beach was indicated as the north boundary
of Andrews and Hett and others. Joseph Underwood's lot
was said to be " in the First Division upon the islands " ;
and we understand that the series of rocky uplands on
the north side of Little Harbor, whether surrounded by
meadows or by water, constituted those islands.

But the chief perplexity in locating these marshes f is the
fact that there is scarcely more than half cjumgli marsh
land nowadays about Little Harbor to supply the allotments.

A careful measurement on the map recently made by
our government Coast Survey shows less than forty acres
of marsh about Little Harbor; while there are recorded
in the land grants of this First Division and a part of the
Second Division over seventy acres. This discrepancy is
increased by counting seven \ more meadows which were
named by the Hingham records in describing the grants

*7"he re were four Thomas Lincolns: (i) the cooper; (2) the husbandman;
(3) the miller; (4) the weaver.

+ The grantees of the First Division were as follows : —
Lots. Names. A

1 Nath. Baker and Andrew Lane

2 Thomas Hett

3 Thoinas Andrews

4 Thomas Thaxti-r

5 Nathaniel Baker
6

7 Joseph Underwood

8 William Ripley

9 Francis James

10 Richard Ibrook

11 Edward Oilman

12 John Foulsam

13 John Leaviit

14 Matthew Hawke

15 George Strange 3

Total, 48!/^

J These seven were the meadows of Thomas Clap, Matthew Gushing, Simon
Burr, Thomas Hewitt, Michael Peirce, Henry Smith, and James Whiton.

cres.

Lois. Names.

Acres.

16

Edward Wilder

3

I

17

Philip Jaines

1V2

6

18

Ralph Woodward

2

I

19

John Morrick

I

iy2

20

William Ghapman

I

21

Clement Bates

I

I

22

William Cockerum

3

I

23

Thomas Barnes

2

1^2

24

David Phippeny

2

4

25

William Ludkin

1^2

1V2

26

Thomas Lincoln (cooper)

1^2

iVi

27

2

28

James Buck

1V2

I

29

John Tower

1^2

DIVIDING THE I AMD. I37

of the First Division, evidently granted at some previous
time.

There is no relief from our perplexity in saying that the
pioneers made so serious a mistake in their measurements.

Something more remarkable than that has happened.
The marshes themselves have disappeared. In other
words, the slow subsidence of our coast, referred to in the
second chapter of this book, has drowned out nearly half
of our pioneers' marsh lands in Little Harbor. The loss
sustained by the slow movement of these two hundred and
fifty years is clearly seen upon the north side of Cooper's
Island, where four acres of salt meadow were granted to
Thomas Barnes and David Phippeny, but where nothing
of it now remains above the salt water. There was a
successful scheme which checked this loss by subsidence,
made in the early part of this century, when the salt
water was kept out by Cuba Dam at the site of the present
bridge, and the whole harbor was turned into a fresh
meadow. But the pioneers happened along in the nick of
time, before the sea had submerged the much-needed
meadows.

After the necessary reimbursements had been made for
the settlers' losses at Nantasket, the Second Division* was
laid out by the committee of nine.

Some ten lots of this second group lay along the south
side of Little Harbor, and the remaining six lots were at
Sandy Cove. These all lay upon the north side of the
familiar highlands in that part of our town which the

* The allotments were as follows : —

r.ol. Name. Acres.

ID Matthew Lane ii^

11 Richard Langer 1 1/,

12 Thomas Lincoln (husbanciman ) 2

13 Thomas Gill 2

14 Henry Gibbs 1 1^,

15 Samuel Parker 1 1/,

16 John Stoddard, Sr. i 1/,

Total 28 14

Lot. Name.

Acres.

I Daniel Gushing

21/2

2 Michael Peirce

2

3 Nicholas Lobdin

1^2

4 Henry Chaniberlin

21/2

5

6 John Page

I

7 John Prince

l'/2

8 Mark Eames

4

9 Thomas Lincoln

2

1 3 8 nis roR y of cohasse t.

pioneers then called " Great Neck," A casual examination
of the land from Little Harbor towards the south, down to
our present railroad station and thence by the course of
James Brook to the Cove, shows a very low neck of land
connecting all the high rocky peninsula east of Main Street
with the rest of the town. This peninsula was naturally
called therefore "Great Neck."

Sixteen lots were laid out in the Second Division in
order to exhaust all the marshes north of Great Neck
which were left over from the First Division. That left all
the salt meadow on the south side of Great Neck for the
Third Division. In this last division there were forty-five
lots that were recorded as lying about the harbor and its
creeks, and also along the west bank of Gulf River up to
the mouth of Bound Brook.

Lots 40, 41, and 43 were fresh meadow, aggregating five
and one quarter acres, and were lying somewhere apart
from the fresh meadow which Nicholas Jacob seems to
have appropriated several years before the division,*

There is one boundary indicated in the description of
these meadows lying south of Great Neck which may be
of interest to a modern Cohasseter. It is the so-called
Creek Falls. Almost any citizen to-day would be puzzled
to find any waterfalls bounding a salt meadow, but the
pioneers undoubtedly found the mouth of James Brook to
have quite a noticeable falls when the tide was out. At
the beginning of Border Street this insignificant stream is
bridged over, and the highway is graded up over the falls,
hiding them from view ; but they can be heard tumbling
beneath the house and sidewalk now built across the
stream when the tide is ebbing. Lot 10 of the Third Di-
vision, belonging to Thomas Lincoln, was a half acre lying
north of these falls ; and Nicholas Jacob owned a lot of
two acres bounded by the "falls" eastward and south-
ward. That such were the " falls " is more conclusively

*.See p. Ill, (Jhapttr VI.

DIVIDING THE LAND.

139

proved by the fact that the pioneers called the outlet of
Straits Pond a "falls," which is scarcely more of a tumble
than our James Brook makes when the tide is low.

Besides these forty-five lots, the Third Division included
fourteen more lots "over the river," aggregating thirty-
nine and a half acres of the Threescore Acres that had
constituted for so many years the "bone of contention."

These divisions* of marsh land were not all made at

* As follows : —

Lot. Name. Acres.

1 James Whiton 14

2 Anthony Eames 3^

3 Jciseph Underwood 1^4

4 Nathaniel Baker 4

5 John Fearing i

6 William Buckland i?4

7 George Marsh 2

Lot. Name.

32 Edward Burton

33 Thomas Chubbuck

34 (Widow) Hilliard

35 Thomas Hobart

36 John Lazell

37 Ralph Woodward

38 Robert Jones

2^2

8

39

John Beal

^Va

9 Edmond Hobart

I

40

John Tucker

(Fresh)

2%

10 Thomas Lincoln (weaver)

y-i

41

Thomas Joslin

(Fresh*)

1 1/2

II John Otis, Sr.

2

42

12 Thomas Thaxter

I

43

Francis Smith

(Fresh)

I

13 Thomas Thaxter

3

Matthew Cushing

2^2

14 Nicholas Jacobs

3%

Bozoan Allen

1/4

Nicholas Jacobs
15 Abraham Joslin

2
y2

Total

691/2

16 John Palmer

1^4

" Over the River."

17
18

I

George Lane

I

19 Clement Bates

iy2

2
3

" Beales "

2^2

20 Simon Burr

iy4

4

Vincent Druce

3

21 Stephen Gates

y-i

5 ,

Jonas Austin

3

22 William Sprague

^y-i

6 Thomas Barnes

I

23 Peter Hobart

4

7

Thomas Hewitt

2/2

24

7

John Farrar

I

25 Thomas Johnson

iy4

8

Thomas Hammond

6

26 William Ripley

3

9

William Hersey

4^2

27 (Widow) Collier

174

10

Edward Gould

I

28 Edmond Pitts

1%

II

John Leavitt

3

29

12

Thomas Nichols

2

30 John Tower

I

13

Francis James

5

31 Matthew Hawke

I

48

14

Nathaniel Baker

Acres " over river '

4

36/2
69/2

Acres in Third Division 106

Thomas Chaffe two acres, which was all the marsh on the south side of Straits Pond.

140 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

once ; indeed three and a half years passed by before the
marshes "over the river" about Bassing Beach were
assigned in severalty.*

In the mean time the changes across the ocean in the
throne of England had been affecting the destiny of these
distant colonies. The ascendency of Oliver Cromwell,
with his Puritan allies in England, loosened the grip of
tyranny there, and gave more room for the development of
self-government here. The conscientious and magnanimous
governor, John Winthrop, " the father of Massachusetts,"
died in 1649, while these marshes were being measured
out ; but a faithful protector of freemen's titles was left,
John Endicott, the leading figure in public affairs, who had
already visited our shore and had established our southern
boundary.

People as well as governors were growing more reliable
in the exercise of colonial authority, and one advantage of
the Puritan victories in England was that they kept away
from America, giving the settlers here more time to get
really settled.

The same year of Winthrop's death the obnoxious King
Charles I was beheaded, and for eleven years, until the
restoration of Charles II in 1660, the pioneer colonies
enjoyed their independence. But there were many Royal-
ists in Boston, and the announcement of the king's restora-
tion was loudly made.

The journal of the Hingham pastor, Peter Hobart, records
the notewo .hy item, August 5, 1661 : "King Charles
ye second proclaimed at Boston with grate solemnity."

But the herds of cattle and swine at Cohasset fed
quietly year by year, and the sharp scythes swept through
the grass each fall, making hay to be transported around
the headlands of Hull to Hingham Harbor.

•February 24, 1650, Nicholas Jacob was voted twelvepence and Nathaniel Baker
two shillings sixpence for a day going to Scituate to see about the boundaries of
he Threescore Acres.

DIVIDING THE LAND. 141

Fences, made probably of split rails, were built at the
borders of the upland to keep the cattle off when the hay
was growing, and to keep the owners' cattle in after the
crop had been harvested. This "after feed," to which
cattle might be turned loose, caused some contention.
When several lots of marsh lay in one piece so that a
short fence in a certain place would keep it secure against
stray cattle, the several owners would have to mow at the
same time, or else the cattle of one owner, let in upon his
after feed, would spoil the uncut grass of the others.

Accordingly an ordinance was passed March 13, 1648,
that "the after feed" must not be opened to cattle until
the major part of the owners consent.

Sometimes a fence about a meadow might be very much
shortened by taking in a piece of upland, either a so-called
island or a peninsula. Thus on June i, 1655,

It was ordered and agreed upon by the town that the owners
of the meadow at Conahassett shall have liberty to take in several
parcels of upland for the shortening and straightening of their fence,
provided it doth not exceed four score acres in the whole — which
said upland shall be laid common five weeks before Michaelmas,
until the twenty fifth day of December, and so to continue from
year to year, . . . and Nicholas Jacob and Matthew Gushing
are appointed to order every man where the fence shall stand.

One instance of this fencing was when the whole of the
Beach Islands were so made into a private pasture, while
the uplands were still public property. It was on May 7,
1666, when

It was agreed by the town that Daniel Gushing, John Tower,
and John Jacobs and others that are owners of meadow about the
Beach Islands shall have liberty to fence in their meadows from
Matthew Hawke's meadow to the rocks by the sea — so to fence
in the Beach Islands for this year, provided that they lay them
open a month before Michaelmas, according to the town order.

Thus in the fall and spring all the uplands were kept

142

HISTOKY OF COH ASSET,

accessible for pasture lands, and during the rest of the
year the owners of marsh were accommodated.

It was natural for property to change hands, and espe-
cially so when the owners did not earn it, but only received
it as grants freely made to them. Several of our Cohasset
grantees within a few years sold or exchanged marshes.
Among those who strengthened their foothold here by pur-
chasing from others were John Tower, Nicholas Jacob and
his son John, Matthew Gushing and his son Daniel.

Three acres of salt marsh at Bassing Beach sold by
Thomas Hewitt, tailor, of Hingham, to John Sutton of
Scituate, brought one pound ten shillings ($7.50) in the
year 1652.

When the marshes at the eastern side of our town were
subdivided for the haymakers, the timber land on the west
border was being coveted by loggers.

On January i, 1653, the town ordered a division of
timber lands bounded by "a straight line from Rocky
Meadows to Conyhasset Pond (afterwards called Scituate
Pond, now called Lily Pond), and so south to the [colony]
line; thence to Prospect Hill from which to the Southeast
end of Rocky Meadow within side of the river,"

The use to which some townsmen might have proposed
putting this timber may be inferred from the following
order passed at the same meeting : —

"Captain Joshua Hobart and John Foulsham voted the
liberty of the two rivers, Rocky Meadow and Bound Brook
... to build . . . sawmill or mills upon. . . ."

But no evidence appears that these proposed mill owners
ever fulfilled their privilege.

The remainder of the town, the hills and valleys which
lay between the marshes on the east and the strip of tim-
ber on the west, was not divided until twenty-four years
after the marshes were first measured.

In the interval which preceded the division of Cohasset
uplands it became the fashion for the towns of Massa-

DIVIDING THE LAND. 1 43

chusetts Colony to secure bona fide deeds from the
Indians, for all the lands they had appropriated upon
grants of the colony and of the king.

The natives were by this time about crowded off the
land, but there is no need to be so sentimental on behalf
of the Indians as to upbraid our forefathers for taking lands
without giving a fair consideration until so late a day.

The idea of Indian ownership indeed came ridiculously
late to the Anglo-Saxon intruders; but it is- doubtful
whether it ever came at all to the Indians themselves.
One might as properly think of owning a part of the mid-
Atlantic Ocean as to think of an Indian owning part of
a boundless forest, the only use for which was to scud
through it occasionally as a vessel travels the sea. Their
little villages were very seldom permanent lodges; and to
buy them out was only to persuade them to move a little
earlier to a new place of food catching.

The newcomers did the aborigines the injury of making
game scarce and neighbors too thick ; and it seems a trifle
absurd that so much stress has been laid by sentimental
writers upon the vague ownership of lands which can be
accorded to the Indians.

It is somewhat amusing therefore to read the accom-
panying instrument* made out in the dignified circumlo-

*INDIAN DEED. July 4, 1665.
(Suffolk County Deeds, Vol. VIII.)
Whereas divers Englishmen did formerly come (into the Massachusets now
called by the Englishmen New England) to inhabit in the dayes of Chickatabut
our father who was the Cheife Sachem of the sayd Massachusets on the South-
ward side of Charles River, and by the free Consent of our sayd father did set
downe upon his land and in the yeare of our Lord God one thousand six hundred
thirty and four divers Englishmen did set downe and inhabit upon part of the
land that was formerly our sayd fathers land, which land the Englishmen call by the
name of Hingham, which sayd Englishmen they and their heires and assosiats have
ever since had quiet and peaceable possession of their Towneshippe of Hingham
by our likeing and Consent which we desire they may still quietly possess and
injoy and because ther have not yet bin any legall conveyance in writing passed
from us to them conserning their land which may in future time occasion differ-
ence between them and us all which to prevent — Know all men by these presents that
we Wompatuck called by the English J osiah now Cheife Sachem of the Massachusets

144 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

cution which had developed in England by centuries of
complex land tenures, and signed by the marks of illiterate
savages who would more naturally have transferred their
rights by a few whiffs of tobacco and a grunt of satisfaction.
The whole cost of the township paid to the Indians
was less than the value of twelve acres on Turkey Hill;
for those twelve acres " on Turkey Hill on the north side
of a way leading to Scituate" were granted to Lieut Jno.
Smith and Deacon John Leavitt, August 15 of that year,
" on condition that they satisfy all the charge about the
purchase of the town's land of Josiah — Indian sagamore,
both the principal purchase and all the other charge that
hath been about it."

Having satisfied the punctilio of honor with the Indians,

aforesayd and sonne and heire to the aforesayd Chickafabut : and Squmuck all
called by the English Daniel some of the aforesayd Chickatabut and Ahahden —
Indians: for a valueable consideration to us in hand payd by Captaine Joshua
Hubberd and Ensigne John Thaxter, of Hingham aforesayd wherewith wee doe
acknowledge ourselves fully satisfyed contented and payd and thereof and of
every part and percell thereof doe exonerate acquitt and discharge the sayd Joshua
Hubberd and John Thaxter their heires executors and Administrators and every
of them forever by these presents : have given granted bargained sold enfeoffed
and confirmed and by these presents doe give grant bargaine sell Enfeoffe and
confirme unto the sayd Joshua Hubberd and John Thaxter on the behalfe and to
the use of the inhabitants of the Towne of Hingham aforesayd that is to say all
such as are the present owners and proprietors of the present house lotts as they
have bin from time to time granted and layd out by the Towne : All that Tract of
land which is the Towneshippe of Hingham aforesayd as it is now bounded with
the sea northward and with the River called by the Englishmen weymoth River
westward which River flow from the sea : and the line that devide betweene the
sayd Hingham and Weymoth as it is now layd out and marked untill it come to
the line that devide betwene the colony of the Massachusets and the colony of
New Plimoth and from thence to the midle of accord pond and from the midle
of accord pond to bound Brooke to the flowing of the salt water and so along by
the same River that devide betwene Scittiate and the said Hingham until it come
to the sea northward : And also threescore acres of salt marsh on the other side
of the River that is to say on iBcittiate side according as it was agreed upon by the
commissioners of the Massachusets colony and the commissioners of Plimoth
colony Together with all the Harbours Rivers Creekes Coves Islands fresh water
brookes and ponds and all marshes unto the sayd Towneshippe of Hingham
belonging or any wayes app'taineing with all and singular thapp'tenences unto the
p'misses or any part of them belonging or any wayes app'taineing: And all our
right title and interest of and into the sayd p'misses with their app'tenences and
every part and p'cell thereof to have and to hold All the aforesayd Tract of land

DIVIDI.YG THE LAND. 1 45

a clear and perfect title was thenceforth manifest. But
what about the division of Cohasset uplands ?

On April 28, 1665, " The major part of the town hath
concluded and agreed that the land of Cony Hassett shall
not be divided — but shall still remain common for the use
of the town — and have chosen Captain Hobart, Ensi^^n
Thaxter, Daniel Cushing, John Jacob, and Matthew Gush-
ing to consider of some way for the settling of the town's
common perpetually, for the use of the town, and to return
their propositions unto the town in writing."

Good pasture and good woodland for all time to be used
by the inhabitants of Hingham was the threatened fate of
Cohasset, But the generation of sons and daughters born
to these pioneers in the land of their adoption were now
at a voting and a marrying age. New homes were neces-

which is the Tovvneshippe of Hingham aforesayd and is bounded as aforesayd
with all the Harbours Rivers Creekes Coves Islands fresh water brookes and
ponds and all marshes ther unto belonging with the threescore acres of salt marsh
on the other side of the River (viz) on Scittiate side with all and singular thapp'-
tenences to the sayd p'misses or any of them belonging unto the sayd Joshua
Hubberd and John Thaxter on the behalfe and to the use of the sayd inhabitants
who are the present owners and proprietors of the present house lotts in hingham
their heires and assignes from the before named time in the yeare of our Lord
God one thousand six hundred thirty and four forever .And unto the the only proper
use and behoofe of the [the] sayd Joshua hubberd and John Thaxter and the
inhabitants of the Towne of hingham who are the present owners and proprietors
of the present house lotts in the Towne of Hingham their heires and assignes
forever. And the said Wompatuck Squmuck and Ahahden doe hereby covenant
promise and grant to and with the sayd Joshua hubberd and John Thaxter on the
behalfe of the inhabitants of hingham as aforesayd that they the sayd Wompatuck
Squmuck and Ahahden — are the true and proper owners of the sayd bargained
p'misses with their app'tenances at the time of the bargaine and sale thereof and
that the sayd bargained p'misses are free and cleare and freely and clearely exon-
erated acquitted and discharged of and from all and all maner of former bargaines
sales guifts grants titles mortgages suits attachments actions Judgements extents
executions dowers title of dowers and all other incumberances whatsoever from
the begining of the world until the time of the bargaine and sale thereof and that
the sayd Joshua hubberd and John Thaxter with the rest of the sayd inhabitants
who are the present owners and proprietors of the present house lotts in hingham
they tlieir heires and Assignes the p'misses and every part and parcell thereof shall
quietly have hold use occupy possese and injoy without the let suit trouble deniall
or molestation of them the sayd Wompatuck : Squmuck and Ahahdun their heires
and assignes : and Lastly the sayd Wompatuck : Squmuck and Ahahdun for
themselves their heires executors administrators and assignes doe hereby covenant

146 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

sary, and the idea of keeping so many hundreds of acres
in common could not long satisfy the young households
that were being started.

Three years after they had voted not to divide Cohasset
they partly reversed the order.

The timber and cord wood in the region of the west side
of Town Hill was to be divided among the inhabitants,
though the land upon which it grew was to remain com-
mon. But the rest of Cohasset was ordered to be divided
on March 19, 1668, according to some fair method. But
there was the rub ! What was an equitable division .? At
first they thought that each man should have such a pro-
portion of the common acres as he had already of the
divided acres. But some good citizens would fare badly

promise and grant the p'misses above demised with all the libertys previledges and
app'tenences thereto or in any wise belonging or appertaineing unto the sayd
Joshua Hubberd John Tha.xter and the rest of the sayd inhabitants of Hingham
who are the present owners and proprietors of the present house lotts their heires
and assignes to warrant acquitt and defend forever against all and all maner of
right title and Interrest claime or demand of all and every person or persons
whatsoever. And that it shall and maybe lawfull to and for the sayd Joshua
Hubberd and John Thaxter their heires and assignes to record and enroll or cause
to be recorded and enrolled the title and tenour of these psents accoiding to the
usuall order and maner of recording and enrolling deeds and evedences in such
case made and p'vided in witness whereof we the aforesayd Wompatuck called by
the English Josiah sachem : and Squmuck called by the English Daniell and
Ahahdun Indians : have heere unto set our hands and scales the fourth day of July
in the yeare of our Lord God one thousand six hundred sixty and five and in the
seavenleenth yeare of the raigne of our soveraigne Lord Charles the second by the
grace of God of Great Brittanie France and Ireland King defender of the faith &c
1665

Signed sealled and delivered

In the presence of us :

JOB NOESHTEANS Indian ^ j-

the marke of W WILLIAM

MANANANIANUT Indian

the marke of 8 ROBERT

MAMUNTAHGLX Indian

JOHN HUES

MATTIAS Q BRIGGS

the marke of r JOB JUDKINS J

the marke of J O WOMPATUCK

(L. S.) called by the English Josiah

cheif sachem

the marke J of SQUMUCK (L. S.)

called by the English Daniell sonne

of Chickatabut

the marke of IIII Ahahden ( L. S.)

Josiah Wompatuck Squmuck Ahahden Indians apeared p'sonally the 19th of
may 1668 and acknowledged this instrum't of writing to be theyr act and deed
freely and voluntary without compulsion, acknowledged before

JNO. LEVERETT, Asf.

DIVIDING THE LAND.

147

in such a bargain, because they came too late for the
former grants.

Next they voted to share the commons according to a
man's property plus the number of members of his family.
This arrangement would be very agreeable to large families
as well as to heavy property owners. Each member of a
family might be counted as equivalent to three or four
acres of land.

But Daniel Gushing vigorously objected to a division by
" heads and estates."

A committee, therefore, consisting of Joshua Hobart,
Daniel Gushing, Jeremy Beal, Lieutenant Smith, Hum-
phrey Johnson, and Moses Gollier, were chosen to ask
counsel of si.x prominent men of other towns to get the
best advice for the division of the commons.

Two months later, May 17, 1669, it was voted to value
all house lots at five pounds ($25.00) per acre and persons
at fifteen pounds ($75.00) per head.

In December they passed still further definitions of
value for property.*

The number voting at these important meetings may be
inferred from the statement that "twenty-four hands were
held up, to count houses at the valuation of the county
rate," and " sixteen hands went up, to count houses at
their full value."

But they adjourned for a week, when they were to make
another effort at a division.

Some English-born settlers complained that certain
house lots had more than one vote because more than one

* Cattle as follows : —

O.K

Cow

5 poun

3 "

ids

Kid
Swine

4 shillings
20 "

Two-year-
Yearling

•old

40
20

shillings

Shote
Horse

5 pounds

10

Calf

10

"

Mare

5

Sheep
Lamb
Goat

10

5
8

•'

Two-year-old

Yearling

Foal

2

10
30
20

1 48 HI ST OR V OF COHASSE T.

man lived upon them. It seems ridiculous to us nowadays
to think that votes in Cohasset should be based upon
house lots instead of upon persons, but the English method
of land representation, instead of person representation,
was evidently in vogue.

December 27, 1669, they passed the rule "'that no one
house lot shall have above one man in voting about divi-
sion."

Another town meeting on January 10 ordered a list of
house lots and a committee to adjust grievances. The
hard-working citizens who had not acquired land were
being crowded to the wall ; but the majority had mercy
enough to vote that " if any poor man is oppressed by this
way of dividing, there may be some consideration of such
persons."

Then followed a week of sharp and hot arguing over the
division of Cohasset. Around their firesides, at the little
old meeting-house,* in the barns where cattle were
munching Cohasset hay, anywhere men could get together
on those winter days, the absorbing theme was discussed.
A conclusion was reached on January 17, 1669 (new style
1670), at a special town meeting. All previous measures
were voted null and void ; they determined to throw the
whole of their undivided lands into seven hundred shares,
and then to distribute those shares by an open vote, and
afterwards to survey the land, giving pieces to each share-
holder according to his number of shares.

By this plan every one would be provided for, as they
need not feel bound by any one rule of division. Loose
as it was, the various amounts coming to each by this plan
were quite definitely determined in the minds of the voters.

The town clerk, Daniel Cushing, received the largest
number of shares, thirty-five, probably in compensation
for his clerical services. Apart from him, the pastor was
the most liberally remembered, twenty-five shares. Then

*The present meeting-house was not built until twelve years later, 1681.

DIVIDING THE LAND.

149

came their two deputies of the General Court, Captain
Joshua Hobart with eighteen shares, and Ensign John
Thaxter with sixteen and a half shares.

The least of all was the one solitary share of Clement
Bates * (Junior).

They did not vote away all their shares on that day,
only 688>^, leaving eleven and one half shares to be given
to any that may have been overlooked or underestimated.!

* According to the Hingham Genealogy there was no Clement (Junior) of the
Hingham Bates at that time. He might have been a nephew of Clement, Senior,
from Weymouth, living in Hingham, or possibly the Genealogy may be in error.

t Shares granted January 17, 1669 : —

Peter Hobart

25

Onesipherus Marsh

4

Capt. Joshua Hobart

18

Henry Ward

4

Lieut. John Smith

15

John Beal, Jr.

4

Ens. John Thaxter

16%

Samuel Bates

2

John Leavitt

141/2

Edmond Hobart

10

Nathaniel Baker

IS

John Ripley

13

James Hersey

7

John Tucker

10

Thomas Nichols, Sr,

9

Thomas Chubbuck

8

Joseph Jones

5

Nathaniel Chubbuck

4

Thomas Hobart

10

Josiah Loring

7

Ephraim Hewitt

5

John Farrar, Jr.

2

John Beales, Sr.

10

Andrew Lane, Sr.

6

Margaret Burton

4

Thomas Lincoln (carpenter)

10

Henry Chamberlin

5

Thomas Lincoln (cooper)

5

John Manfield

5

George Lane

10

Simon Peck

4

Samuel Lincoln

S

Cornelius Canterberry

5

John Farrar

.5

Simon Burr

5

John Tower, Sr.

8

Clement Bates, Jr.

I

Edmond Pitts

10%

Thomas Barnes

5

Thomas Andrews

10

William Sprague

9

Joseph Church

S

Francis James

9

Daniel Cushing, Sr.

35

Daniel Lincoln

8

Daniel Stoddard

2

Thomas Lincoln (husbandman)

10

Samuel Stoddard

2

Joshua Lincoln

5

John Stoddard

2

John Lazeli

6

Israel Fearing

4%

Anthony Sprague

3

John Fearing

61/2

Benjamin Lincoln

3

Thomas Joy, Sr.

4

Thomas Gill, Sr.

9

Ann Tucker

5

Joseph Bates

5

William Woodcock

4

Clement Bates, Sr.

6

Jeremiah Beal

13

Benjamin Bates

5

Josiah Lane

3

Henry Gibbs

3

Thomas Marsh

8

Samuel Stowell

4

Nicholas Baker

5

I50

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Now that their several proportions were determined, the
next need was a surveyor, who should make a plot of the
land so that the good and the bad patches might be evenly
shared, and also to lay out proper highways for gaining
access to the separate lots.

The surveyor chosen was Lieut. Joshua Fisher, of Ded-
ham, and it was voted to send for him immediately. It
was well known by all the settlers that the best land of
Cohasset was that along the harbor up to the mouth of
Bound Brook, the region which has since become the main
village. Everybody desired a slice of that preferred ground.
Therefore a block of land a mile thick and two miles long,
reaching from the colony line northwestward to Little
Harbor, was the first to be shared. There were nearly
fourteen hundred acres in the block, so that each of the
seven hundred shares would be nearly two acres.*

William Hersey

IS

Robert Jones

5

John Skeath

4

Joseph Jacobs

4

Widow Hilliard

2

Abraham Bixby

5

Josiah Hobart

5

John Mason

2

Stephen Lincoln

5

Joseph Church

8

Thomas Lincoln (weaver)

7

John Langley

2

Nathaniel Beal

8

John Hughes

2

Joseph Joy

4

Perth McFarlin

2

John Prince

6

Added December 6, 1670.

Matthew Hawke

6

Edward Wilder

6

George Bacon's heirs

5

Michael Pearse

12

Humphrey Johnson

I

John Otis

ID

John Jacobs

2

Matthew Gushing

12

John Stoddard

I

Joshua Beal

4

Edward Wilder

2

Caleb Beal

3

Daniel Stoddard

I

Humphrey Johnson

5

Samuel Stoddard

I

Francis Whiton

5

John Prince

2

Robert Dunbar

4

Simon Burr

1%

John Jacobs

8

Clement Bates, Jr.

2

James Bates

5

Cornelius Canterberry

iy2

Samuel Thaxter

5

Onesiphorus Marsh

I

Joseph Andrews

2

William Hersev

2

Moses Collier
Thomas Hewitt

8

2

Total granted

7111/2

♦The exact total was 1,394 acres and 31 rods, making 314 rods for one share,
providing 7105^ shares ; but 7112 shares were re.illy granted, so there was a very
slight scrimping of some shares to make up the extra i-^^ shares.

DIVIDING THE LAND.

151

The surveyor measured the whole block and was then
ready to lay out each man's acres in a long, narrow strip
lying parallel with the colony line.

But who should have lot number one or number two and
so on ? They voted, December 6, 1670, to have one man
to draw lots for them all. The first lot fell to Nathaniel
Baker, who held fifteen shares ; therefore strip number
one was measured off to him wide enough to contain
twenty-nine acres one rood and thirty rods. The width
of this piece was two hundred feet, stretching for one mile
along the Scituate line from Bound Rock up into the
Beechwoods. Each long, narrow strip was laid out in
succession according to the man's number of shares.

Men who owned but two shares had a strip only twenty-
five feet wide, for all the strips had to be a mile in length.
Some of the small shareholders, however, took the privi-
lege of combining their shares so as to draw one wider lot
for both, or for several as the case might be.

The surveyor measured off the distance to each man's
corner and placed there a heap of stones or some other
mark which was the permanent boundary, whether the
acres were more or were less than the surveyor estimated.

The back ends of these eighty-three lots butted against
a line drawn perpendicular to the colony line, and running
through Lily Pond coincided for part of the way with our
present King Street.

The front ends butted upon a very crooked line, which
traced along the boundary at the edge of the marsh land,
leaving room for a broad highway between the lots and
the marsh fences.

This space was in some places more than three hundred
feet wide, and the owners of the lots were to be the owners
of whatever timber grew upon the land in front of them,
provided the space was not more than three hundred and
thirty feet wide. An old cart track used in hauling marsh
hay led along outside of the meadow fences towards Scit-

152 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Liate, where a footbridge crossed Bound Brook as early as
1640, thirty years previous to this survey. From this front
highway there were side ways laid out by the surveyor,
leading up into the woods.

One was between lots seventeen and eighteen three rods
wide, about one half mile from Bound Rock ; but it was
afterwards declared impassable.

Another side way three rods wide was to run from Jacob's
Meadow to Scituate Pond ; and it succeeded, for it is there
now, called Pond Street.

A third of the same width was laid out, half a mile
farther north, and is now called Sohier Street.

One more such highway was drawn on the surveyor's
plan at the side of the last lot from the steep rocks called
" Pye Corner,"* at the north side of the Ridges, to King
Street at a point opposite the present almshouse ; but it
never was traveled.

At the place where the Cohasset railroad station now
is, a broad, swampy meadow sixty rods long and twenty
rods broad was cut out of the front end of six lots, because
fresh mowing meadows had been granted there twenty-
four years before.

Having given all the shareholders a narrow slice of the
preferred land, the Second Division was then parceled out
among them by a new drawing of lots.

The first lot of the Second Division was Supper Island,!
lying partly surrounded by marsh, east of what is now
Joseph S. Bigelow's residence, beside the Gulf.

The next island in the division was called Gulf Island,
the peak of which is Kent's Rock and its north boundary
our Cove, surrounded on the west and south, not by water,
but by meadow land where Summer Street now runs.
Another large rocky upland called Great Neck, on the south

* Perhaps so named for the kind of lunch that the surveyor ate there.
fThe domestic event suggested by this name might have happened to the sur-
veyor at this place, or possibly to the cowboys that herded cattle here.

DIVIDING THE LAND. 1 53

side of which our central schoolhouse now stands, and
which reaches to Little Harbor, was sliced into nine lots.

The Beach Islands, including those not on the surveyor's
plan, made parts of six lots, and counted as the largest
island that which lies east of Cat Dam, where several
summer residences are now being built along Nichols
Avenue.

Then the main land commencing where Jerusalem Road
skirts the shore was measured into narrow strips.

These strips left room for a highway next to the water,
and most of them butted one end upon Rattlesnake Run,
which empties into Straits Pond. The other end of these
lots came near to the fences which skirted the marshes in
the region of Peck's Meadow, leaving a broad highway.

A certain tree called " Bread and Cheese Tree " * was
standing near Rattlesnake Run upon a straight extension
of King Street, and a broad way six rods wide was to run
from this tree to Lily Pond. Only a part of this way.
King Street, has ever been built for travel.

When fifty lots had been laid out, then the surveyor
began to measure the remainder of the eighty-three on
the southwest side of that broad way. The western
ends of the first eight of these lots came against Turkey
Meadow, which had already been granted, and against
the timber commons that had been reserved two or three
years before. The remaining twenty-four lots were a
mile long, stretching between King Street and a way
parallel to it, which was laid out from James Hill, near
Turkey Hill, perpendicularly towards the colony line.

The last lot of this Second Division lay flat against a
highway five rods wide which is almost an extension of
Pond Street, running through the woods west of the pond,
and which is still reserved, though never yet opened for
travel.

There was still left a tract of land as large as either of

* Perhaps this is another bill of fare perpetuated.

154 HISTORY 0.F COH ASSET.

the other two divisions lying in the region of " the Beech-
woods." Accordingly, on the tenth day of March, 1670,
three months later than the First Division, they had this
Third Division measured off. About half of it is now in
Hingham, but its western boundary was at that time de-
termined by the timber grants before mentioned.

This Third Division had a very rocky region for the
western part of it, and the fertile Beechwood district for
the eastern part. Each man, therefore, was given a part
of each, the bitter with the sweet.

The most of the rough, unarable lands are now a part
of Hingham, and the lots which concern us are the first
fifty-four lots of the Beechwood district with only about
twenty lots of the rocky district ; because the fifty-fourth
lot was the limit designated when Cohasset was set off
from Hingham in the following century. These lots lay
in long strips like all the Cohasset lots, but their south-
east ends headed against the colony line.

There was no direct outlet for these lots to the harbor,
but the condition of the grant was that every owner should
have the right of way through the rest.

Fifty-five years later, April 21,1 ^26, when the fertile lands
of Beechwood were settled, those proprietors granted a
perpetual open way across their lots, leading out to what
is now Beechwood Street, thus making a nearly straight
way to the harbor.

Thus in the fall of 1670 and the spring of the next year,
when the leaves were off the trees, Lieut. Joshua Fisher,*
of Dedham, measured off the real estate and determined

*From Hingham Records: "At a Town meeting holden at Hingham on the
first day of December 1670 it is ordered and agreed upon by the inhabitants of the
sayd town of Hingham that all such persons as shall neglect or refuse to make
payment of their proportion of the charge for surveying their lands and measuring
out their lots according to the agreement made by the selectmen of the town, with
Lieut. Joshua Fisher, the selectmen of the town shall have power to sell, and are
hereby impowered to sell so much of the wood and timber off any of their lots
as shall pay their proportion of the charges about laying out their lands."

DIVIDING THE LAND. 1 55

for US the contour of our properties, and directed the
public highways for perpetual travel. It is interesting to
note, however, that the two cross highways least in use,
Sohier Street and Pond Street, are the. ones that Fisher
laid out ; while Beechwood Street and North Main Street
had to be laid out through private lands. Even South
Main Street, which might easily have been laid out nearly
straight, as it now is, Fisher provided for along a very
uneven contour.

He apparently did not realize that the highway leading
from town to town would have an ever-increasing need to
be straight. However, he left enough land for his crooked
highway fully to reimburse whatever damages private
owners might claim when the road was properly laid out
fifteen years later (May, 1685).

And not only for this correction on South Main Street
was land enough reserved, but everywhere in the town
where changes had to be made there was land enough
reserved by Fisher's plan between the marshes and the
upland to make good every damage, as well as to furnish
our present Town Common, and to grant as a bonus to
individuals who might deserve it for their services.

Changes in the shape of the lots of Fisher's plan have
been made, quite as sweeping as in the highways.

Very few owners can be found to-day whose land has its
original bounds ; but many pieces of old walls running
through the woods show the lines bounding the original
lots. It is plain that the lots which were only twenty-five
feet wide and a mile long were good for nothing but to be
sold to the land adjoining, and, furthermore, these mile-

Joshua Fisher died less than two years from this time, and his inventory " 1672
20th day, si.xth month " includes the following crude surveyors" implements used
in the division of our land : —

" Measuring Instruments, Table, Trussell, Index & sights. Loadstone and
Great Chains £2,.

" One small chain and other small things belonging to that work 4s. 6d.

" Total value about ^16."

I 5 6 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

long strips lay so unevenly upon hills and valleys that
many of them had to be sold piecemeal.

But the importance of the work done by the surveyor in
marking the first ownership of Cohasset uplands rests in
the fact that individuals from that time forward might
build for themselves homes, where they would be defended
by their land titles from every artificial hindrance in gain-
ing a livelihood.

It is to the epoch of home-building therefore that we
now have come.

k COPV OF THE JOSHUA FISHF.R PLAT OF

I ADDITIONAL I

DIVIDING THE LAND.

157

^

U^

M

3^-

,J^-^'^

2/-

itf

%<\

*^^

24-2.'

Part of the Sixth Division of Lands, at Rocky Nook, corrected

TO 1742.

This bit of land, including a part of Rocky Nook and all of Jerusalem, now
North Cohasset and Nantasket P. O., was not included in the Fisher plot.

" The way leading to Hull " is the present Hull Street and is the boundary of
Cohasset.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST HOMES.

IT is the reputation of New Englanders to be good
home-makers. But such homes as the first settlers in
Cohasset could have built in the last quarter of the seven-
teenth century are not the basis for so good a reputation.
Crude and humble were the first boxes set up in our town
for the habitation of families ; and yet it is fairly certain
that none were so crude as a log hut.

For a half-century it had been the means of livelihood
for some Hinghamites to make boards and timber out of
their forest trees, to ship to Boston and to other places
where wooden houses were rapidly being needed. Labo-
rious sawing it was for a man on the top of a log, and
another in a pit beneath the log, to rub the teeth of a long
saw up and down, up and down, against the wood until
the whole length of the log was sawed through ; and then
to repeat it until several planks were thus rived out of
each log.

When Ralph Smith, February i, 1638-39, bargained to
give "five hundred merchantable cedar boards delivered
out of the swamp for three acres of planting ground,"* he
evidently had to work for his land. But thirty-three years
had passed since then, and boards were probably much
more in vogue for the floors and walls of houses.

Shingles, split from short bolts of cedar logs or of white
pine and then shaved by a large drawknife to a thin edge
at one end, were made during many a winter before houses
at Cohasset were wanted.

* See p. 113, Cliapter VI.

158

THE FIRST HOMES. I 59

The joists and rafters and posts and plates were readily
hewed from small trees, by trimming them to a square
form.

The tools in use were some that came from England
with the first settlers and some that were made by Cham-
berlin, the blacksmith in Hingham. Their nails, what few
they used, were all hammered out by the patient smith.
Their bricks were made of the native mud and sand,
baked not very well nor moulded very evenly. Lime was
too scarce to be used for cementing the bricks, so they
made mortar of mud.

Theirs was the age of colossal chimneys when hospi-
tality and comfort were estimated by the size of their fire-
places.

Backlogs and firewood grew in limitless quantities in
every neighborhood, so that no economy of fuel was
necessary. Indeed, the necessity was to be lavish, for
those huge chimney throats gulped up the greater part of
the heat, so that only a small fraction was radiated into
the chilly rooms.

But the early Cohasset settlers were the poorer ones
from the poor settlement of Hingham, venturing here for
a start in life. Their houses were very small, and the
chimneys must have been meager samples of masonry com-
pared with the huge piles that characterized certain other
communities at that time, and this community at a later
time.* There is no chimney standing to-day in the town
that dates earlier than the year 1700 a.d. But there were
homes here for more than twenty years previous to 1700,
and we have some authentic records that prove the extreme
meagerness of some of these homes.

The exact date of the first migration of families to live

* In the home of Robert T. Burbank, now standing on the west side of King
Street, can be seen a good sample of a cliimney of last century.

Fireplaces are built for each room about the central chimney, not only upon the
ground floor, but in the second story also.

i6o

HISTORY OF C OH AS SET.

about Cohasset Harbor can never be ascertained, for the
valuation lists of Hingham for those years have been lost,
and whatever enumeration of taxable homes at Cohasset
might have been made in those lists cannot be known.

However, it is sure that young couples, sons and daugh-
ters of the first Hingham planters, settled here soon after
1671 upon lands granted to them or to their parents, or
purchased for small sums of money from grantees that
had no use for Cohasset. Some of them came on horse-
back over the cattle trails and cart tracks.

Materials for building could easily be boated around

from Hingham
Harbor; and
they were at
least upon land
which was with-
in their means
to own.

The terrible
massacres of the
year 1675, when
the aborigines
under the des-
perate King-
Philip tried to
annihilate the invading Anglo-Saxons, did not harm Cohas-
set.* Captain Michael Pearsc, however, who owned all the
land from Whitehead to the Cove, was a Scituate man at
this time and fought gallantly in the Narragansett battle
of December, 1675. John Jacob, on Hingham Plain, was
shot by an Indian, AjDril 19, 1676. Furthermore, Ibrook

*'rhe following suggestive record is in the Hingham archives dated October i8,
1675: " At a meeting of the freemen of Hingham, upon complaint made against
Joseph, the Indian, and his family who are in this town contrary to the mind of
most of the inhabitants and on suspicion that he will run away to the enemy to
our prejudice; therefore the freemen of 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."

Old Souther Home, Pond Street.
Supposed to be a sample of many of the first homes.

THE FIRST HOMES. 1 6 I

Tower with his father kept a stronghold in Hingham
against the Indians in that war ; but no touch of that
trouble reached Cohasset.

Perhaps there were no settlers here at that time ; and
if so, then the date of Cohasset beginnings must be the
close of the King Philip War, when stray settlers were no
more in danger from the savages in this region.

It would be natural to suppose that the first settlers
upon Cohasset land would be in those parts nearest Hing-
ham, on the fringe of the mother settlement. Indeed, the
Turkey Meadows lying within the present boundaries of
this town had been so many years used for hay and grass
that one might fairly suppose some farmhouse to have
sprung up in that vicinity before the uplands v/ere di-
vided. There was one Perth McFarlin, who was granted
a house lot on the north side of Turkey Hill as early as
1669, and three years after that a place for his barn was
granted him. But the town boundary in that region has
been changed so that none of Cohasset is on the north
side of Turkey Hill ; and McFarlin's home, though it
might possibly have been a Cohasset one formerly, is now
foreign land.

There was one man as early as 1676 who seems to have
lived a bachelor on King Street, not far from the pond.
It was Clement Bates, a son of James Bates ; and his death,
while yet a young man, left his property to be probated
by his father.

In those public documents, under the date April 20, 1676,
one can find the following items of Clement Bates' estate: —

£ s. d.

Wearing apparel 5. o. o.

Two acres of land with a dwelling house upon said

land 45. o. o.

Three shares in three divisions of land — viz. ist

3rd & 4th with commons belonging thereto .22. o. o.

One saddle and bridle and saddle cloth .... o. 13. o.

I 6 2 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

£ s- d.

One horse o. lo. o.

One cow 2. o. o.

Six heifers 7.10. o.

One Iron pot & hooks %$. One meal tub 3.f. Four

Iron hoops 8j o. 19. o.

One plow & share & coulter & half chain ... o. 15. o.

One bolt and ring for a yoke o. 2. o.

One old chest and other lumber o. 5. o.

Total 84. 14. o.

Clement Bates, Jr., was one of the grantees of Cohasset
real estate five years before his. death, and he drew land
in company with his father, James Bates, and Benjamin
Bates and Simon Peck. Their lot in the Second Division
was ntmiber seventy-seven, facing upon King Street about
seventy rods from the pond, the vicinity of the present
schoolhouse. It is the two acres of this land " with a
dwelling house upon said land " which probably was meant
by the second item in the preceding inventory ; for his other
Cohasset lands are noted in the next item. At that place
may have been the first house in Cohasset yet ascertained
from public records, and its value was not over two hun-
dred dollars. The furniture in it was almost too insignifi-
cant to mention. His rude bed was worthless. Table
and chairs deserve no appraisal, even in so careful a list
as included "one bolt and ring for an ox yoke," worth two
shillings (50 cents).

His "meal tub," according to custom, kept what coarse
grist he might procure at the mill in Weymouth for his
bread and cakes.

The iron pot mentioned was compelled to furnish alone
the cheer of a dismal fireplace ; and what a dark scerne of
poverty must have been lighted up by the flames that
cooked his evening morsel after a weary day's labor in the
wilderness !

The poor old nag that was valucil at ten shillings

THE FIRST HOMES.

i6-

nd

($2.50), and called by politeness "a horse," might have
carried its owner once a week to the Hingham settlement,
but its journey to the grave must have followed shortly
its young master.

It maybe an abuse of the word "home" to call such
a bachelor den one of the first Cohasset homes. There
were no doubt better specimens contemporaneous with
this, whose owners did not happen to die at that time, and
so the detailed inventory of them escaped being perpetu-
ated in the probate records.

Seven years later than this, Cornelius Canterbury died,
and his home was appraised as follows : —

Nov. 23, 1683. £ s. d.

Dwelling house and land at Cohassett .
I lot in first division upland 20^ i lot

div. \2£

I lot* in 2nd division upland ....

l\ acres of meadow at Cohassett

12 Swine 8^ 2 beds & bedding 5,;^ . .

1 chest & linen 335-. pewter, brass, tin & Earthen

ware 255

2 Frying pans 5^-. corn & provision 5^ . . .
4 chairs & wooden dishes 7^^. 2 guns 40^'. .
2 axes I spade 2 hoes 1 1^-. Leather & deer skins %s

I bill hook & old iron 7^-

I years time in an Indian servant ....
In barrels and lumber at Cohassett ....
I iron crow %s. i crosscut saw ds

Total 190. 5. o.

Here was the home of a cooper, the trade which most
of all characterized the Hingham settlers. He was so
industrious and thrifty that he had two dwellings, one at
the Hingham settlement and one in Cohasset. Just where
the latter was cannot be ascertained with certainty.

Canterbury Street, that runs out of Hull Street at Lam-

* Is this a mistake, or did he own two lots in the Second Division?

164 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

bert's Lane towards the west, was not named after Cor-
nelius Canterbury, for he had been dead more than a
century before that street was made.

One of his lots fronted upon the Steep Rocks near the
estate of the present Edward Wheelwright ; another was
a strip in the First Division about halfway between Pond
Street and Beechwood Street. His lot in the Beechwood
district was about five hundred feet southwest of the
pond. His house might have been upon any of these, or
it might have been upon some little patch of land bought
of some other grantee where he plied his trade of bucket
and barrel making. At his death he had about four dollars'
worth of barrels and other cooper stock on hand.

But perhaps the most interesting item of the inventory
is the " one year's time in an Indian servant." It may
have been a Quonahassit Indian whose parents had seen
John Smith sixty-nine years before. Or perhaps he was
sold a slave, as many other Indians were sold at the cap-
ture of them in the King Philip War of 1675.

His owner might have leased him to Cornelius Canter-
bury, so that one year was left when Canterbury died
before the Indian's time was worked out. Several of the
Cohasset settlers had Indian servants, both male and
female, to work upon farms or in homes, and here is the
earliest on record.

The item of " leather and deerskins " suggests that the
wild deer was not then exterminated, but roamed our
forests and made profitable hunting for the settlers.
Nearly a century later than this, in the year 1754, a "deer
reaver," * Jonathan Pratt, was annually appointed by the
town. The "two guns" of the inventory, if not the old
matchlock variety, were at least the clumsy flintlocks,
which were persuaded to go off when they were amiable,
by a spark struck from the steel pan at the side of the

*Scituate appointed men in 1784 for the preservation and increase of deer,
(Deane's History of Scituate, p. iii.)

THE FIRST HOMES. 165

barrel with a piece of flint held in the jaws of a spring
hammer. Possibly these were of the same pattern as the
fowling pieces first brought to the colony, the barrels of
which were five and a half feet long. But the customary
way of bagging game was by traps, so that a great deal of
leisure at short range might be practised in dispatching
the captured animals with these old flintlocks.

The hoe and the spade mentioned in the inventory are
evidences of the more peaceful toil that compelled the
soil to furnish food. The corn which grew was no doubt
cut by that hook-nosed heavy knife called the "billhook,"
and the two frying pans that cooked the corncakes made
scanty luxury.

Those " wooden dishes " were probably shaped by the
cooper from some good pieces of Cohasset trees ; added
to the four chairs, they amounted to seven shillings' worth.
Think of a Cohasset household to-day possessed of only
four chairs ! Probably these four were for the " best
room," while benches and settles were used in the kitchen,
and were not worth enough to enumerate.

But those days of poverty and simplicity deserve some-
thing better at our hands than a touch of disdain ; for those
early home-builders made part of our present comfort, and
despite the meagerness of their lives, their struggle for
existence in the face of such great odds reveals, as well as
ours may, the fundamental heroism, of living.

Among the earliest scattered homes of Cohasset was
that of Daniel Lincoln, who is the first one to be found in
the Hingham records designated as a Cohasset resident.

"Daniel Lincoln of Conohasset " was mentioned in the
year 1685, when Main Street was being laid out. He was
thirty-two years of age at that time, and the little family
included his wife Elizabeth and his two little boys, Oba-
diah, aged six years, and Hezekiah, four.

Through these and a younger daughter, Elizabeth, who
married Nathaniel Nichols of Jerusalem Road (1710-11), a

1 66 If IS TOR V OF COHA SSE 7 *.

large number of Cohasset citizens at the north end of the
town have descended. Their home was in the neighbor-
hood of our central cemetery, upon lot seventy-one, which
had been granted originally to Rev. Peter Hobart of
Hingham.

The committee that laid out the course of North Main
Street on May 4, 1685, turned it westward through the
end of this lot diagonally to about where Ripley Road now
joins the street.

For this stretch of highway, about one thousand feet
long, the committee gave to " Daniel Lincoln of Conahas-
set a piece of land containing one acre and a half or there-
about butting upon the meadow of Mary Hearsey (widow)
easterly and upon the highway westerly."

This acre and a half evidently is the hummock of land
where the home of Charles S. Bates now stands ; and it
may be remembered as one of those gravel moraines made
during the melting period of the great glacier when Little
Harbor was covered by a huge fragment of ice against the
irregular edges of which the gravel Ridges were heaped.

Here at the shore of Little Harbor was a landing place*
for Daniel Lincoln's boat which might carry his loads to
and from Hingham Harbor ; also near this same place
there were two well-worn trails leading to the old home in
Hingham, one skirting the shore somewhat as Jerusalem
Road now does, and the other the direct one along the
line of North Main Street. Here f lived Daniel Lincoln,
a thrifty, hard-working farmer, for more than forty years.

He lived to see several grandchildren well introduced to
life, and to see the little community grown to several hun-
dred inhabitants, having their own little church on the
common near Meeting-House Pond.

The property which he accumulated may be guessed

* This tiny wharf in Little Harbor was referred to in the inventory of William
Hersey's property, December 18, 1691, wherein a piece of marsh is described" at
Conahasset by Daniel Lincoln's loading place."

t Somewhere near the east end of lot seventy-one.

THE FIRST HOMES. 167

from the following articles copied from his will dated
July 27, 1727: —

To wife Elizabeth, household goods, horses sheep and all my

cattle except two oxen.
Todaughter Elizabeth Nichols ^150 (;^75o).
To grandson Moses Lincoln ten acres.
To grandson Daniel Nichols ;^5 ($25.00).
To granddaughter Priscilla Lincoln ^5 ($25.00).
To grandson Daniel Lincoln my dv\ elling house and all the land

joining, *also the barn and land, and two acres of salt

meadow.

It could not have been but a year or two later than the
settlement of Daniel Lincoln that Mordecai Lincoln, his
younger brother, settled at the mouth of Bound Brook,
two miles away from Daniel.

This Mordecai was the ancestor of President Abraham
Lincoln, and one of his houses near Bound Brook is still
the home of a Cohasset Lincoln.*

Mordecai was too enterprising to remain a farmer, but
soon commenced to establish mills upon Bound l^rook,
both where it lies in Scituate and where it flows through
Cohasset lands.

As early as 1691-92 he purchased of Matthew Gannett
of Scituate, for seven pounds (^35.00), one half of the
place, where he proposed putting a dam at the mouth of
Bound Brook, with a half ownership of the brook and of
such land as the mill pond would cover after the dam
should be built. It was a good site for cornmill or saw-
mill, to supply the needs of the growing settlements at
North Scituate and Cohasset.

The nearest gristmill for the Cohasset farmers was the
one at the outlet of .Straits Pond, built in 1679, which
could be run only when the tide was out of Lyford's
Liking.

There was need of so enterprising a mechanic as Mor-

*The home of James Dallas Lincoln.

1 68

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

decai Lincoln to use the convenient water power of Bound
Brook. At least four places on the brook were favorable
for mill sites : one where Hackett's mill now is in
Hingham * just over the southwest line of Cohasset, and
three more on the way down to the mouth of the brook.
At these latter three Mordecai Lincoln before he died
had become a proprietor of gristmills, sawmills, and an
iron smelter with its forge. He was by trade a black-

Plioto, Octavius KfUiny.

Turtle Island Sawmill, Beechwood.
Riiilt 1813-14. A successor of Mordecai Lincoln's mill.

smith, and a pair of heavy andirons, probably of his own
workmanship, are still kept in the house he gave to his
son Isaac.

His ingenuity in utilizing the power of Bound Brook is
well illustrated by a tradition about his three milldams.
During the summer months the brook dwindles to a very
weak stream of water, but even this little power was so

* I'ornierly lot fifty-six of the second |iart of Division Tliree.

THE FIRST HOMES. 169

economically used as to do a full week's work from Sunday
to Sunday. His method of doing it was to shut the up-
permost dam at Turtle Island in Beechwood until a good-
sized pond was formed. Then on Monday and Tuesday
the Turtle Island mill would work under full power. The
water that passed on down stream was caught at the second
dam, where the Morris ice pond now is in Scituate ; there,
for two days, Wednesday and Thursday, another mill wheel
was turned.

Again at the Bound Rock dam the water was recuper-
ated for the work of Friday and Saturday, when it was
finally released to the ocean. It is said that " a mill never
grinds with the water that has passed," but Mordecai Lin-
coln's mills made the water do triple service.

About halfway between these two Lincoln brothers,
Daniel at the north end and Mordecai at the south, stood
a dwelling house at Jacob's Meadow near Cold Spring,
somewhat more than a stone's throw from the present
Catholic Church. This dwelling was built earlier than the
year 1693 ; for in that year John Jacob bequeathed it and
the barn to his son* John, only fourteen years of age. The
son, who afterwards became the first deacon of the Co-
hasset church, was obviously too young to use it, and the
father could not have used it as a permanent dwelling, for
he lived in the old homestead on Hingham Plain.

But, I whoever might have been the first tenant, the
house itself was one of the earliest recorded dwellings in
Cohasset.

There is an interesting event connected with this place
at Cold Spring, one of the first instances of public road
building. It was a contract, October 21, 1672, between a
committee of the town and John Jacob, Sr., by which the

*This youngest son of John Jacob was named for the first son John, wlio was
slain by the Indians near his father's house in Hingham, April 19, 1676, aged 22
years.

1 1 have found out that Francis Harlow occupied this liouse at the time of the
will. (See History of Hanover.)

I 7 O HIS TORY OF CO HA SSE T.

latter was to build a corduroy bridge seventy-two feet long
across the swampy land where now the railway intersects
Spring Lane.

The bridge was to be made of timbers laid on top of the
spongy swamp and covered by gravel for the use of hay
carts and wood carts that hauled these Cohasset products
to the landings at the water's edge. Loading places had
been ordered by the town Christmas Day of 1669, to be
set out by a committee* of five.

There were at least two of these loading places at our
Cove, and the committee had also laid out cartways lead-
ing to them. Our present Elm Street skirting the great
meadow was probably one of these earliest cart tracks.
Another was laid out in 1675 on the opposite side of the
meadow, where Summer Street now meanders towards the
harbor This latter was lying across a salt marsh " where
the carts were formerly driven over in a narrow place of
the said marsh " reaching Gulf Island, north of the pres-
ent store of M. B. Stetson.

These roads, constructed immediately after the division
of the lands, were of course utilized by the first home-
builders, and this bridge of John Jacob's made the cart
travel between Cohasset and Scituate much easier for
whatever farmers were settling in that neighborhood.
When this bridge was built a pond was in existence a
little way above it, and the meadow was fenced in, as
appears from the wording of the contract.

John Jacob had to travel" over here from Hingharn to
perform his contract, and his remuneration was two small
pieces of upland lying in the immediate vicinity of his
meadows.

Another evidence besides the l^ridge that testified to
the growing demands of the first homes, was the laying out
of a straight main thoroughfare to Scituate on one side
and to Hingham on the other.

* Captain Joshua Hobart, Ensign Tliaxter, Edniond Hobart, Matthew Gushing,
and John Jacob.

THE FIRST HOMES. I7I

The original highway, reserved according to the Fisher
plot, lay along the crooked eJge of upland next to the
marshes ; and along here the two-wheeled carts had for-
merly picked their way outside the marsh fences.

In 1682, ten years later than the bridge contract, a com-
mittee was appointed to lay out this more direct way
through thirty-four lots of the First Division from Jacob's
Meadow to the meadow near where a little brook now
crosses South Main Street, a hundred yards or more south
of Cushing's greenhouse.

Each owner of a lot was reimbursed for the highway
cut through his land four rods wide by property lying at
the edge of the marshes, a strip which had not been
divided by the Fisher plan. About half of these, from
the twelfth to the twenty-eighth, were " to run down to the
meadow fence as it now stands," said the committee, "with
this proviso, that all the proprietors of the meadows shall
have liberty of free, egress and regress into their meadows
in the old highway as they have had formerly for the cart-
ing of their hay, . . . and also that all the proprietors of wood
and timber on the northeastward side of said highway
now laid out by the committee shall have free egress and
regress in the said way as formerly."

This highway, which is nowadays so well traveled, was
laid out four rods wide by marking trees on each .side
with the letter "H." The northward continuation of this
highway after crossing Jacob's Bridge lay in the reserve
area along Great Neck and the present Town Common
until it reached the seventy-first lot beyond Sohier Street,
where Daniel Lincoln was then living.

At this point the con7mittee turned straight towards
Hingham, making the angle as we now see it, and reim-
bursing Daniel Lincoln, John Farrar, Ibrook Tower,* and
others for as much land as this diagonal highway four rods
wide took from them as it passed through the First Division

* Ibrook Tower had purchased lot seventy-three.

172

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

and then through the Second Division until it reached the
home road at Turkey Meadow. The latter end of this
road lay along the north side of Turkey Meadow to the
present Hull Street, and is still in use under the name
Cedar Street. From Cedar Street to Little Harbor this
highway, laid out May 4, 1685, is continued to this day as
North Main Street, and conforms probably to the original
cattle trail leading to the Cohasset meadows.

Among the first homes that of Israel Nichols the
weaver, on the south side of Straits Pond, where Jeru-
salem Road now runs, ought to be recounted. On March
25, 1695, "the selectmen appointed Samuel Jacobs to lay
out a highway for Israel Nichols near his now dwelling
house at Cohassett." *

How long since his dwelling house had been in Cohasset
no one can tell, but it had been built upon Green Hill
sixteen years before, and at some winter between these
two dates, 1679 and 1695, it had been sledded across the
ice on Straits Pond.

It stood until five years ago the oldest house in the
town, when it was destroyed. Israel's son, Nathaniel,
married Elizabeth, the oldest daughter of Daniel Lincoln,
and thus were these two first homes tied together across
two miles of rocky wilderness.

It may be a fair surmise that the journeys of young
Nathaniel at the beginning of the eighteenth century to
the home of Elizabeth at Little Harbor were along the
shore trail where Jerusalem Road now winds its tortuous
way.

The land at the sea border of these lots was left for a
town highway ; but long before it was opened for the travel
of carts, the children of Israel Nichols and those of

•This is one of the earliest cases of the abbreviated spelling of the Indian name
of Cohasset. The first instance known is in the year 1682 in Nathaniel Baker's
probated inventory, where the spelling is " Cohasset." In Cornelius Canterbury's
inventory in the probate records, November 23, 1683, the spelling is with two /"s —
Cohassett."

THE FIRST HOMES. I 73

Daniel Lincoln paced out the rough distance on their
mutual visits.

Besides the Lincoln and the Nichols families there were
probably other families fully as early, about whom the
records available give no certain data.* The Hingham
tax lists for the years under consideration have disappeared
from the town's archives, so that many valuable clews have
been lost.

There is one settler, however, of much importance to
the development of Cohasset whose residence here as
early as Daniel Lincoln's has the strongest probability,
though without record. It was Aaron Pratt, whose de-
scendants at the present day are to be counted by dozens
in the town.

It is known that this Aaron, the son f of the famous
Phineas whose run to Plymouth saved Wessagusset, pur-
chased of Joshua Hobart in the year 1683 lot thirty-seven,
reaching from the Gulf a mile back into the woods towards
Scituate Pond.

The lot was a large one, over two hundred feet wide,
and that part of it on South Main Street which is the
home of the present Robert B. Pratt has been kept in the
family name for these two hundred and fourteen years.

Aaron Pratt's first child was born in 1685, and it is
probable that this Cohasset property was a home from the
year of its purchase. His family of fifteen children gave
him sufficient motives for an energetic career of farming.

His home, according to tradition, J was a house two

* Thomas Lincoln, Sr., in his will (1688) gave to his son Joseph, Cohasset lands,
and directed that they should " be entered on immediately."

+ The mother of Aaron was Mary Priest, daughter of the Degory Priest who
came to Plymouth in the Mayflower and who died January i, 1621. The widow of
Degory Priest married a Hollander, Cuthbert Cuthbertson, in Leyden, November
13, 1621, and came to tliis country in 1623, with her husband and two daughters,
Mary and Sarah Priest. (New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, July,
1897. Article by E. S. Atwood.)

I See Phinehas Pratt and Some of His Descendants, published 1897, Boston
by Eleazer F. Pratt.

174

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

stories high with a gable roof, the lower story of stone
and the upper one of wood. ■ The windows were of a

Squike Pratt's Office, Beechwood.
Descendant of the orisrinal Aaron Pratt.

small diamond pattern of glass inserted in lead sashes.
Hut such a house could not have been his first one, for

THE FIRST HOMES. I75

it was quite beyond his needs until his family had in-
creased.

His third son, Aaron, was a boy twelve years old at
about the time Mordecai Lincoln built the sawmill on
Bound Brook, but he grew straightway into a veritable
second edition of his energetic father, so that he owned
not only mills, but real estate and merchandise to a
remarkable amount. A pair of balances for weighing
sold and silver has come into the town's collection of his-
torical relics from these two Aarons, and the tradition of
their service in weighing precious metals before the days
of coining attest the business success achieved by these
first generations of the Pratt family.

It may not be out of place to refer here to a son of this
first home who gained a public eminence unsurpassed as a
jurist in the New England colonies, and afterwards as the
colonial Chief Justice of New York. It was Benjamin
Pratt, the fourteenth child of Aaron.

In early youth he was apprenticed to a mechanic.
When about nineteen years of age he fell from a tree and
injured his leg severely, so that it had to be amputated.
He became a student at Harvard College, placed at the
foot of the list because of the lowly social position of his
family ; but before he died his career had carried him so
high as an astute legal authority that the highest Harvard
distinction was accorded to him.

But the brilliant career of this Cohasset cripple came
too late for his father Aaron to witness. Twenty-five
years before the appointment of Chief Justice Benjamin
Pratt, the hard-working father had gone to his long rest.
The inventory of his personal property given below may
stand for the wealthiest of the first homes, though it was
taken a generation later than those already given : —

£ s. d.

Wearing apparel 43^-. Cash ^w- beds &

bedding ;^2 3. ws. Linen 6 6^- 40. 00. 00

176 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Chairs 15 J', pewter 34^. 6^^. Brass 42 i-. Iron jQ s. d.

& Earthenware & Glass 93 j 9. 04. 06

Woodenware 18^-. tubs &c 27J. bd. brls of

Cider 5 9^-. Cupboard 4^'. chests 27 j. . 6. 11. 06

Tables I 8j. 2 spinning wheels 8j. books 15^. 2. i. o

Tools, horse & timber chains, steelyards, barrel

of gun &c 8. 7. 6

Saddle & bridle 255-. bags 2S. 6d. Cartwheels

40^'. looking glass 15^ 4. 2. 6

3 Cows 3 Calves ;C2>2> 2 Cattle jQS> 2 Swine

70i-. Provisions in house ;^5 .... 49. 10. o
Home lands ^1200 Second pt of 3rd Div.

;^i20 1320. o. o

Lands in the Second Division 45. o. o

Will proved Mch 9, 1736. 1484. 17. o

Appraisers Joshua Bates

John Jacobs
Benjamin Lincoln.

One can hardly suppress a comment upon so interesting
an inventory. The "books" on the list may have given
the first literary inspiration of that crippled son, and so
may deserve perpetual honor ; for this is the only instance
noted where books found a place in the early inventories.

The "two spinning wheels" shared in the prevailing
energy of that household, and must have been set whizzing
many a day while the daughters of Aaron Pratt held the
rolls of wool to the spindle, making yarn from the fleeces
of Cohasset sheep to clothe Cohasset farmers.

It is doubtful if any other household accomplished so
much of the ordinary business of living as did this family
near the summit of South Main Street.

Another family of smaller proportions (only twelve chil-
dren), but of great vigor, is yet to be mentioned, that of
Ibrook Tower, the progenitor of scores of the present
inhabitants of the town.

THE FIRST HOMES.

177

His home was near Daniel Lincoln's on North Main
Street, on lot number sixty-six, which he received from his
father, John Tower, and which remains to this day in the
family name.

He was selectman in the year 1699, representing the
interests of Cohasset settlers. He was a cooper, and
worked in his cooper shed at home whenever he was not
engaged upon his farming.

His wife was Margaret Hardin of Braintree, and with

Photo, Mrs. E. E. E'ln

Old Curiosity Shop.
Spinning wheels, warming pan, pewter dishes, etc.

a family of several children they came to Cohasset at
about the same time that Daniel Lincoln came with his
young wife. Both families had a son born in the year
1 68 1, whom they named Hezekiah, and the next daughter
of each family received the name Elizabeth. This is
either a strange coincidence or a neighborly compliment.
If there was anything more than an accident in this

I 7 8 HIS TOR Y OF COHA SSE T.

naming, we can infer that both families were living here
before the year 1681.*

Of the Tower family there were twelve children, and of
the Lincoln six, so that a good deal of company might
be had without traveling far.

At the death of Ibrook Tower, November 28, 1731, his
property was so divided that Hezekiah got some of the King
Street end of the lot. There the ruins of an old well and
a cellar may be seen to-day marking the home of this sec-
ond generation. Other lands bordering on Lily Pond fell
to this son, so that for many years the beautiful body of
water was called " Kiah Tower's Pond."

The following inventory does not show the complete
household furnishing of Ibrook Tower's home ; for his
second wife, Patience, brought certain personal effects
which were to continue to be her property, as the written
agreement of their betrothal specified : —

£ s. d.
Apparel;^ 2. 15^". dd. bed, 2 coverlids, i blanket

I sheet, I bolster 10. 5. 6

Lumber in cellar 23^. Woodenware Si-, dd. 2

Chairs ds i. 19. 6

1 chest, Table, Bedstead, Tubs in the chamber . 2. 10. o
Trundle bedstead 6i. 2 brass kettles & warm-
ing pan ;^4. 2S 4. 8. o

2 Trammels & ironware £2. 6s. Frying pan 6^-.

Pewter ;^2. 13^ 5- 5- »

Small brass skillet & money scales gs. Iron pot

\2S. Ironware £2 3. 1.

* In John Ripley's will, dated January i, 1683, are these words : " half an acre of
fresh Meadow at Connihasset near the house of Ibrook Tower."

The tradition in the Tower family that Ibrook Tower lived on Deer Hill is hard
to reconcile with John Ripley's statement that his fresh meadow was " near the
house of Ibrook Tower." That fresh meadow was probably a part of the Great
Neck meadow north of the railroad station.

Since writing the above I have been told by Abraham H. Tower that some
foundation stones of an ancient dwelling were excavated from a place near his
flower bed on the southeast side of his present home by the Common. This foun-
dation, I believe, was Ibrook Tower's.

THE FIRST HOMES. I 79

£ ^' d.

I Cow ;^7. 5^. I Ox ^9. 2 swine ;;{^i. lOi-. . 17. 15.
Land Meadow & Swamp Orchards & fences, 74

Total '^'^Z'h- 2. o

This home and the others already set forth make up the
verifiable first homes of our town.

That there were others which had crept in before the
year 1700 we may be sure, but whose and where they
were it would be difificult to ascertain.

The Beal families in the vicinity of Turkey Hill per-
haps deserve a place in this chapter ; for the two brothers,
John and Lazarus, sons of Jeremiah, established their
homes at what is now North Cohasset a few years after
our first settlers.

John began married life in 1686 and his brother three
years later, but the places where they located are not now
within the boundary of Cohasset. The " Beal " house,
which now stands a little south of the North Cohasset
railway station, is said to have been built in the year 1690.

For many years they and their descendants were in-
cluded among the taxpayers of this region, and when the
community became a precinct they were a part of it ; but
a narrative of what is now Cohasset may properly omit
those lands outside. The few homes which truly may be
called the first were established before the year 1700,
and they nestled within the primeval forest in cleared
patches as hostages given to wild nature, guaranteeing
that those men were in earnest. One is forced to rely
upon imagination to picture the condition of those homes,
for public records and private documents are almost
wholly wanting to furnish data of information.

But whose imagination can picture adequately that
frontier life ?

Coarse garments; poorly cooked food, no carpets, no

i8o

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

pictures, puny flickering candles, no wagons for the
streets, no streets for wagons except rutty cartways wind-
ing among stumps and stones, — these and a thousand
other privations were the lot of the first home-builders.

Wild animals beset them, increasing their trials.
Wolves were so plentiful and so deadly to sheep and
calves that a bounty of several shillings was paid many
years* upon their heads. Enoch Whiton, in South

Photo, Mrs. E. K. Ellms.

Curved Settle with Candle Shelf, Pewter Tankard, Porringer, Flax
Wheel, Foot Stove, Candle Snuffer and Pan.

Hingham, killed as many as eight wolves one year (1687),
for which he was rewarded twenty dollars.

There are at least two wolf pits within our own town

* In 1648 the town ordered, as the General Court at Boston had required, " that
if any man either EngUsh or Indian shall kill a Wolf within the bounds of this
town, he to bring the head of the wolf and nail it up at the meeting house, he shall
have for every wolf so killed twenty shillings."

January 1,1664: " It is ordered by the town that any person who shall kill a
wolf or wolves within the bounds of the town shall have twenty shillings allowed
him for each wolf."

THE FIRST HOMES. l8l

bearing silent testimony to these pests. One is back of
Town Hill, a half mile west of King Street, in the wood
lot of Samuel James, and the other is in Beechwood, west
of Beechwood Street, in the land of Aaron Pratt, a quarter
mile from his dwelling.

These pits were dug six or eight feet deep and covered
with brush to conceal their treachery. Some bits of a
sheep's carcass were so placed above the pit as to lure a
hungry wolf to step where he would drop into it, where he
might be killed by the hunter.

The lands in which such pits were well known became
called "the wolf pit" or "the wolpit," and they invite a
multitude of inferences about the wolves and the farmers
and the farms of those early days.

Sheep as well as swine and cattle were the mainstay of
some settlers. The cutting of cord wood or timber to be
shipped away was another substantial industry.

Any way and every way that an honorable ingenuity
might devise for feeding and clothing their families was
resorted to by the coopers and farmers and cordwainers
and millwrights that first came here to set up their
hearthstones.

For nearly fifty years from the time the land was
divided the people who came here suffered a certain
severity of hardship because of their far separation from
the mother village of Hingham. Their struggles, from
the year 1700 until they became numerous enough to be a
recognized community, are reserved for the next chapter.

CHAPTER X.

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT.

ONE marked difference between the commencement
of Hingham and that of Cohasset was in the matter
of self-government.

Hingham ruled itself, chose its minister, and established
its own school from the beginning. Not so with Cohasset.
Two generations of children grew up in the first homes of
this place before the authority was gained to have a
church and school of their own. The struggles to free
themselves from the control of Hingham and to gain the
autonomy of a precinct are worthy of a careful narrativQ.

Previous to the year 1700 there were perhaps only a
half-dozen homes in all this region, and their isolation
from the school and church privileges of Hingham was a
serious one.

- The girls grew up in the homes without learning to
read or to write. Common drudgeries of the farm were
their only teaching. This, however, might he endured on
behalf of the girls, for those were the times when women
were neglected ; but it was unbearable to have sons unable
to read or to write. These families paid taxes for the
town schoolmaster, but their boys could not travel so far
to receive his instruction and they came to be " back-
woods " boys. By some hook or crook they learned, how-
ever, the rudiments, for they could sign their names to
deeds when the time came in after years to transfer
property. ""

The same weary miles kept our fathers from the privi-
leges of church. Yet their taxes had to be paid, and
when the present Hingham meeting-house was built, 168 1,
the share of the burden falling upon Cohasset shoulders

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. 1 83

had to be borne.* It was hard to go four or five miles to
church, for not every one could afford a horse to ride.
There is a sweet legend of brotherly kindness and poverty
that comes down to us from those early days.

One man who owned a horse shared with his poorer
neighbor by the old-fashioned method of " riding and
tieing."

The first man, and his wife or daughter upon the pillion
behind him, rode along the crooked old way towards
Hingham about half the distance; then dismounting,
they tied their steed to a tree at the roadside and walked
on towards the meeting-house. Meanwhile the second
couple, wearied by their long walk, reached the horse and,
mounting him, rested upon his back while the animal
finished the journey to the church.

Thus the four came together for their weekly refresh-
ment to the house of God.

In those days a meeting-house was more than a place of
worship ; it was a house of meeting for isolated and lonely
farmers, where all the comforts of meeting, soul to soul,
might be enjoyed.

Talking about fellow citizens, about crops, about cattle,
about all the immediate concerns of theLr toilsome days,
was refreshing to men and women of all grades.

In those days, when no newspapers retailed the world's
affairs to the remotest denizens of its woods, when every
incident of human life had to have a personal purveyor to
make it known, then a meeting-house where men and

*The following are some of the men who were assessed to build the Hingham
meeting-house, 1681, and who became Cohasset settlers : —

ASSESSMENT.
£ S. d.

Israel Nichols 2 15

Daniel Lincoln 2 15

Joseph Bates i

Mordecai Lincoln i 4

John Farrar 2 14 7

Ibrook Tower I 10

John Jacob 12 17 11

I 84 HIS TOR Y OF CO II A SSE T.

women could gain the social life which they craved was a
double blessing. It drew them into the very midst of earthly
interests, while it lifted them above the things of the earth.

To have a minister and a schoolmaster was the simplest
necessity of every New England community. Conse-
quently, when the first homes of Cohasset came to realize
that they formed a community, they felt it necessary to
have their own church and school. But how could they
afford it? For a whole generation before the year 1700
they had paid school and church taxes without a fair
amount of privilege in return, and now after that time a
number of new settlers had gathered about our Cove and
had paid taxes for another whole generation without any
adequate benefit from Hingham.

It is not to be wondered at that in the early part of the
eighteenth century some of these citizens claimed the
right to a church and school that the whole town of Hing-
ham should support among them.

For these many years they had paid taxes for privileges
never received, and now they asked privileges somewhat
more than their own taxes could pay for. It seemed to some
a fair reimbursement for past payments ; but by a charac-
teristic stroke of human nature, Hingham refused !
V-— The increase in the number of Cohasset settlers during
the first ten years of that century added much weight to
their claims.

As early as the year 171 1* there were thirty-six poll

*The valuation list for the year 1711 is the earliest one I have been able to find.
By the kindness of George Lincoln of Hingham, who owns it, I have made the
accompanying list of property from the original valuation list. The list for the year
1708, which also Mr. Lincoln has, is only fragmentary. The names and tax
amounts of the 1708 list are as follows : —

I.S. d.

£s. d.

Stephen Lasell

3 6

Daniel Lincoln

108

Israel Nichols

I 5 2

Obadiah Lincoln

4 "

Jacob Loring

8 3

Joseph Bates

I S 8

Lennox Beverly

8 4

Gezaiah Stoddard

3 3

John Farrar

4 2

John Whiton

3 0

The rest of the names are torn out.

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT.

185

taxes paid, making a community nearly as numerous as the
first settlement at Bare Cove, where a meeting-house had
been an unquestioned necessity.

LIST OF PROPERTY TAXED IN THE YEAR 1711, IN THE COHASSET
PART OF HINGHAM.

tn

3
0

Land.

a.
0
0

0

c

0

•s

0
U

c

72

0

•a

t
3

1

Joseph Barber . .

I

I

I

Joseph Bates . .

3

6

8

20

4

6

8

15

2

Joshua Bates . .

2

6

2

2

5

Edward Battles. .
Gershom Ewell

{

A- Iron
works

John Farrar . . .

I

3

6

I

3

John Farrar, Jr. .

I

8

I

2

3

John Franklin . .

Frances Horswell .

2

^Vt

7

I

2

4

John Jacob . . .

6

2

20

2

6

3

10

Thomas James . .

3

3

20

2

5

5

10

2

Ebenezer Kent . .

5

Stephen Lasell . .

3

4

I

10

Margaret Leavitt .

I

6

Daniel Lincoln . .

I

7

8

25

2

6

4

20

2

Hezekiah Lincoln .

2

I

I

2

2

Obadiah Lincoln .

I

4

I

Iron

works

and corn

mill

Mordecai Lincoln.
Sarah Lincoln . .

Scitu-
ate

I
3

3
3

30

Israel Nichols . .

2

30

2

I

9

30

2

Nathaniel Nichols

I

I

2

John Orcutt . . .

2

26

I

4

3

3

Thomas Orcutt

2

3

a

2

Aaron Pratt . . .

4

30

I

4

4

20

I

Aaron Pratt, Jr. .

James Ray . . .

I

Joseph Souther .
Samuel Stoddard .
Stephen Stoddard .

y-i

21/2

3

I

I

I
3

1

I

works

Joseph Thorne . .

1 brook Tower . .

1

2

4

96

2

2

5

98

I

Hezekiah Tower ,

I

John Tower . .

I

3

S

I

I

3

?

■>

Philip Wilcut .

George Wilson .

I

I

I

I

i86

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

There were twenty-two houses that might send their
occupants to a meeting-house if they only had one near.
Besides the taxes upon their lands and houses they paid
taxes that year upon forty-eight oxen, seventy-eight cows,
thirty-one horses, two hundred and thirteen sheep, and
fourteen swine.

The total payment into the town coffers for property
assessment was about one hundred and eighty dollars ;
and the thirty-six polls, at ten shillings each, made about
ninety dollars more.

This was only one year's experience at the disagreeable
business of paying for what they could not -get.

rhoto, Annir I'.. Ilartw,

Where the Sea lashes the Rock.

Moreover, these settlers were developing a solid nucleus
of a business community. At their harbor or ship cove,
as they called it, the enterprise of "shipbuilding" had
already begun.

One George Wilson* had obtained the privilege to
build a vessel at the Cove as early as 1708 (May 6).

* Solomon Lincoln's History of Hingham says that " Wm. Pitts had liberty from
the selectmen to build ships and other vessels at Konohasset in 1675," p. 8, note.

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. I 87

Also Joseph Souther, another settler, was granted the
same privilege only a month later, and a committee of
three was appointed to locate their separate shipyards,
where they might not interfere with each other.

This shipbuilding at the Cove suggests that the shipping
of cord wood or other merchandise to Boston had already
begun, so that a bit of commerce independent of Hingham
had sprung up. To this enterprise at the Cove we must
add another already undertaken in the Beechwood region.

It was the iron works upon Bound Brook at Turtle
Island, 1703-4. This island is a few hundred yards south
of Beechwood Street, made by the brook splitting into
two streams and uniting again below.

By building a dam on the west branch a good water
power of a puny sort was obtained, and here the genius
of Mordecai Lincoln contrived a trip hammer to forge
out the iron which was smelted.

The ore was bog iron, carted over from Pembroke, ten
miles away, in the rudest sort of two-wheeled ox carts.
The wheels were made of solid oak planks fastened to-
gether and trimmed to a circular disk ; and they creaked
upon wooden axles over the insufferably rough roads that
led between the Pembroke ponds where the ore was found
and the Turtle Island smelting furnace where the ore was
reduced.

The ore was miserable stuff, but iron was precious in
those days. It is said that the only piece of iron which
could be afforded in making a cart was the bolt that held
on the yoke.

To encourage the iron industry a subsidy had been
offered by the Massachusetts government about fifty
years before to any person that might undertake it. In
Lynn, Braintree, and Bridgewater some success had
already been achieved, and here were some enterprising
Cohasseters working against great odds to get a little
iron out of the miserable bog ore that they might haul

I 88 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

from Pembroke. But Mordecai Lincoln was a blacksmith,
and iron he must have. Furthermore, his familiarity with
the moods of iron made him bold to woo it from its
native ore.

For smelting the ore charcoal was necessary, and that
made an industry for some more men who went into our
woods to make charcoal. The remains of some of these
pits or ovens, where maple and birch and other woods
were reduced to charcoal, can now be seen west of King
Street, a few hundred feet in Robert T. Burbank's pas-
ture. At many other places these little circular hollows
may be found, containing bits of charcoal where piles of
wood were slowly charred.* By the intense heat of this
coal mixed into the lumps of bog ore a few drippings of
melted iron would ooze out of the ore into the bottom of
the furnace pit at Turtle Island. The molten mass was
puddled and then hammered by the trip hammer into
billets of wrought iron. Some of the slagf from the old
furnace can be seen now at Turtle Island, also bits of the
charcoal which have lain under the sod for nearly two
hundred years. Some old hinges or andirons, or possibly
nails, made of this iron are probably still doing service in
some old Cohasset houses, especially the house built by
Mordecai Lincoln on South Main Street. The original
undertakers of this iron enterprise were Thomas An-
drews, Daniel Lincoln, Thomas James, Aaron Pratt, Mor-
decai Lincoln, Gershom Ewell, and Josiah Litchfield, Jr.
The last three resided in Scituate, but the business
belonged to Cohasset.

A few years $ after the forge was started the Turtle

* Not all of the charcoal pits which may be found in the town were used for
the iron works. Indeed, the making of charcoal was no small industry for a
whole century after the iron works were abandoned. Foot stoves and parlor
heaters used charcoal, and after anthracite coal came into use, charcoal was still
found necessary as a kindler for the hard coal.

tSf>ecimens are upon exhibit in the historical collection at our Town Hall.

J January 3, 1717, Aaron Pratt made out a deed (unsigned) of his "part of the
sawmill, partly in the First and partly in the Third Division of the Conehasset up-
lands."

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. I 89

Island sawmill was perched upon the east branch of the
stream, a few rods from the forge, exactly on the line
between the First Division and the Third Division.

These two industries indicate that the Beechwood dis-
trict had already begun to attract laborers, and that a
community was forming here which was so far from the
accommodations of Hingham as to add much to the Cohas-
set claim for a meeting-house and schoolhouse. The agi-
tation of this matter was kept up by every thought of the
children grovv^ing into maturity without half a chance at
school, and by every Sunday that they trudged four or
five miles to meeting, or else felt the rebuke for not
going. Especially poignant was the reminder when they
were compelled to pay every year from their scanty earn-
ings, taxes a part of which went to support their unavail-
able minister and school-teacher.

They were willing to build a meeting-house for them-
selves and get at least so much headway towards the privi-
leges of a precinct. But here was another obstacle. How
could the Cohasset settlers use the common land for a
public building without the consent of all the grantees to
whom the common lands belonged .'' Many of them lived
away from Cohasset. Accordingly, some of the most
energetic urged a meeting of all the proprietors in
Hingham, to gain from them the privilege of erecting a
meeting-house upon land that was common property. The
meeting was held May 14, 171 3, and the privilege was
granted, "that the inhabitants of Conahasset shall have
liberty to get up and erect a meeting-house there on that
land called the plain." Just when they "got up" and
" erected " it, is hard to tell, but probably not for a year
or two.

Their hope to have a minister paid out of the common
taxes of the whole town was not getting much encourage-
ment. The school-teacher they were even willing to be
without, thinking that a minister might do some of that

L

L

I 90 HIS TOR V OF COHASSE T.

work for them. But even one public servant was not
apportioned to them. They still kept up the bombarding
of the stubborn town government. They were determined
either to have accessible preaching or to be released from
further taxation to support preaching. Accordingly, about
two years later (March 7, 17 14-15) they came again before
the town meeting* and proposed three alternatives.

F"irst, they "desired the town that they would be pleased
to give their consent that they might be made a precinct."
If this were allowed, they would have the authority to tax
themselves for ministerial and school purposes, and could
select or direct as much of those functions as they might
choose. By this arrangement they certainly could get
some preaching in their own community, though it might
not be for more than a part of each year. They were at
least willing to be cut off from the privileges of Hingham
in these things and to assume their own responsibilities.

But if this desire failed, their second alternative was
"that they might be allowed something out of the town
treasury to help to maintain the worship of God amongst
them."

They were willing to pay double tax, that to support the
Hingham church and some more to piece out what grant
they might get from Hingham to support preaching here.

Their third alternative was, "that they might be abated
that which they pay to the minister to maintain the wor-
ship of God at the town."

The Hingham records confess that " the vote of the
town passed in the negative concerning all the foremen-
tioned particulars."

Seventy-one years had passed by since the town of
Hingham in her militia rebellion so stoutly claimed her
independence ; but now when a subordinate community

* The town warrant for this year held the following sympathetic article : —

" Also to consider the circumstances of their neighbors and brethren of Cona-

hassett, whether they will allow them anything or how much towards the worship

of God amongst them." ,

THE AUTONOMY OF A PKF.CINCT. 191

begged of her an independence vastly more reasonable
and just, she refused it.

In their extremity the Cohasset unfortunates sent to
Boston to present their case to the General Court of the
province, praying for relief from a tyranny that levied
taxation without ministration.

But close upon their heels the citizens of Hingham sent
a committee "to give answer to" the Cohasset presenta-
tion at the session of June, 17 15. A committee from the
General Court was appointed " to repair to Hingham and
have a town meeting called for the purpose of securing
satisfaction for the Cohasset petitioners." At this town
meeting in July of that summer the town made a proposal
not much more to their credit.

It was voted that the inhabitants of Conahasset, that is to say
the inhabitants of the First Division, and Second Division, and
second part of the Third Division, of Conahasset upland to the
fifty-fourth lot of the said second part of the Third Division, be
freed from time to time from paying towards the support of a
minister in Hingham during the time that they provide an ortho-
dox minister among themselves, provided they cheerfully accept
of the same.

The record goes on to say that the "inhabitants of
Conahasset replyed that they could not cheerfully accept
thereof." It is clear that such an arrangement would
entail a burden upon this struggling community for the
support of a church three times as heavy as the Hingham
settlers bore.

So few in number were the people here and so poor in
property that the continuous support of a minister was
too great an undertaking. They might strain themselves
to the task for a while, but so soon as they were com-
pelled to give up, then the Hingham church tax would
fall back upon them. If they were only a precinct they could
support a minister for a while, and then be without one for
a while, but always with the sweet privilege of autonomy.

192

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

L

Furthermore, their plea at the General Court was so
hopeful that they expected to get the rights of a precinct
in spite of the mother town. The reluctance of the town
to allow the claim was partly for fear the distant settlers
might evade the church tax of the town, and then do
nothing towards maintaining the gospel in their own
community.

The town's concern in this deep matter was further
shown in their stipulation that the minister must be an
orthodox one. Such was the Hingham minister, John
Norton, and such ministers were in the surrounding
towns. But there were in New England at that time
Baptists whom the old churches feared and Quakers
whom they vigorously detested and drove out. Some of
these latter had been in the town of Scituate, much to the
alarm of some church folk.

Other irregular religionists were floating about, and the
stricter defenders of the faith were upon their guard.
The recent use of the word " Orthodox " in contrast with
Unitarian was not then known in Hingham, for the events
here depicted were one hundred years earlier than the
Unitarian movement.

But there was evidently no need of apprehension as to
the orthodoxy of Cohasseters, for they showed not the least
signs of departure from the standards of their time, as
we soon shall see.

Two months after Hingham's offer to remit the minis-
terial taxes another compromise was offered, this time
remitting also the school taxes, if only the complainers
would maintain their own minister.

But the momentum towards the autonomy of a precinct
was getting stronger with the increase of inhabitants and
with the coming to age of boys born in Cohasset.

In the next March, 1716, the town "voted to allow
seventeen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence out of
the town treasury towards the maintaining of the worship

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. 1 93

of God," it being the Cohasset share of church and school
taxes for the town in the year 17 15.

The money was ordered paid to John Jacob ; but there
is no record that John Jacob ever took it — they were on
the track of larger game. Again the Cohasseters went
before the General Court, November 8, 17 16, with a peti-
tion of twenty-one names, headed by Daniel Lincoln, and
again Hingham appointed a committee to checkmate
them.* Then the Cohasset men at the town meeting on
the following February 1 1 renewed their proposal to the
town to be set off as a precinct ; but the monotonous
negative was their only reply.

Relief, however, was at hand. That summer of 1717
a committee of the General Court was chosen to view
the " lands and dwellings of the inhabitants of Conohas-
set, to see if it be convenient to make them a precinct ; "
(^ " the petitioners to bear the expense." True to their
principles to the very last, the town appointed a committee
to intercept this committee from the General Court, and
to obstruct the Cohasset movement. But the long strug-
gle could not be robbed of its victory.

On the twenty-first day of the next November, the year
1717,1 the General Court granted the inhabitants of
Cohasset, alias Little Hingham, a precinct, by setting
them off from the rest of the town in the matter of
church and school.

But now came the sober responsibility of maintaining
the precinct for which they had so nobly striven. They
asked the General Court for directions how to call their
first meeting legally. Perhaps this request was made
necessary by the Hingham officials refusing to give legal
warning for such a meeting. At any rate, the court gave

* The General Court ordered the Cohasset petition to be shown to Hingham,
so that any objections might be heard on Tuesday, tlie twentieth of that month.

t Rev. Jacob Flint's Century Address errs in putting this event at the date 1715 ;
also in several other particulars his account of the struggle for autonomy is in-
accurate.

1 94 HIS TORY OF COHA SSE T.

directions, and the first meeting of the precinct was duly
called. It convened on the fourteenth day of the next
July.

Daniel Lincoln was chosen the first moderator, and
Thomas James, clerk.

John Orcutt, Joshua Bates, and Joseph Bates were
chosen " to warn meetings for the future."

The place of meeting was doubtless the building upon
the plain, for which a permit from the proprietors had been
obtained five years before. They had placed it a few rods
southeast of the present church on the Common, framing
it about thirty-five feet long by twenty-five wide.*

Tradition says that some of the timbers f of it were
cut from trees standing on the plain. Labor and material
for the building had to be given by public-spirited set-
tlers, for the town of Hingham had no part in it.

The furniture consisted of a pulpit high up on one
side, — high enough for a closet underneath, — deacons'
seats or benches directly in front of the pulpit, and other
benches, probably without backs, ranging across the bare
floor.

Galleries were put in on three sides, with their floors
sloping towards the middle of the room. Windows with
small panes of glass let in some light under the galleries.

Several years after the beginning (August, 1723) some
pews with high board partitions were built upon the main
floor; but the utmost simplicity ruled everywhere at first.

A month after the first meeting they held another, at
which they voted to raise seventy-five pounds for the sup-
port of ministry, and John Orcutt, John Farrar, and Heze-
kiah Lincoln were to provide a preacher for three months.
At the end of that three months others were appointed
to be responsible for the services of a preacher, and so

* See Rev. Jacob Flint's Century Discourses.

fSome of them are said to be built into the house on the east side of the Com-
mon, which is now the home of Zenas D. Lincoln.

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. 1 95

on until April, 17 19, when they voted to have a fast all
day, the third Thursday of the month, in solemn prepara-
tion for the responsible act of calling their first minister
to settle among them. They voted to give him, according
to the ancient custom, a bonus, which should be one hun-
dred pounds, for settling among them, besides an annual
salary of one hundred and ten pounds.

But they postponed the choice of their minister until
June of that year, when eleven votes were cast for a Mr.
Pierpont and one for Mr. Spear. Mr. Pierpont, however,
did not accept his call.

The young men who were being educated for the minis-
try were to be found in those days at Cambridge. Har-
vard College had been for nearly one hundred years true
to the purpose of its founders — that of furnishing an
educated ministry.

From this college, on many Saturday mornings, some
one of these young preachers might be seen starting upon
horseback towards the little precinct Cohasset. Other
preachers who happened to be pulpit free were sometimes
employed ; but that orthodox college at Cambridge was
the main source of supply.

The fee which was paid for these pulpit services was
" thirty shillings per day for the minister that should come
from Cambridge, if he could not be had under."*

The person who boarded the minister and kept his
horse was paid from the treasury. Now this treasury was
remarkably full for so poor a community. There was no
evidence that the people shirked their religious responsi-
bility, as the mother town had feared they might do.

Before they became a precinct their total ministerial
and school taxes were only ninety dollars ; but now they
poured into their church treasury each year four hundred
dollars or more.

Such a tax levied upon their property by their own

* Vote of May 30, 1720.

196 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

precinct assessors was the price of their independence
and of their convenience in worship.

It is not a surprise, therefore, to note that the Beal
families who lived near Turkey Hill, no farther from the
Hingham meeting-house than from the Cohasset one,
should be a little uneasy under the heavy parish burden.

Daniel Lincoln and John Jacob and Ibrook Tower and
Aaron Pratt had greater reasan to be proud of their pre-
cinct than the Beals, who lived just within the edge of
the precinct. Some of these latter* were set back into
the Hingham government at a subsequent time, but the
Cohasset precinct was a success from the start.

The second minister to be called to the pastorate of
their church was Samuel Spear, who had formerly received
one vote; but now, December 2, 1720, they gave him
thirteen votes. A committee was appointed to draft an
instrument concerning their principles of religion, and
to present it to the minister chosen for his compliance.
But Mr. Spear did not become their minister. It was
reserved to Nehemiah Hobart, a grandson of the Rev.
Peter Hobart, the first minister of Hingham, to be the
first minister settled at Cohasset.

* The following petition was made to the Council at Boston, Friday, November
27, 1719, but it was dismissed : —

" A Petition of John Beal, Lazarus Beal, Purdy McFarlow and Lazarus Beal
jr. Inhabitants of the town of Hingham, Setting forth that the Petitioners with their
Families were lately set off from the old Meeting house in Hingham to the new
Precinct at Cohasset. That if they are obliged thereby to attend the public worship
of God at Cohasset, and pay towards the support of it there, it will be such a bur-
den & hardship upon them that they cannot be able to comply therewith, by
reason of the Length and Badness of the Way to the said Precinct Meeting
House, which was the greatest Motive as urged by the Persons petitioning for the
said Precinct to this Honorable Court in setting off Cohasset as aforesaid.

"Some of the Petitioners are two miles and a half and others three miles distant
from the (new) Precinct Meeting House and the Way is vacant of Inhabitants which
makes it very inconvenient to travel, especially in the winter season. Therefore
most humbly praying this Honorable Court would please so to continue them to
the old Meeting House at Hingham as formerly or otherwise that they may pay no
greater tax to the ministry at the new Precinct than their proportion would be at
the old."

THE AUrO-VOMV OF A PRECINCT.

197

He had preached regularly at Cohasset from July, 1721,
but not until Monday, December 13, was he ordained.

It was an occasion of no small concern for the town.
They had voted ten pounds ($50) for an ordination dinner,
and had invited the two churches of Scituate, besides
that of Hingham and that of Hull.

The ordinary household and farm drudgeries were
spurned that day, and the parish gathered at the little
old meeting-house on the plain for the impressive reli-

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Photo, Harriet A. Nickerson.

" When winter's snowy pinions shake the white down in the air."

gious service, with all its festival and social accompani-
ments. They made a solemn compact that day which is
worthy of deep regard for its clearness and thorough con-
secration. It was read and signed as follows : —

We do, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence
of God, and the holy angels, explicitly and expressly covenant
and bind ourselves in manner and form following, viz. : We do
give up ourselves to God, whose name alone is Jehovah, Father,

igS HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Son and Holy Ghost. To God the Father, as our chief and only
good ; and unto our Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, Priest and
King, and only mediator of the covenant of grace \ and unto
the Spirit of God as our only sanctifier and comforter. And we
do give up ourselves one unto another in the Lord, covenanting
and promising to walk together as a Church of Christ, in all ways
of his own institution, according to the prescriptions of his holy
word, promising that with all tenderness and brotherly love, we
will with all faithfulness watch over each other's souls, and that
we will freely yield up ourselves to the discipline and power of
Christ in his church, and attend whatever ordinances Christ hath
appointed and declared in his word ; and wherein we fail, and
come short of duty, to wait upon him for pardon and remission,
beseeching him to make our spirits steadfast in his covenant, and
to own us as his church and covenant people forever. Amen.

(Pastor) NEHEMIAH HOBART.
JOHN ORCUTT.
STEPHEN STODDARD.
THOMAS JAMES.
JOHN JACOB.
EBENEZER KENT.
JOSEPH BATES.
ELIJAH VINAL Jr.*

Thus were they bound together in a fellowship so
sacred that the Hingham church had no need to fear for
their orthodoxy.

But how about the school privileges } They must have
their children taught, and the Hingham people were will-
ing to refund a part of the Cohasset school tax, since the
rights of the precinct compelled it.

As early as the spring of 1721 the precinct voted to
receive the school money "from the town of Hingham,
and to dispose of it as followeth : one third part of it to
be paid to a school dame for teaching the children to
read, and two thirds of the money to be disposed of to

*This man was from North Scituate, as probably were several of the worship-
ers in these first days.

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. 199

teach the children to write and to cipher." Just how
much money could thus be used is not stated, but it was
not more than twenty pounds.* However, the "school
dames " were not expensive teachers. They were women
of natural aptitude for teaching, who eked out their living
by gathering the children of their neighborhood into a
kitchen or an attic, or some other convenient room, and
there teaching the little ones some simple ways of using
words and numbers. No certificate was needed, and few
were the women who could impart even that rudimentary
instruction. The letters of our alphabet were frequently
taught to the little ones at home by proud mothers or
fond brothers and sisters, to show off the parrot precocity
of their babies.

The reading taught by school dames was from a small
primer that gave first the letters, then short words, then
short sentences, then rhymes ; but the sentiments were
the loftiest moral and religious ones, frequently at a hope-
less distance beyond the reach of the child mind.

Two thirds of that first-mentioned money were devoted
to the arts " writing and ciphering." Little slabs of slate
with pencils of a softer slate were the implements of this
culture.

The sharp rasping of pencil points upon their stone
tablets was a daily torture to nervous teachers, while the
children laboriously shaped our written words or juggled
with numbers in their baby arithmetic. But a more
advanced method of education was necessary to supple-
ment the "dame schools."

-In Hingham there was yearly employed a man to teach
a so-called "grammar school"; and Cohasset, having to
pay towards his support, desired to get a part of his
instruction.

Eight years after the precinct began its corporate life

* March 13, 1721-22, Hingham voted " that Cohasset shall have the proportion
they pay of the ,^40 tax allowed them out of the town treasury to their treasurer."

200 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

the school question began to be a serious one. For some
reason Hingham ceased to refund the Cohasset school
tax ; perhaps it was because Cohasset had nothing better
than "dame schools" and it seemed wrong to excuse the
Cohasseters from their share of support in the town's
grammar school.

Finally, June 23, 1725, "Daniel Lincoln and Stephen
Stoddard presented a request on behalf of the inhabitants
of Cohasset that the town would allow them their propor-
tion of what they pay to a school for the year ensuing."
But the request was denied.

The next year (May 9, 1726) another committee — John
Jacob, Stephen Stoddard, and Prince Joy — requested, on
behalf of the Cohasseters, " that the school may be kept
in their place for the year ensuing, their proportion of
the time in the same." But this apparently reasonable
request was refused.

Another year passed during which the Cohasseters
might ponder and nurse their indignation.

Then (May 8, 1727) another committee — "John
Jacob, Joseph Bates and Prince Joy,- agents for the East
Precinct in Hingham" — presented "a petition praying
that the town would allow them the school one third part
of the year, or the proportion of money they pay to the
school." Again the familiar negative vote prevailed.

But a higher authority, the same General Court at
Boston which had granted them relief from municipal
stubbornness ten years before in the church matter, might
now be invoked.

Two months after their last refusal the precinct voted
to call a meeting " to know the precinct mind concerning
petitioning the Great and General Court concerning the
school."

At that meeting (August 14, 1727) John Jacob, who
was then a member of the House of Representatives from
the town and one of the wealthiest men in all Hingham,

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT.

201

was appointed agent to present the Cohasset plea to the
General Court.

The following record of that court two months later
shows how promptly the agent did his work : —

Oct. 12, 1727 — a petition of the Inhabitants of Cohasset
setting forth their great difficulty by reason of their remoteness
from the Grammar School in the town of Hingham (of which
they are a precinct) and that they can receive no benefit by the
said school in the education of their children although thev are

■W'~c^^'*\- • -^-fci

Photo Harriet A. Nickerson.

Mouth of Little Harbor in Winter.

taxed toward the support of it. And therefore praying that they
may have the benefit of the said school to be kept within their
precinct one third of the year, or that they may be exempted
from paying to the support of that school and allowed to provide
a schoolmaster to instruct their children in writing and reading.

Hingham was served by the court with a copy of this
petition to overrule the town's vote, and was notified to
show cause why it should not be granted. When the
answer came two months later, the petition was referred

202 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

to the next session of court, "that the town of Hingham
may have an opportunity to accommodate the matter
among themselves."

No further compulsion seems to have been necessary ;
for on the following May 6, 1728, the town voted to allow
Cohasset to draw out of the treasury their proportion of
the ^80 ($400) which was appropriated for schools, "pro-
vided they employ the same for and towards the support
of a school among themselves, and for no other use."

The Cohasset people very gladly "employed" that
money "for no other use," and that very winter following
their school was kept somewhere in the precinct, upon
their fair proportion of school taxes.*

Their hopes and their long struggle for school rights
had now come to a finish. For many subsequent years
they received their proportion of the town's school tax
and hired their own " master." They had no public
schoolhouse as they had meeting-house, so that the teach
ing had to be done each winter in such buildings as the
successive school committees might choose. However,
the autonomy of a precinct was essentially complete.
They controlled their own parish and school affairs with-
out any outside authority. They levied their own taxes
for church expenses, and at least appropriated their own
taxes for school purposes.

Since these were the two most important public func-
tions for them, they were the first to be acquired. The
next function to be gained in self-government was the
choice of their own representative in the general govern-
ment of the province, and the natural accompaniment of
that — town rights.

In a subsequent chapter their valiant political battle to
wrench themselves from the grasp of the mother town,
to become a town of themselves, will be followed.

*The first school committee chosen to do this business were John Jacob,
Joshua Bates, and John Orcutl.

THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. 203

The men who settled New England were men whose
grip was hard to loosen. They were determined to
govern themselves, and that made it difficult for any
minority to break away. But the determination of these
men of our rock-ribbed town was dauntless. Their indus-
try within a few generations of their settlement had given
them a wealth far beyond their proportion of numbers in
the town, and their progress was linked with an inevitable
destiny.

The following words from George P. Fisher's book, The Colonial Era, p. 169,
are appropriate to this chapter : —

" The intellectual activity of the New England people was a prime characteristic.
Most of them were English yeomen. With them came over substantial country
gentlemen and some merchants of large means.

" But it was true of all, that their minds had been deeply stirred by the theological
controversies of the age. If it was true of the bulk of them that they read few
books, the Bible, in the whole range of its literature, was an ever-present stimulating
companion. Morning and night and on the Lord's Day they hung over its pages
with eager and absorbed, as well as reverent attention.

" Whatever has to do with man as a spiritual being had in their eyes a transcendent
importance. Hence a marked distinction of the principal New England com-
munities is the interest that was felt from the beginning in the education of the
people, and the heavy burdens that were cheerfully assumed to effect the object.

" Schools were soon set up in all considerable towns, save in Plymouth Colony,
where the poverty of the people explains the exception.

" In 1647 the law of Massachusetts required that a school should be supported in
every town having fifty householders, and that a grammar school should be es-
tablished, where boys could be fitted for college, in every place where the house-
holders num'oered a hundred."

CHAPTER XI.

" AN HIGHWAY SHALL BE THERE, AND A WAY.

DURING the period which preceded and followed the
gaining of precinct rights, much attention was
given to the highways. Public thoroughfares are the
arteries and veins for the circulation of any community,
and not a little of a town's prosperity depends upon its
roads.

It was the misfortune of early Cohasset settlers to have
the most wretched roads imaginable for a place neither
mountainous nor swampy. Indeed, however, both hills

and swamps of puny di-
mensions were here, and
compelled almost any
highway through the town
to twist itself into innu-
merable kinks. Besides
this, the ledges of gran-
ite with unscrupulous ef-
frontery crowded men into narrow places ; the countless
bowlders too large to be dug out stubbornly jogged either
one wheel or the other ; and the clay hills, moreover,
which the glacier packed so hard, held the rain in pockets
where sticky mud would form every spring and fall, to mire
the oxen and carts. Every foot of our present smooth
roads represents a vast expenditure of labor to overcome
our naturally bad road conditions.

In a previous chapter we noted that the Fisher plan
reserved certain straight strips for future highways, and
a broad fringe along the water's edge or between the
marshes and uplands for public ways. But there is a
great difference between highways laid out on a map

The PioNKKR's CtiARior.

''AN HIGHWA Y SHALL BE THERE, AND A WA Vr 2O5

and real highways cut through forests or dug through
hills.

Two of Fisher's highways are now lying in the forest
west of King Street which no cart has ever traveled;
and only an expert can point out the stone wall which
marks them. Fisher did not attempt to travel all the
strips of land which he located for roads, as we shall see
when we speak of Beechwood Street.

Originally there were, no doubt, several paths and
Indian trails traversing the town which now may be
guessed at. One probably came from Hingham Harbor
to Turkey Hill, which hill was a sort of look-off; it
then passed on to Lily Pond, touching probably on the
north side where the sunny slope meets the water ; thence
it might have found its way to the mouth of Bound
Brook. It will be remembered that in the chapter upon
"A Bone of Contention" the Massachusetts court spoke
of a bridge being upon Bound Brook as early as the year
1639. This was probably a mere log or logs felled across
the brook and resting perhaps upon Bound Rock, which
divides the stream and makes a middle pier. This old
footpath was traveled by the pioneers in visiting back
and forth between Hingham and Scituate, and was called
the King's Highway, a name which still clings to that
part in North Scituate running from the mill upon the
east side of Bound Brook to the railroad station. The
Hingham records, many years later, explaining why they
called our Lily Pond, Scituate Pond, said " because it
lyeth on the way leading to Scituate, and for no other
reason."

This path through Cohasset was never perpetuated as
a cart road, and is now almost wholly obliterated.* There
was another pathway leading around the shore by way of

* There is still remembered an old way or trail leading from the neighborhood
of Agricultural Hall to King Street near the pond. An old deed (1755) of an
acre of Hezekiah Tower's homestead sold to John Burbank for £2 mentions
this " Way."

2o6

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Straits Pond, of which Jerusalem Road is the famous
descendant.

A third path which was most of all influential in de-
termining our roads is what we have called the old cattle
trail leading from Turkey Meadow to Little Harbor.
Fisher's plan might well have regarded this natural course ;
but he wholly ignored it, providing no way whatever for
straight travel to and from Hingham.

Cart travel to Hingham was not indeed the first
demand for highways, because boats were the exclusive
means of transporting hay to Hingham for the first thirty
or forty years. The first cartways were those leading
along the edge of the marshes next to the upland and
connecting with the various loading places. We have
already spoken of these loading places and of the corduroy
bridge, ordered built by John Jacob, the father of the Co-
hasset John Jacob, as early as 1672, across the narrow strip
of meadow where Spring Street now crosses the railway.

Panorama ok Elm Street, looking

''AN HIGHWAY SHALL BE THERE, AND A IVA Y." 20/

That crossing is one of the oldest bits of highway
in the town still used for travel. Another short stretch
of ancient highway is where Summer Street passes in
front of M. B. Stetson's store on to the Cove where
an ancient loading place was ; also Snow Place, leading
into the Bryant estate, formerly ended at a public loading
place.

There was a loading place on the north side of the
head of the Cove, perhaps near the Higgins boat shop,
and another somewhere on the south side ; but the creek
ran between, and there is no mention of a bridge across it
until the year 1762, January 28, when " the Question was
put wheather the Town will Procure and lay out a Way
Over y*^ Creek at y^ Head of Ship Cove in y^ Second
Parrish. Passed in the affirmative." What is now Elm
Street was probably a cartway along the edge of the
marsh leading to the north side of the Cove.

All of these old ways have been changed so that only

Pliotr.9, Mrs. K. K. Kiln

Southeast fko.m Elliot Stouuard's.

208 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

pieces here and there conform to the original location.
Indeed, there is only one street in the whole town which
wholly conforms to the original lay-out on the Fisher plan ;
that is Sohier* Street, formerly Winter Street, and still
earlier called Deer Hill Lane.

How the highway along our shore which we call South
Main Street was partially straightened we recounted in a
former chapter.' The end near Bound Brook ran down to
a broad shallow fording place below the present mill
bridge, where it passed over to the King's Highway in
Scituate.

Coming towards Cohasset the road skirted around by
the marsh fences ; but when the way was ordered to be
laid straight through the lots to Jacob's Meadow to the
point where the South Main Street fountain now is, a
troublesome curve was forever cut off. But at this point
a rough detour around the head of Jacob's Meadow to the
old corduroy bridge at Cold Spring had to be traveled
for more than a century and a half, until it was straight-
ened in the year 1838 (June), by a way built across the
meadow, where now stands the Catholic Church.

At the place where Main Street crosses James Brook
there must have been a ford or a bridge, or both, but
nothing can be found in the records referring to the
matter. The old location of Main Street in 1682 fol-
lowed the present course along through the Common until
it reached Daniel Lincoln's corner, as we saw in the
chapter on " The First Homes."

One reason for turning towards Hingham at this par-
ticular place was the interference of a line of kettle holes
left by the glacier in the gravel. These hollows, strung
along west of the cemetery for several hundred yards,
have already been referred to, and one can easily see how
the road had to be curved around the margin of these
hollow places in order to be kept level.

* Named for William D. Sohier.

''AN HIGHWAY SHALL BE THERE, AND A WAY." 2O9

The ends of the lots along this main highway from
Scituate became confused in fifteen or more years, so that
" new marks for the northeast ends of lots in the First
Division " were ordered in the year 1699. The lots butting
on the west side of Main Street are far from a straight
alignment even to-day, and they bear witness either to
careless surveys or greedy encroachments upon the com-
mon land.

At that same date, 1699, "the south ends of the lots
on Great Neck " were ordered to be re-marked. These
ends are bounded by Elm Street and Highland Avenue
upon the south border of Great Neck, and they are now
fairly straight, especially that part of Highland Avenue
lying along the side of the Common, which was made
straight by a town order, through the efforts of Samuel
Hall, in the year 1864.

Originally all the private premises between Highland
Avenue and Main Street were common land reserved by
the Fisher plan.

A few years before these new marks were ordered " the
selectmen of Hingham appointed Samuel Jacob to lay out
a highway for Israel Nichols near his now dwelling house
at Cohassett," March 25, 1695. This way was along the
border of Straits Pond, and is now a part of Jerusalem
Road. It was to facilitate Israel Nichols' travel to Hing-
ham, and it needed only to reach as far as the Straits Pond
mill, for there was already a horse track there at the mill
and a bridge that horseback riders could cross in going
from Hull to Hingham.* Twenty-three years after this
date there was an order for relocating two important high-
ways : one was Jerusalem Road and the other Beechwood
Street.

It will be remembered that Beechwood settlers began to
gather there in the first years of seventeen hundred, when

* Hingham Records of |une 9, i6g6. The town refused to make this liorse
bridge into a cart bridge.

2 I O HIS rOR Y OF CO HA SSE T.

the iron smelter and forge were established on Turtle
Island. A cart track of some sort connected them with
the other settlers at Cohasset plain, but it was not in the
highway located on Fisher's plan. That highway was im-
passable by any vehicle broader than a wheelbarrow, for
there were ledges in it that filled up the whole width of
three rods.

In May, 171 7, the town attempted to make the matter
right by getting the surveyor, Captain John Norton, to mark
out a way, accompanied by the selectmen.* The old way
lying between lots seventeen and eighteen was marked by
little heaps of stones on each side for the whole distance
"except that part in Captain Hawke's pasture," where it
was necessary to depart from the original location.

But the men who would have to travel that road de-
murred and demanded a more easy access to their homes.

Another committee was appointed to view the situation,
and they advised the exchange of the whole highway for
some other strip of land more convenient.

Accordingly, two years later, 17 19, a committee, this
time men of Cohasset, was appointed to view the way
and to locate a better one. This they did in land of
Joshua and James Hersey, lying north of the old way.

Their settlement of the affair was not wholly satisfac-
tory, for John Lewis complained that he would be com-
pelled to build too much new fencing where the highway
touched his land.

For three or four years longer the matter was in sus-
pense, and the Beechwood settlers got into their premises
across men's lots by some old wood roads while they
waited for the town to cut through a practicable public
way.

There is now to be seen at the south edge of Jacob's
Meadow, below Sunset Rock, leading out of Spring Street
east of the railway crossing, the remnant of an old cart-

*'rhey paid Capt.iin John Norton eight shillings for this work.

"AN HIGHWA V SHALL BE THERE, AND A IV A K." 2 I I

way which used to be traveled towards Beechwood. The
hollow track made by the carts of old times may still be
followed for several hundred yards. Whether this old cart-
way was traveled in lieu of a public way, or whether Joshua
Hersey's land was used substantially as the road now runs,
is uncertain. It is plain that any road across lots could
not be used after the lots were fenced for pastures, with-
out trouble to the owners. Therefore Joshua Hersey in
the year 1724 requested the town meeting at Hingham to
appoint another committee to do again the work of the
previous committee.

It was done. The committee laid out the new way
along the north side of Joshua Hersey's lot next to Sam-
uel Orcutt's lot* where Beechwood Street now lies. It is
the only place where a straight way into the Third Divi-
sion could be made without severe hill climbing.

The width was to be three rods running nearly straight
for six sevenths of the way ; then it was to bend south-
ward at a point fifty-two and a half rods from the division
line, and run to the south side of Joshua Hersey's lot,
keeping a width of only two and a half rods. For thirty
rods it skirted the south side of Hersey's lot with a
breadth of three rods, then for eleven rods more it ran
diagonally across James Hersey's and Joshua Bates' land
to the division line near Turtle Island. Joshua Hersey
was to receive the old highway lying between lots seven-
teen and eighteen in exchange for the new highway
through his own lot.f This highway was not accepted by
the town until eight years later, 1732 ; but it was probably
used long before it was formally accepted. At about the
same time with the trouble of locating this end of Beech-
wood Street, the other end was being fixed. No land for
a highway through the Beechwood lots had been reserved
by the Fisher plan, but it will be remembered that the lots

♦Samuel Orcutt's lot seems to have been number twenty-one.
t Joshua Hersey owned lot twenty, as nearly as I can ascertain.

2 12 HIS'] DRY OF COH ASSET.

were granted upon condition that the proprietors should
all have the right of way through each other's lots. As
soon as they began to settle that region, twenty or thirty
years after the division of 1671, they opened a way, as
straight as the rough lands permitted, leading to South
Main Street. The part of this Beech wood Street, or Wood
Street as it was frequently called, which lay across the
Beechwood lots soon had to be kept open permanently,
for the bars that kept the cattle and sheep enclosed could
not be tolerated by busy men.

Accordingly, a legal covenant was signed April 21,
1726, by the following owners, keeping open for their
mutual benefit a way forty-four feet wide and about a mile
and a half long, reaching from lot sixty-three to lot
eight : —

Joshua Bates. (Unknown.) Nathaniel Marble.

Joshua Bates, Jr. Jonathan Pratt. Caleb Joy.

Thomas Church. Steven Stoddard. John Wilcutt.

Sarah Church. Aaron Pratt, Jr. Amos Joy.

Philip Wilcutt. Ebenezer Kent. Abner Joy.

Samuel Orcutt. David Marble.

About forty years afterwards a persistent effort was
made by some owners to persuade the town to grant them
a part of the unused highway at the west end of .their
lots near Lily Pond in exchange for this mutually cove-
nanted way cut through their lots. There was no little
trouble over the matter ; but finally (1762) the town
accepted the highway without any mention of the unused
way as a lieu land.

While this main thoroughfare was being located and
improved to the accommodation of the Beechwood part
of Cohasset, another way was having its destiny deter-
mined near Straits Pond.

Israel Nichols and his descendants were settling the
Jerusalem Road region.

The old path along the shore leading to Beach Islands

".•;.A^ HIGHWAY SHALL BE THERE, AND A JVAV." 2I3

was traveled by men and by cattle long before carts could
travel it.

Nevertheless, Fisher's plan had reserved a broad strip
bordering the ocean for a future highway. But that strip
had grass on it in many places good for pasture, and some
of it got enclosed by private fencing.

Accordingly, a committee was appointed in 171 7- 18
" to view the way that leads from Straits Pond, which runs
by Israel Nichols to the Beach Islands, and see that there
be no encroachment upon it, and report what quantity
there is in said highway, and what the worth of it may be
to sell and what it may be worth a year to let."

It is enough to make one catch his breath to think how
narrowly that highway escaped being sold, in which case
the famous Jerusalem Road would never have existed
with its beauty and profit to the town. The committee
reported the quantity of it to be about thirty acres, worth
one hundred and fifty pounds ; but if rented, worth about
six pounds a year. The town voted to let it out for a
pasture for five years. Seven years after this, in 1725,
a committee was appointed "to lay out a way near Jaza-
niah Nichols for the town's use." This Jazaniah Nichols
lived near the marsh corner (Walnut Angle), the point
where Atlantic Avenue now connects with Jerusalem
Road. The committee in laying out the road three rods
wide had to occupy a part of Peck's Meadow, and paid for
it at the rate of thirty pounds per acre. Not more than
a dozen families lived at that time the full length of
Jerusalem Road, and their cartway towards Hingham
or towards Cohasset was a wretched one at best.

The changes which have been necessary from the first
until the present smooth highway would be tedious to
relate. At the Steep Rocks near Little Harbor there
always was a difficulty, for private land had to be crossed
from Bow Street over to the Ridges. At the year 1737
the difficulty was seriously undertaken ; but it is now

J —

214 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

permanently solved by blasting out the face of the rocks
for a narrow way.

The next road to be spoken of is King Street, which
had been given that important name because it was
intended by the surveyor to be a main street. It was
made six rods wide, while Main Street was only four rods
wide. Before the street was ever cut through it became
apparent that a large part would never be needed. All
that part from the present almshouse to Breadencheese
Tree Plain — a mile long — was never used, but was given
to private owners in exchange for roads that could be used.

The settlers upon King Street at about the year 1730
included Hezekiah Tower, his son-in-law John Burbank,*
and his nephew Thomas James, also " King David "
Bates and John Beal, with probably two or three others.

These all had access to their farms from the Hingham
highway as King Street now runs, besides having a
straight and steep road to the Cohasset plain, down Deer
Hill Lane, now Sohier Street.

There was no highway connecting the King Street
settlers with Beechwood, neither was there any cartway
from Beechwood to Hingham. It was necessary for some
of the Beechwood people to travel nearly nine miles
through Cohasset to Hingham stores, when they were
only four miles distant.

Such a ride to Hingham was no luxury in those days.
There was not a four-wheeled vehicle in the town. Their
heavy two-wheeled ox carts, without pretense of springs,
bumped over stones and slumped into holes along the
insufferably rough roads for three hours, until one's bones
cried out for a restful walk. Nowadays luxurious car-
riages bowl along the short cut of Doane Street in about
forty minutes, and even the jar of a pebble on the smooth
road is quenched by the soft rubber tires.

*John Burbank appears to have come from Rowley, Mass. He married Eliz-
abeth Tower, daughter of Hezekiah, June 28, 1728.

"A.V HIGHWA V SHALL BE THERE, AND A \VA K" 2 I 5

But the roughness of those early roads was removed,
bump at a time, through successive generations.

The bridge work and corduroy over wet places that was
continually necessary may be faintly suggested by the
following item in the year 1726 from the treasurer's book :
" Paid Stephen Stoddard surveyor for forty cords of wood
at one shilling, sixpence per cord, and pine plank three
shillings, sixpence, all of which was used in the Highway
throucrh the First Division of Cohassett — total three

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pounds, three shillings & sixpence." Also, "Paid Laz-
arus Beal surveyor for nine and a half cords of wood
used in mending highways at Cohassett at sixteen pence
per cord and for timber four shillings — total eighteen
shillings sixpence." Instead of having a superintendent
of streets, surveyors were appointed to keep up the roads
in their own neighborhoods. Men worked out taxes every
year, improving the highways under the direction of these
surveyors.

2l6 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

There is a marked peculiarity in tbie highways of our
town which fails to impress the native inhabitants as it
does newcomers, — that is the uneven boundaries at the
side of nearly all highways. It is rare that two adjacent
lots front upon the same straight line. It was partly
caused by the uneven contour of the Fisher plan, but
more by the encroachments of private owners upon the
highways. After much grumbling throughout the whole
town, a committee was appointed to look into the matter
of encroachments, and the part of their report referring to
Cohasset is as follows : —

The committee to whome was Reffered the Considerations of
the Incroachments Repoart as followeth May the loth 1762.
The Committee Appointed by the town to Enquire into the
Incroachments made on the Highways Preceded on the Affair
and after the most Careful View find the following Pieces of
Land included by the Persons hereafter Named within their Out
Side Fence (Exclusive of all Yards & Gardains fenced by them
Selves) Vizt. James Hall a piece by his House, by Samuel Bates
South of his House & West of the Road, by Thomas Nichols a
piece Included within his Meadow Fence near Peck's Meadow,
by Capt. Beal's a piece included within his meadow fence at
Beach Island — &c. &c.

The roads were formerly used as pastures, and cows
with tinkling bells or horses or pigs or geese were not
uncommon sights upon the public way.

The same spirit of public ownership would lead to
fencing in a little of the unused land for a garden, as
nowadays front lawns sonietimes are pressed far out to
the edge of the wheel tracks. The decay of boundary
marks left people with only their slippery memories for
authority in the matter. At times there would arise
reformers to urge the town rights, and charge§ would be
made upon various citizens for encroachments, and the
town would give deeds to bits of the highway.

One marked instance is in the center of the town be-

" AN HIGHWAY SHALL BE THERE, AND A PVA V." 2 1/

tween Highland Avenue and Elm Street upon which the
Grand Army Hall stands. This bold ledge and all the
soil that fringes it were formerly a part of the Common
reaching around to where the harness shop now is. This
locality was squatted upon by various persons, and after-
wards, in 1805, the town voted to sell it as follows : —

William Stetson, 12^- rods
Thomas Nichols, 14I ,
Ebenezer Hudson, 15^ .
Obadiah Nichols, 5 4- ,
Laban Warrick, 3I- ,
George Wade, i| ,

.^50.00
31.60
24.00
16.00
20.00
15.00

Roads into wood lots and pathways across pastures have
been made and lost many times to suit the convenience
of the growing community, but to trace them in their
detail, where the feet of men have trod upon their errands
of life, is impossible.

Only these few main thoroughfares have been reviewed
in this chapter, because they had been established and
partially improved at about the period here reached in our
narrative.

There is, however, one of the ancient wood roads
which formerly had much commercial importance and the
remains of which may be traced at the present time.

It is the old cartway in the southeast part of the town,
next to Scituate, along which many hundreds, probably
thousands of cords of wood were hauled, when Cohasset
shipped stove wood to the town of Boston.

Near the mouth of Bound Brook at William Veale's *
present home there was a landing place in the marsh a.s
indicated in the accompanying sketch, where the "gon-
dolas " of olden time were filled with cord wood to be

* Mr. Veale guided the autlior alon>,' this old way by thrusting a crowbar
tlircugh the soft muck and stril<ing the stones that had been laid there for a
foundation of the road.

2l8

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

taken down the Gulf. The old ruts of the road may still
be followed back over the hills to the remains of an old
bridge at Bound Brook below Turtle Island and on
towards Beechwood. This is probably only one of several
ancient roads no longer used, which served their day and
generation and added to the resources of the town.

Plan showing some Points of Interest at the Southern Boundary
OF THE Town.

CHAPTER XII.

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES.

THERE are pools in the course of a mountain stream
where the waters rest from their headlong tumbling
and wait awhile in a contemplative mood before plunging
on again towards the sea. At such a place the course of
our narrative now rests, while we consider some of the
customs which were in vogue and the methods devised for
getting life to yield her sweets.

The ingenuity and economy practiced by our forefathers
amazes us, but they were driven to it by necessity. They
were compelled to produce nearly everything they used,
for they had but little money with which to buy foreign
manufactures and they had much inventive genius to
supply their own needs. If the flood of merchandise
which nowadays flows in upon us to supply food and cloth-
ing from all parts of the world were suddenly stopped, we
should be almost helpless ; but our forefathers lived and
thrived with almost no help from outside sources.

There was one little store * kept by George Wilson at
the Cove which furnished needles, knickknacks, some kinds
of cloth goods, a few drugs, and such other odds and ends
of commerce as the people occasionally needed ; but his
sales to the whole community were less than one family
nowadays must buy. The flocks of sheep upon our hills
were kept busy furnishing the wool to make homespun
clothing. In the spring when their fleeces had grown to
fullest thickness, and the summer was coming when no

* George Wilson's " Trading Stock" in the year 1737 was valued at twenty-five
pounds. See tax list owned by George Lincoln, of Hingham. The Hingham
stores were the main source of purchasable goods for Cohasset until the beginning
of this century, except for such persons as could use sailing craft for the Boston
markets.

2 20 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

sheep cared for its fleece, then the flocks were gathered
into the barnyards to be sheared.

One by one they would be caught and thrown down on
one side upon the barn floor ; and while some person held
down the sheep's head another would "snip snip" with a
pair of huge spring shears until half the fleece would roll
off the upper side of the sheep, and then by deftly turn-
ing over the patient animal the rest of its superfluous wool
would be shaved off in one large, soft, warm roll. Then
the sheep was permitted to scramble up on its feet and to
run bleating into the flock, feeling too naked and queer to
be very proud.

The unpleasant task of washing* the wool prepared
it for the carding process. Carding in later years was
done at a mill, but earlier, at home with card combs made
by fastening a multitude of wire stubs to the side of a
little slab of wood. Carding the wool separated the fibers
and rolled them into soft, fluffy rolls two thirds of an inch
thick and about twelve inches long. These little rolls
were ready for the spinning wheel, itself homemade from
spoke to spindle-head.

Many were the days when ambitious housekeepers in
Cohasset worked at their wheels to make a large record of
yarn. One end of a roll would be twisted upon the little
steel spindle and held by the thumb and forefinger of the
left hand, while the right hand set the big wheel revolving.
The little spindle turned rapidly, but instead of winding
the soft roll upon itself, the wool was twisted into a thread
by slipping off the end of the spindle at each quick turn
until twisted hard enough, when it was allowed to wind up
on the inside part of the spindle.

Another card roll was spliced on by a dexterous twist,
and again the wheel went "whiz" and "whir" until the
spindle was wound full with smooth, stout yarn.

* Sheep were washed before shearing. Men living to-day remember the scenes
of sheep washing in the shallow water at the margin of Lily Pond.

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 221

Stockings were knit from this, and the " click click "' of
the knitting needles was in ever}' home the occupation of
those moments when the toiling women could sit down to
rest. Such stockings were rough to the skin compared
with our smooth factory-knit hose, but they were warm
and sufficient.

From yarn also was woven the cloth for other gar-
ments. Some families of Cohasset during last century
had looms for weaving, but usually a special weaver took
their yarn and made it into such cloths as were desired,
keeping a certain percentage of the yarn for his labor.

Blankets made from some of this homespun yarn wore
"like iron "; the same ones that kept a boy warm in his
first years would last until old age wore out him, but left
the blankets intact for another generation.

Soft cotton sheets were then unknown and very few
were the linen ones, perhaps not a dozen in the whole
community previous to the year 1750. One of the well-
to-do families had but one sheet noted in its inventory as
late as 1730.

The finer qualities of lamb's wool were saved and used
for the under-garments, while the coarser were good enough
for blankets. Without sheets those blankets were a little
scratchy at best ; but the more intimate under-garments
revealed the quality of wool and the presence of pes-
tiferous burrs that are almost inseparable from the wool
fiber. The tender skin of many a boy has writhed under
the scratching shirts of homespun made from the coarse
wool of Cohasset sheep. But nature toughened the cuti-
cle of each generation until the pain of the inuring pro-
cess was passed. The outer garments were less bother-
some by their coarseness and more durable. Shawls and
dresses of homespun were dyed various colors or woven
into checks from different colored wools. Coats and vests
and pants of a dull gray color made from homespun wool
were the universal attire of men, except on Sunday at

2 2 2 HIS TOR Y OF COHASSE T.

meeting, when some of the more wealthy could wear
" store clothes."

Some silks were indulged in by the women of later
years ; but before Revolutionary times the garments were
almost wholly homemade from the very wool and flax.

The culture of flax for making linen cloths was early
introduced and continued until the days of some persons
now living.

The Indian aborigines used a coarser plant, " swamp
milkweed," but our forefathers imported flaxseed and
obtained a fine fiber for spinning.

Many little patches of ground * were devoted to this
herb, and it added one more material for human comfort.
When the plants were ripe they were pulled and then laid
under water or upon wet ground to rot the bark and the
stem. After drying them, the bunches were put through
the " breaker," which was a homemade machine much
like a carpenter's sawhorse, upon the top of which a
heavy piece of wood shut down into grooves across the
stems of the flax. After a vigorous beating everything
was broken except the tough, stringy inside bark of the
herb. This was the "flax."

The bunches of this flax, with its bits of stalk clinging
to it, were beaten against a board by a stick or " swingle"
until the coarser bits dropped off. Then the splinters and
pieces of bark were still further combed out by drawing the
flax through a hackle. This instrument, some good speci-
mens of which are in our historical collection, was a thick
bunch of sharpened spikes standing in a heavy piece of
wood.

After being combed, the flax fiber was ready for spin-
ning and bleaching and weaving.

Towels made from Cohasset flax are still to be seen in

* In the Sohier estate just west of the observatory a flax field is now remem-
bered to have been. Also in Robert T. Burbank's place on King Street is a flax
field which he remembers. Many others could be named. In the year 1749 John
Jacob was taxed for fifty pounds of flax, and Samuel Bates for thirty.

IND US TRIES AND FIRESIDES. 223

some families and several good specimens are in the
town's collection. Linen sheets were commonly stiff and
cold until worn flexible, and their color was a light brown
unless unusual care was taken to bleach them. The
finer cloths were bleached by being laid upon the ground
in the sunshine, where they could be sprinkled and turned
and dried for several days until the color was drawn out.

Thus by the culture of flax upon nearly every farm,
all linen cloths and linen thread for housekeepers or shoe-
makers were taken from the ground itself.

The mention of shoemaker calls to mind another im-
portant part of clothing. Farmers' boots were parts of
their own cattle. When an animal was butchered, the
skin of it was rolled up and taken to one of the tanners,
— perhaps to Turtle Island, or in later years to the Lincoln
tannery near the mouth of Bound Brook, or to one at the
side of James Brook near the present Masonic Hall.
Other tanneries there might have been where hides were
soaked in the vats dug into the ground, and were tanned
by juices from the bark of our own oak and hemlock trees.

The leather was made into boots and shoes for each
family either by themselves or by a journeying cobbler.*
This mender and maker of soles came annually to the
homes of his customers with his own lapstone and ham-
mer and awls to "shoe up" the whole family. He sat in
the corner and whittled out his wooden pegs from sticks
of white birch, hammered the leather, trimmed and sewed
and patched every kind of foot gear, from the baby's little
shoe to the great brogan of the farmer that must go
clumping through barnyard and forest. The stiff heavy
leather of the farmers' boots was kept pliable and water-
proof by repeated application of tallow.f From the

*" He made bolhriglu .and left shoes upon the same last," says one old resident.

tjames D. Lincoln has a tiny iron pot holding about a half pint in which
tallow was melted before the old fireplace. On many a winter's day before tiie
stiff boots were put on, they had to be softened by rubbing into th6 leather a quan-
tity of hot tallow.

2 24 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

softer leather of sheep or of calves or of deer the men
had breeches made for the rough wear of the woods.

Whips and harnesses and saddles and pillions and bags
were not articles that necessitated a trip to Boston, for
in those days self-sufficiency was the motto of this com-
munity. What one man could not make his neighbor
could make, and they knew how to exchange their craft
to their mutual weal.

One article of clothing further should be mentioned —
hats. The fur of squirrels and rabbits and beavers was
easily prepared for the winter head gear, and for summer
homemade straw hats were used. Their own rye straw,
carefully selected and bleached by sulphur smoke in a
barrel, was braided into narrow bands that could be sewed
skillfully edge to edge until they made something that
passed for a hat.

The women wore shawls over their heads as frequently
as they did bonnets.

But simple as the clothing was in those days, a still
more conspicuous frugality was practiced in the matter of
food. Not that hunger was tolerated more then, but that
the quality of food in most families was coarse and its
variety narrow. The English stomach has never been
very modest in its demands ; but these farmer and fisher
folk of Cohasset had far less means of humoring their
inherited appetites than their descendants have. Never-
theless, the housekeepers of those days wrought miracles
of cookery, and made from slender means some dishes
that are hard to match by any of our modern improve-
ments. Their luscious Indian puddings, baked for a small
eternity in their brick ovens or boiled in a bag as the
Indians themselves had cooked them, would bribe any
man into good humor. Moreover, the corn they had was
sweeter and fresher, for they took it themselves to the
mill at Bound Brood or to the other gristmill at Straits
Pond, where it was slowly ground without being over-

IXDUSTRIES AND FIRES WES. 225

heated by the millstones, and was brought home so fresh
and savory that one can readily imagine the pleasure of
a poor family smelling their newly filled meal tubs.

Their staff of life was a mixture of corn and rye meal,
or as they fondly termed it " rye 'n' injun." The coarse
bread made from this meal was heavy, hard, and black.
Nowadays it is occasionally eaten as a luxury, but in those
days it was upon every table and exercised every jaw and
furnished the main amount of all the muscular energy
expended in field or forest for generations.

This "rye 'n' injun " meal appeared in the morning as
porridge, stirred into a pot of boiling water that hung in
the fireplace. This pasty and wholesome dish was the
sovereign of the breakfast table ; from its great wooden
bowl it sent up a column of steam into the cold morning
air, a cloudy pillar before them leading them on to the
labors of the day. Milk was used as a sauce for this
hasty pudding, or later and better, molasses from the
West Indies.

Other methods of cooking " rye 'n' injun " were prac-
ticed by the proficient and ingenious housewives, for
cooking was their pride and accomplishment, Bannock
bread or hoecake baked in a frying pan tipped up towards
the fire was much relished with bits of crisp ham or
bacon.

Wheat flour was quite rare, so that cakes and bread
and even pies were dependent upon rye, maize, and bar-
ley. As to the clumsy utensils with which the culinary
art was performed much could be lamented and some
things praised. It must have taken remarkable skill to
manipulate one of those big drafty fireplaces so as to get
the best results.

Their ovens were cavities in the huge brick chimneys
at the side of the fireplace. A fire was built inside these
ovens to heat the brick walls. The fire was then drawn
out or the coals brushed into the corners and the food to

2 26 HIS TOR Y OF COM A SSE T.

be baked was put into the hot oven. But it is plain that
the baking was always done in a falling heat. Further-
more, it took so much time to get the oven just right that
once a week was about as often as a housewife could
bother with the baking. Consequently for most of the
time stale baked food was eaten. It is on record that an
apple pie baked at Thanksgiving time was not eaten until
the next March.

Mince and pumpkin pies of such an antiquity were the
natural result of clumsy ovens. Before the days of the
Revolution potatoes were not much used ; in fact, no such
luscious varieties as we now have were known. The
prejudice against this vegetable is illustrated by the
superstition that " if a man ate them every day he could
not live beyond seven years." *

Turnips, pumpkins, and squashes were not uncommon
vegetables and shared with the bread in giving companion-
ship to the meat foods.

No butcher carts in those days brought to every humble
dwelling the fine-grained beef and mutton and pork from
Chicago, a city then unborn in the far Western wilderness.

Dreary days of corned beef and salt pork were passed
in many a frugal family.

Fresh meat was rare and was obtained only by the
slaughter of their own animals. An ox or a cow that was
past usefulness or a young steer that would not break well
to the yoke was fattened for beef and killed in the barn
by its owner or by some neighbor more skilled in the
butcher's art. This was done in the fall of the year
usually to avoid furnishing hay through the winter and
also that the meat might be kept fresh for many weeks by
freezing. The greater part was salted or " corned " for
summer use. Some of it was "jerked" — cut into long
strips and dried, a fashion of curing meat long in vogue
among the Indians.

♦Customs and Fashions in Old New England, p. 153,

IND US TRIES AND FIRESIDES. 2 2 7

Unable to dispose of all the carcass to advantage in
these ways, pieces were sold to neighbors and friends for
other commodities or were given in exchange for a similar
piece of meat when the neighbor at some future time
might have a "killing." The periods of fresh beef were
interesting variations in the farmers' diet, but the quality
of their beef was poor indeed compared with our stall-fed
cattle from the West. Smaller "critters," like calves and
sheep and pigs, were slaughtered in the summer if occa-
sion required and if the farmer could afford it.

Hams were cured and smoked by hanging above smol-
dering corncobs for many days. Every edible portion
was saved for some use. Even the bits of gristle and
meat about the hog's head were made into a sort of
"cheese," and other scraps were stuffed into cleansed
entrails to become sausages. Calves' or sheep's heads
were sometimes served with bits of heart or liver or other
organs called the "pluck." "Calf's head and pluck" is a
dish still occasionally known, but formerly quite common.

The sheets of fat from the inside of a hog's abdominal
cavity were rolled up as leaf lard and " tried out " for
future use in making doughnuts and pastries.

The abomasum or fourth stomach of calves was care-
fully washed and preserved as rennet, for curdling the milk
in cheese making.

Thus the economy and ingenuity of our forefathers in
a multitude of ways utilized the meat products of their
own farms. But it seems clear that in spite of their
roastings and broilings and stewings, those meats must
have made monotonous meals ; for most families had no
alternative but to keep eating upon any particular part in
the season of it until it was gone, for nothing could be
wasted.

A good loin of beef well roasted upon a spit over a
good fire of hard wood coals might have been toothsome
at first, but it got quite tiresome when served for a week

2 28 HfS TOR y OF COHASSE T.

or two without the varieties of cooking which our modern
stoves afford. But our Cohasset ancestors had a greater
variety of flesh foods than farmers living away from the
shore, for fish of many kinds came swarming almost to
their doors.

To catch mackerel, cod, bass, perch, alewives, smelts,
eels, lobsters, and clams was an easy art where they
swarmed the water as they did here.

In fact, already before the year 1750 fishing had become
a special industry of much importance. Boats were ply-
ing the sea for food while the farmers were drawing food
from the soil. In 1737 Canterbury Stoddard, son of

/ . ' .' / • • :■

; r/rr/- :lr"'"- , " r;

■ Jc^'l-f • , ^' - -

Beginning of a Logbook showing a Voyage to the West Indies,

KY Peter Humphrey, son of Thomas, Commander of the

Summer Land, 1754.

Stephen Stoddard, of Beech wood, owned a vessel of
eighteen tons and carried on a large business at catching
fish until he was drowned off Wellfleet Harbor, Cape Cod,
May 30, 1742, a young man of only thirty-three years.

A still greater fishing vessel, measuring twenty-four
tons, was sailed by John Stephenson, an enterprising
young man who had deserted the English war ship Luci-
tanus in Massachusetts Bay, escaping to Cohasset Harbor.

A third fisherman as early as 1 737 was Roger Nichols, the
son of Israel, whose home on Jerusalem Road was one of the
first homes. His craft was only fifteen tons measurement.

IND US TRIES AND FIRESIDES. 229

Jeremiah Stoddard, Jr., had two small vessels of sixteen
and of twelve tons.

The largest vessel of all was an "eighty tonner," owned
by Thomas Humphrey, who lived at North Cohasset and
was taxed in the second precinct.

David Bates, of King Street, known as " King David,"
whose cellar can still be traced in a field near Lily Pond,
was taxed for a vessel of seven tons in the year 1737.

These fishermen were the supporters of a large share
of Cohasset prosperity, and their method of gaining a liv-
ing is worthy of some attention ; but a better time for it
will be in a later chapter when the palmiest days of our
fishing industry will be treated.

Not only fishing, but all sorts of merchandising engaged
some Cohasset mariners before the year 1750. Such bits
of records as have come to light tell of voyages to the
ports along our Atlantic seaboard, to the Bermudas, to
Barbadoes, and other West Indies, and even to the Euro-
pean shore.

These bits are from old notebooks* kept by the men

"*■. - -x

' r/u HI ,-i n/ ff

From Nathaniel Nichols' Notebook on Navigation.
♦Loaned by Captain Henry Snow, of Hull.

230 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

themselves and only a few have been saved, while the pub-
lic records of that period, as we shall see later, have been
destroyed. An interesting sketch by one of the early
Cohasset mariners is reproduced here, showing a full-
rigged ship of the early date 1745. It may have been
fancy-born instead of real, and the children of a later
generation may have marred it by inking over the masts
down the sides of the hull ; but the sketch shows how at
least one Cohasset boy of that early date looked forward
to a mariner's career and how he studied to fit himself to
be a commander.

The merchandise brought from foreign shores to Boston
and even to Cohasset added to the supplies produced at
.home.

IFruits of some sort were occasionally brought from the
"tropics, but those raised upon their own farms were the
main reliance for fruit foods. Small orchards * of an acre
or two were owned by nearly every farmer. Apples,
pears, cherries, plums, and quinces were cultivated from
the beginning, as soon as the settlers could clear enough
land for planting.

Preserves of these and of the many berries that grow
wild upon our hills were made by the women. Apples
were quartered and strung upon cords to hang in the sun
or to hang from the ceiling of the kitchen. There is a
high ledge of granite rock about a half mile back from
King Street at the Burbank home called "Apple Rock,"
because the women used to go out upon it and there peel
apples and spread them upon the sunny rock to dry. !

Apple trees formerly grew all about where now the J

*As early as March 14, 1646, the following fruit trees were mentioned in Hing-
ham Town Records : —

Apple tree — 5 shillings fine for injury by cattle.
Pear tree — „ „ ,, ,, „ „ „

Peach tree — 3 „ ,, „ „ „ „

Clierry tree — " „ ,, „ „ „ „

" All others double damage."

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 23 I

forest has recovered its hold ; but the tradition is pre-
served in the name of the rock.

While it is probable that this tradition does not reach
back to so early a date as 1750, yet the case is a fair illus-
tration of the earliest method of preserving apples.

A large proportion of the apples in those days were
made into cider, which was used in every home as a bever-
age and in far too many as an intoxicant.

About a favorite pear tree belonging to Aaron Pratt, of
Beechwood, son of the first Aaron, there comes down
through the generations an amusing incident. Aaron's
faithful negro slave had tried to catch the thieves who
persisted in robbing that pear tree, but with no success.
When the time came for the negro to say his last earthly
farewell he made this dying request, that he might be
buried beneath that pear tree so that he could see "who it
was that stole massa's pears."

Two of the most interesting food processes on the farm
were cheese making and butter making. Butter making is
still a very common industry, but the old methods of
doing it are fast becoming obsolete. The broom-handle
churn, with its up and down dasher, is now only a relic,
superseded by revolving churns; but the "chugg" and
"splash" of the old dasher into the thick cream will be
long a treasured memory with those who have heard it.
The milk was set in broad, flat dishes because it was
thought that the broader the surface the more the cream.
A huge clam shell was often used to skim off the leathery
layer of cream, leaving the "skim milk" for calves and
pigs when it could not be otherwise used. The modern
method of pouring gallons of milk into one deep can and
then after a few hours drawing off the skim milk from
below was not dreamed possible. Much less could have
been foreseen the creamery separator which does no wait-
ing, but simply spatters and whirls every globule of cream
out of the milk before it has time to settle. An old-

2^2

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

fashioned milk pantry is still to be seen in the Mordecai
Lincoln house, South Main Street.

Cheese making was more difficult. The following ac-
count of the process is given by Robert T. Burbank, the
same process which has been used for centuries : —

" Pour about ten gallons of milk into a cheese tub. Pour

Photo, Octavius H. Reaniy.

Cheese Press, Draining Basket, and Churn.
The necessary implements on a humble farm in Cohasset a hundred years ago.

into the milk a pint of liquid from a calf's rennet which
has been soaking in a bowl. In about half an hour this
acid turns the milk into curd floating upon whey. Cut the
curd into small square blocks by running a wooden sword
through it repeatedly. Spread a cheese cloth over the tub,
pressing it down upon the curd so that the whey will flow

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 233

up through the cloth. Dip out the whey. Then empty the
remaining curd into a basket lined with a sheet of cheese
cloth so that the rest of the whey shall drain off into a
tub underneath the basket. Turn the corners of the
cloth over upon the curd and put on stones to press all
day. The dry curd is then to be salted to taste and, if sage
cheese is to be made, some sage leaves and corn leaves to
color it and to give flavor are mashed and soaked until
enough liquid is obtained to mix into the curd. Then for
the press ! A stout frame with pulleys on each side is used
to press down the curd into a wooden cylinder, squeezing
out the juice until it can be made no harder. After sev-
eral days of continuous pressure the cheese is taken out
of its hoop. The cheese is done, and it needs only time
to ripen and to strengthen it."

Having glanced at a few primitive matters of clothing
and food, some other interesting home industries may be
reviewed'; for instance, soap making.

Our forefathers and foremothers were not generally so
scrupulous in the virtue of cleanliness as we are required
to be. In fact, their work kept them more in the dirt of
V -Ihe world, and their appliances for cleansing were far less
effective than ours. Soft soap was their main defense
against all that sullied or stained.

It was made from the ashes of their own fireplaces and
from greasy scraps of their own saving. It was made as
follows : A barrel or leeching box full of wood ashes is
set up on stones and water poured into it two or three
gallons at a time at intervals of a few hours. In a day or
two it begins to drip through a hole at the bottom into
buckets, a liquid the color of strong tea or vinegar. It is
lye. The other ingredient is grease, and this is saved
scrap at a time all through the winter until soap-making
time, when it is all cut up and melted in a great iron kettle
holding about three pails.

234 ^^^ ^<^^' ^ '^P COHASSE T.

In later years two pounds of potash in dark-colored
pieces were purchased at the store and put into the melted
fat. This potash was dangerous stuff to handle. A man
in Scituate, while breaking some pieces for his wife to use,
made a piece fly into his eye and he lost his sight. Into
the melted grease the lye was poured a little at a time,
some one stirring the hot mass continuously for all one
day and a part of the next with a long stick. The stick,
usually of apple tree, was a sort of mascot, for good luck
in soap making was not at everybody's bidding. Too
much or too little lye or some unknown defect would
easily spoil the soap. This uncertain behavior gave rise
to witch stories, and a certain woman in Beechwood was
accused of bewitching people's soap. To drive her out of
the soap a black-handled butcher knife was once stabbed
into the soap, and the soap-maker claimed that it cut off
the witch's ear, so that she wore a shawl over her head ever
afterwards to conceal the wound.

But witches aside, the soap, if made successfully, be-
came a shiny amber and gray mass poured into a wooden
trough, where it thickened upon cooling till it became ropy
or even waxy.

A barrel of ashes made a half barrel of soap, and it
was used for laundry or bathing or scrubbing, or for any-
thing that needed soap.

Next to soap making an interesting process which pre-
vailed in every home was candle making. Tallow "dips"
were used for many generations until tin molds came into
use.

A row of flax wicks dangling from a stick were dipped
into melted tallow. Some of the tallow would harden
upon the wicks, then a second dip would catch more tal-
low. So by many dippings the candles would grow thicker
until they reached the required size, a little thicker at the
bottom, of course, as any stalagmite would be. A few
hundred could be made at the same time if tallow enough
was at hand.

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES.

■62

Bayberries that grow plentifully in our woods yielded
a wax about one pound from a bucketful, that was made
into bayberry candles or mixed with common tallow to
make the tallow candles a little harder. In later years
the tallow was poured into tin candle molds, but the
"dips " were more common even then.

Both kinds gave dull enough light and a foul stench
when they were blown out. To make a poor lantern for
night traveling one of these candles was placed inside of
a tin cylinder pierced with hundreds of nail holes; but
this was a luxury that did not come until the more recent
times of our forefathers. The sun was ruler in those days
more than it is now with our artificial lights turning night
into day.

Their labors began when the sun peeked above the
horizon, but when he turned his back upon them at night
the great swathing of darkness was too thick to be pierced
by the tiny flickering candles that struggled to be seen in
the dark dwellings scattered throughout the town.

One of the industries of a winter evening was broom
making. The father would take a birch sapling long
enough for a broom, and sitting before the fireplace, would
sliver one end of it with his jackknife, patiently stripping
it one shaving at a time, until the end of the stick was a
bunch of long slivers too tough to break off easily. Then
from a place above the bunch other slivers were peeled
and turned down upon the others until the whole made a
thick, round broom, all from the same stick of birch. The
children were delighted to sit near, catching the splinters
that accidentally were broken off and weaving them into
little baskets or fancy figures.

The making of flag-bottomed chairs* was also a com-
mon trick of economy.

But how many more interesting industries might be
described that furnished the comforts of the fireside .-*

* The town paid Dr. Beal for " Bottoming a Great Chair for y« Scliool house, and
Parish, one shilling four pence," February 19, 1765.

236 HISTORY OF CO HAS SET.

The labors of the farm, plowing, planting, hoeing,
and harvesting, were essentially the same as now, where
in other towns farms* are worked.

The multitude of stones that had to be cleared out of
our soil were placed into stone walls to succeed the rail
fences which were first built for boundaries.

The earliest stone wall f mentioned was in 1673, when
Daniel Gushing, Sr., bought an acre of land in exchange
for Cohasset cord wood, lying next to the marsh near
Peck's Meadow — land that is now Zachary T. Rollings-
worth's. But stone walls were built at odd times in the
spring or fall through many years of land clearing.

The building of houses to dwell in was long and weari-
some labor. Saw pits % can still be found where boards
were rived out. Bricks were made from the clay of our
marsh land, which was kneaded and mixed with sand by
the trampling hoofs of oxen. Plaster or mortar was
made by mixing powdered shells § with mud. During the
period covered in this chapter several houses were plas-
tered outside on the ends for durability and warmth.

Framing and mortising of timbers in a way that saved
nails and wasted time was much indulged. The famous
"cock tenon and mortise " can still be seen in the top of

* The following town vote for 175 1 shows the main articles of merchandise : —

" Voted to raise the value of ninety pounds LawfuU Money for Defraying the
necessary charges arising within the said town the year ensuing to be paid in the
sundry Articles hereafter enumerated ; being the produce of the country, viz. grain,
Indian, Rye, Barley, Beef, pork. Merchantable pailes, wood, sheepswool, flax.

Butter and chees ." Upon the committee of nine chosen to determine the value

of these products were two Cohasseters, Isaac Lincoln and Jonathan Beal, 3d.

t" February 21, 1673, Benjamin Lincoln sold to Daniel Gushing, Sr., from lot
twenty-two of 2nd division upland for a valuable consideration paid in cordwood
delivered at his dwelling house in Hingham by Daniel Gushing, Sr., one acre en-
closed by a stone wall set up by said Daniel Gushing on the west, the reserved
Highway was on the east. Daniel Gushings salt marsh on the north, and John
Lazell's land on the south." — Hingham Records.

J Two or three are on the west side of South Main Street, on the sidehill back
of Loring Litchfield's. I have seen one in the woods west of Lily Pond next to
an old wood road. Many others may be known.

^ The old home where Dr. Osgood lately dwelt is plastered with clam-shell
mortar. Also was the old Walter Briggs place at Scituate Beach.

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 237

wall posts both in dwellings and in barns, and even in the
church on the Common.

Doors and windows and all finish parts were worked
out by hand from the pine logs. Even the furniture,
what little was used, was so made by the more skillful
workmen. And it must be remembered that the tools
used were of the rudest sort, not the fine machine-made
cutting implements that a cabinetmaker now handles.
The shipbuilding carried on at the Cove and at Little
Harbor in those days was of the same tedious sort.

An amusing incident is related by one of the oldest
women of the town which was still more anciently related
to her, about a launching which was to have taken place
at Little Harbor.

It was the custom to make a social fete of any work
that required united labor, like house raising, where the
yeomen were stimulated to heavy lifting by frequent
draughts of liquor, or like hog slaughtering, where the
participants registered their guess at the porker's weight
with a drink of rum.

At this launching in Little Harbor the men worked to
clear away the props and drank rum to become merry,
while they waited for the tide to come in. But nature
was slower than human passion. Before the tide had
reached its full, the men had reached theirs, and they
soon lay around their unlaunched craft in helplessness.
The tide crept in and saw the shameful sight, and looked
up to the waiting ship ; buf she had no hand to help her
to the waves and the tide crept out again.

The waking men had nothing but chagrin to show for
their wantonness.

This vice was growing bothersome to the church even
then, for two of its members had publicly to be cen-
sured for drunkenness, and after a public penitence they
fell again.

Churchgoing in those days was a universal custom.

238

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Plii.to, (i II. R..

Ready for Church a Hundred Years A<;o.
Calash bonnet, shawl, etc.

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 239

Into the little old meeting-house on the plain came scuff-
ing upon the wooden floor the heavy boots of some
twenty or more laboring men each Sabbath, with twice as
many women and children.

In the gallery sat what few negroes and Indians* were
slaves of the settlers. On the rude benches across the
main floor the men sat in one section, the women and
children in another, and the deacons f in front of the
pulpit, looking towards the people.

A very few could sing a little, and the minister, Nehe-
miah Hobart, could preach a good deal, so that a long
service was carried through ; and then after a noon hour
of social and other refreshment, the afternoon service
was undertaken. Sleepiness prevailed very generally in
the second service when the sermon was in course. But
the spirit of true religion in some persistent way would
rise above all natural hindrances and give to human souls
a bit of spirituality. The servants and small boys could
go barefoot to meeting during the summer, but the girls
and women and freemen who had finer self-esteem must
appear in shoes, even if they walked most of the way
across pastures barefoot with shoes in hand. For about
ten years there were no pews in the church, but privacy
and comfort soon demanded this change. When the light
was cut off from some pews by the height of the parti-
tions, pew windows were allowed to be cut through the
outside walls at the expense of the owner.|

Attendance at church grew with the settlement until in

* The following persons owned Indian or negro slaves in 1749 : Stephen Stod-
der I, James Stetson i, John Jacob i, Joseph Bates 4, Aaron Pratt i, Daniel
Tower i, Samuel Bates 2, David Bates 1, Daniel Lincoln i, Edward Battles I.
Sarah Wapping, an Indian woman, was taken into communion with the church
January 7, 1737-38.

tjohn Jacob was first deacon, chosen March 25, 1722. Joseph Bates, second
deacon, chosen March 5, 1726-27. Lazarus Beal, third deacon, chosen March 13,
1737-

+ December 30, 1731, Nathaniel Nichols was voted liberty to do this. March 15,
1735-36 Widow Susanna Lincoln was voted this privilege.

240 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

the year 1746 it became necessary to build a larger and
more comfortable house of worship. In June a committee
of three, Joshua Bates, James Stetson, and John Stephen-
son, were appointed to draw a plan for a new meeting-
house. The plans were accepted the next September,
and a committee of five was appointed to compute the
cost. It was decided to divide one half of the cost
among the pews to be built, leaving the other half for
general assessment.

Each man paid ten pounds for his pew, and a building
committee was chosen October 20, 1746, to build the
house we now see upon the Common. It was finished the
next year, but more can be said of the church life in a
later chapter.

One of the cases of self-sufficiency practiced in those
early days was in the care of the sick. Physicians were
not very plentiful or skillful in those times. The first pro-
fessional physician in Cohasset was later than 1750, Dr.
Lazarus Beal, of Rocky Nook. In Scituate as early as
1 7 19 Dr. Isaac Otis was practicing, and Dr. Benjamin
Stockbridge as early as 1730.

But herbs and home concoctions were the main reliance
of Cohasset settlers in battling with disease ; bunches of
mint, fennel, liverwort, tansy, and many other herbs that
were considered medicinal were kept hanging in spare
rooms or attics, ready to be steeped and made into strong
messes of stuff for patients to swallow. Some women in
every town had a genius at nursing the sick, and they
remembered all the nostrums for human ills they e\ier
heard.

Native sense and a miraculous intuition sometimes com-
bined with blundering superstition in these unschooled
physicians ; but in the case of anything serious, like diph-
theria or typhoid fever, there was small hope of recovery.

In the fall of 1735 there fell upon this community that
dreadful germ disease now called diphtheria, which in

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES. 2\\

these days is so summarily stopped by antitoxine, but
which had made cruel havoc with families of children for
many generations. That fall it began, November 8, by
sweeping into the grave a sixteen-year-old girl, Elizabeth
King. The next month four more children from five to
eleven years of age were buried.

The year turned into January when three more fol-
lowed. Tn February and March four more. Before the
next November nineteen Cohasset children had been
smitten by this terrible foe. Then came a rest for a few
months ; but the next March five more perished, four of
them from one family in Beechwood, whose parents, left
childless and heartbroken, added their grief to the sadness
of the whole community.

The good pastor Nehemiah Hobart records the sad list
as deaths by "fever and sore throat," and one feels a pity
for their necessary ignorance, both of the disease and its
cure.

Two of his own little boys were among the unfortu-
nates, one of them John Jacob Hobart, named from the
first deacon, who was childless.

The reference to these sad ravages of diphtheria calls
to mind a custom of old-fashioned burials. Cohasset set-
tlers who had burying land in Hingham took thither their
dead for many years after the first homes were set up
here. The earliest recorded burial in our town is that of
Sarah Pratt, first wife of Aaron Pratt, who died July 22,
1706, aged forty-two years. She was buried in the public
land which lay in front of Daniel Lincoln's lot next to
Little Harbor. This burial place has since become named
Central Cemetery, but no mention of it can be found in
any of the precinct records.

A family burial ground was established by Israel
Nichols back of his dwelling on Jerusalem Road next to
Straits Pond. The road as it now runs, north of where
the house stood, touches a clump of bushes which conceal

242 HIS TOR V OF CO HA SSE T.

the old gravestones.* The earliest date on them is 1713-
14, when the little four-year-old daughter Experience was
buried.

A few hundred yards west of this there is another
burial place beside Rattlesnake Run on the south side of
the road. The earliest stone is for Mrs. Elizabeth
Nichols, who died in 1746, whom we remember as
Daniel Lincoln's daughter, a child of one of the first
homes.

For the Rocky Nook settlers a cozy little cemetery
was made on the north side of Cedar Street near
Turkey Meadow, the earliest stones being dated May 4,
1760, when the wives of both Jonathan and Obadiah
Beal died.

The Beech wood Cemetery was purchased in 1737,! out
of the front end of the lots of Aaron Pratt and Isaac
Bates, by a syndicate consisting of Jonathan Pratt,
Stephen Stoddard, Jr., Israel Whitcomb, Ebenezer Kent,
Prince Joy, and Joshua Bates, Jr. It was a strip of land
one and a half rods wide and twelve rods long, divided
into six lots, where the dead of that neighborhood might
be buried.

The burial services were sad and silent, without hymn
or scripture or poem or sermon, when all stood bathed in
grief and in sympathy.

But this chapter must not end in sadness. The fire-
sides of olden time were enlivened by many games in
winter evenings, and in summer the bathing or boating
or other outdoor amusements were indulged by natures
which no hard labor could suppress. The huskings and
quiltings and dances of our ancestors have been frequently
told.

One custom as old as humanity and a perpetual source

* Dr. O. H. Howe has carefully copied all of these inscriptions as well as those
in the neighboring burial place at Rattlesnake Run.
t The deed is in the historical collection.

INDUSTRIES AND FIRESIDES, 243

of enjoyment was the celebration of weddings. We are
fortunate in having a vivid description* of one of these
romantic events from an eyewitness, Mrs. Job Whitcomb,
of Beechwood, who was fourteen years old in the year
1765 when the wedding occurred.

It was the wedding of John Pratt, the oldest son of the
Aaron who settled Beechwood, living next to the ceme-
tery where Doane Street now is cut through. This bride-
groom, John Pratt, was to wed Bethia Tower, the eighteen-
year-old daughter of Daniel Tower who lived on King
Street.

The narrator says that the invited guests, " a company
of young men, came out through the woods riding upon
horses, each one having his girl sitting behind him on the
pillion. They paraded in front of the house of the groom
and my beau, Joseph Whitcomb, rode his horse up to the
bars. I climbed up on the bars and mounted the pillion
behind him. We rode into the company. John Pratt,
the bridegroom, came out of the house dressed with a
three-square cocked hat, white coat with black glass but-
tons, knee breeches with buckles, up to the fashion. I
wore for a bonnet a dark hat with a low crown, wide rim,
a broad red ribbon tied around it, with two long bows ; and
two long ends came down over the shoulders. The bride-
groom came out of his house down to the bars, mounted
his horse, rode single to the head of the company and the
rest all followed two abreast. We went down by the
Cohasset meeting-house, up Deer Hill Lane (Sohier
Street) to Mr. Daniel Tower's house on King Street
where the bride lived. We had a splendid wedding and
the couple came to live in the groom's own house next to
his father's."

* From the diary of Marshall Pratt, grandson of John Pratt, the Ijridegroom.

244

HISTORY OF COM ASSET.

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246

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CHAPTER XIII.

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM.

FOR more than a half-century this community lived
as a precinct of Hingham. After obtaining from
the Legislature of the province of Massachusetts the
authority to hold public meetings and to levy taxes in the
year 17 17, they continued to grow in numbers and
strength, until in the year 1770 they became separated
L from the mother town.

This period of precinct life and growth is now to be
studied.

The community had several names by which either con-
temptuously or cordially it was designated. " Little
Hingham " was one sobriquet, East Precinct, Second Pre-
cinct, Second Parish, and Hassit were others ; but how-
ever it might be named, the community was very conscious
of itself. A distinct character had been gained by their
persistent courage in battling for autonomy. They were
so far from Hingham, that on their occasional visits for
trading and other purposes, they were generally known as
outsiders.

In the town meetings they formed a body of men whose
interests were so identified that they could be counted as
a solid opposition to all measures that did not fairly ben-
efit Cohasset.
i This sense of solidarity was further developed by their
own precinct meetings held in their own church upon the
Common. Here they chose a moderator for themselves,
a clerk and assessors of their own ; in fact, they did in a
small way what town meetings do. Furthermore, the town
of Hingham appointed each year among the constables
one from Cohasset, who should collect the taxes from this

L

248 HIS TOR V OF CO HA SSE T.

neighborhood, and sometimes even one of the selectmen
of the town was chosen from this precinct.* As already
has been mentioned, John Jacob, one of our precinct, was
elected to the high office of representative for Hingham,
at the General Court in Boston, from 1726 to 1733.

All of these experiences in the art and methods of
public administration were steadily developing the Co-
hasset people into feelings of self-sufficiency in matters

of government.

^ r' In the mean time their financial strength had been grow-

ing as well as their numbers. Their industry and econ-
omy was heaping up little fortunes in many homes.

Boston's growth was furnishing a market for the prod-
Tice of farms, and stove wood f was shipped incessantly
from our harbor to keep citizens of that town warm in
winter. Our shipbuilding at that period may seem small
to modern eyes, for vessels of four tons or even as large
as eighty tons, such as we had in the year 1737, would not
cut much of a figure in modern commerce, but they were
large enough to bring prosperity in those days. Mackerel
and cod were sold at Boston by Cohasset fishermen, bring-
ing money into their homes.

In the year 1737 there were eight vessels, averaging
twenty-two tons each, that were taxed to men of this pre-
cinct, while in the mother town there were only six vessels
owned, averaging less than twelve tons each. One hun-
dred and seventy-six tons of shipping belonged to this
precinct against sixty-nine tons in the first precinct. This
enterprise, so far outreaching the mother town, was an
element of power in bringing about the town's independ-
ence, for it brought sailor families here, and made ship-

* Ibrook Tower, 1699. Stephen Stoddard, lyir. Samuel Gushing, 1731, 1732,
1746, 1749. Samuel Orcutt. 1733, 1734, 1736, 1741, 1742. John Jacob. 1742, 1743,

^745-

t One instance of the wood business is shown in a document bearing the date
December 23, 1727, in which one lot in the Second Division furnished one hundred
cords of wood to Jolin Beal, who leased it for ^40.

^

SEPARATION FROM HINGIIAM.

249

building grow, as well as furnishing a commerce direct
with Boston instead of being tied to the Hingham stores.

Besides cod and mackerel and other small fish, even
whales were captured by our fishermen. As early as 1738
one of our young men, John Marble, was recorded by the
first pastor* as a whaler who died suddenly at Cape Cod
while on one of these whaling trips.

How many more whalers there might have been whose
good fortune kept their names out of the "death" list
cannot be told. They cruised upon the banks along the
shore of Cape Cod, " putting in " at any convenient place
to "try out" the oil of such marine monsters as they
might catch.

Year by year this fishing business gained in importance.
From eight vessels in 1737 the fleet increased to thirty
vessels in 1768;! and it will be readily seen that thirty
vessels, requiring from two to five seamen each, must have
accumulated some wealth in this little precinct. The
building of these vessels by Cohasset shipwrights out of
Cohasset timber meant a great deal of summer and winter
hauling for farmers' oxen, as well as the daily toil of a
score or more men at the shipyards in Little Harbor and
the Cove. Our coopers also were in no small demand to
make barrels and casks for packing fish, and these all in
turn made a market for farmers and millers.

The mention of millers calls to mind the items of
sawmill and corn mill occurring in the tax list of 1737.
A half of a sawmill was taxed to Joshua Bates for that
year ; but we know that he owned only seven sixteenths
of it, for he sold out to Aaron Pratt four years afterwards
for twenty pounds his seven sixteenths. This mill was
on Turtle Island, where the old iron works had been ; but

* See Nehemiah Hobart's Diary, p. 26, or History of Hingham, Vol. I, Pt. H,

P- 173-

t" In 1768 there were 30 vessels owned in the second precinct aggregating 305
tons — the smallest of these was 4 tons, the largest was 35 tons burden." — George
Lincolii, History of Hingham, Vol. I, Pt. II, p. 171.

250 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

the iron works had long been abandoned, and the sawmill,
under the management of Aaron Pratt the second, made
lumber for many Cohasset dwellings and vessels. It is
said that this Aaron Pratt was almost a banker for many
Cohasset homes, because his lumber deals made so many
housebuilders his debtors. Another half of a sawmill was
taxed in the year 1737 to Joseph Hudson, who lived on
Jerusalem Road near Straits Pond. He owned further-
more three sixteenths of the corn mill that was then stand-
ing at the outlet of Straits Pond. Another three six-
teenths of this corn mill belonged to Andrew Beal, a
Cohasseter. But there was another corn mill at the
opposite end of the community, at the mouth of Bound
Brook, owned by the sons of Mordecai Lincoln, Jacob and
Isaac. Jacob lived in Scituate, but Isaac was a Cohasseter,
and dwelt in the old gambrel-roofed house now standing a
few hundred feet from Bound Rock on South Main Street.

All these Cohasset mill owners were adding strength to
the community by their product and their profit.

It may have been during this precinct period that an-
other corn mill was started in the woods a half mile
beyond King Street, on a stream that flows into Turkey
Hill Run. To-day the remains may be seen by an ex-
plorer in the woods. The dam is there, a mound of earth
heaped up across a narrow valley on both sides of a little
brook, and a millstone partly cut lies upturned in a thicket
of beech trees about three hundred yards to the northeast
of the dam. This half-finished upper stone we have called
the Mystery Millstone, for no one living knows anything
about its origin or the reason for abandoning it.

It is even suggested that an Indian attack might have
scared away the makers ; but a more credible guess is that
this favorable spot for a dam and a suitable flat stone thus
near to it might have lured on some industrious Cohas-
seter until he saw that the project would not pay. The
stone was probably broken off by nature from a round

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM.

2^1

glacial bowlder which now rests a few feet away, and lay
with its flat, circular side upturned, suggesting the idea of
a millstone. The author has seen just such another stone
in the woods a mile back of the old Mordecai Lincoln
house; but any of the glacial bowlders are so subject to
cracks as to make poor millstones. However, two corn
mills were enough.

Of the other industries that urged on the precinct's

Photo, M. H. Reamy.

Mystery Millstone, Back of Town Hill, half mile west
OF King Street.
No one knows who made it, nor when, nor why.

growth as early as the year 1737 coopering was an impor-
tant one. Fish barrels and firkins and tubs had to be
made in some abundance to supply the growing trade with
Boston ; so that several coopers, among whom were Heze-
kiah Tower and his son David, were kept busy for a part
of the year in their little shops, or in sheds at the back of
their houses.

252 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

There are no shops mentioned in the tax list of 1737,
but there were doubtless tan shops, blacksmith shops, and
cooper shops, for those industries were practiced in this
precinct at that time. A blacksmith shop on the west
side of Beechwood Street, not far from Turtle Island, is
said to have forged out the bolts for some of the first
shipbuilding in Cohasset.

Nevertheless, we were but a small community and
scattered in those days. Only about fifty houses could be
counted in the whole precinct at the year 1737. Of these
King Street had perhaps six ; Rocky Nook and Hall Street,
eight ; Beechwood, ten ; Jerusalem Road, six ; Main Street,
thirteen for its whole length of three miles ; and the Cove
region had about seven houses. This is a careful estimate
from a study of the names in the tax list of 1737.

It will be noticed that this distribution was governed by
the need of land for farms, so that the Cove region, which is
now the most densely populated, was then fairly empty.
But the fishing industry had just begun its growth, and bits
of land large enough to hold a sailor's home near by the
sea, nestling against rocky ledges or edging out upon the
marshes, were soon to be in demand.

Growth was slow, and how could it have been other-
wise .'' There was no idle capital in those days eagerly
seeking investment in new communities, and our citizens
could use for advancing their fisheries or manufactures
only such means as their tireless energy and pinching
economy had slowly accumulated.

This handicapping may be readily seen by comparison
with the fishing industry of Hingham at that period.

Although Cohasset enterprise made her foremost in
this business, so that she had more than twice the tonnage
of the mother town in 1737, yet as soon as the greater
capital of that town began to pour into the lucrative busi-
ness, Cohasset was readily surpassed. The Leavitts and
Captain Francis Barker of Hingham so advanced the

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM.

253

marine industry of the mother town beyond us that in
the year 1754 there were two wharves in Hingham owned
by them, while we had only one, and its size was about
one fifth that of the Hingham wharfage.

This first wharf at our Cove large enough to be taxed
as valuable property (in 1754) was owned by Samuel Bates,
whose enterprise was a boon to Cohasset and whose
descendants were kings in the Cohasset fisheries until the
fisheries were abandoned. The place of that first wharf
was probably at or near where the late John Bates' wharf
now is ; for this last fishing merchant was a nephew of
Samuel Bates' grandson, and the successor to the original
business.

But the fishing industry was only a small one at the
date of 1737, and whether there was any wharf at all
worth taxing is not shown by the tax list of that year. It
may be well to say here that the recurrence of this date
1737 is not because the date marks an epoch in Cohasset
history, but because the tax list of that date is the only
one the author can find subsequent to the year 171 1 until
the year 1753.

The houses of the precinct at that time numbered about
fifty, as we have noted already. How many of those fifty
houses have survived the decay of a hundred and sixty-
one years until the present time cannot be told with
certainty ; but the following have been traced to that time
and earlier.

Perhaps the oldest fragment of a dwelling house now
standing is a part of the present Norfolk House. Thomas
James settled at that spot upon the end of the strip
(lot 59) which was granted to his father, Francis James.
The exact date of his settlement is not known ; but he
married in 1704 the daughter of Ibrook Tower, who then
was living where Abraham H. Tower now lives beside our
Common, and it is fair to infer that Thomas James set up
his first home in the year 1704 or 1705.

254

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

It is said by descendants that at least a part of the
original house is now included in the enlarged building
known as the Norfolk House.

This house has only a fragment that is so old ; but
probably the oldest complete house now standing is the
Lincoln dwelling upon South Main Street, where Morde-
cai Lincoln is supposed to have built it for his son Isaac
as early as 171 7.

Photo, Florence R. Rhodes.

Lincoln Homestead, South Main Street.
Built about 1717 by Mordecai Lincoln, ancestor of President Abraham Lincoln.

Next to this probably is a part of the home of Robert
T, Burbank on King Street nearly opposite the old cellar
of Hezekiah Tower. The back part of this house stands
over an old cellar wholly separate from the front cellar,
which itself dates back fully a century and a half. This
rear part is thought to have been built as early as the
year 1720.

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM.

255

The next in antiquity, and one that has the most defi-
nite record of all, is the home of the late Rev. Joseph
Osgood, D.D.

It was built by the first pastor of the town, Nehemiah
Hobart.

In his diary he says, " Raised my House Oct. 15, 1722.
I came to Dwell in my House Jan. 20 1724-25." This
and the Lincoln house are now substantially as they were

IIUMt UK lilK LATE REV. JOSlil'H OSGUul-.

Built 1722 by Rev. Nehemiah Hobart, the first pastor of the precinct.

at first in general shape, the Lincoln house having a
gambrel roof and this a straight gable.

Another peculiar style of architecture is the gable roof
of many old houses having the front rafters so short that
there is room for two stories in front, while the back
rafters slope nearly to the ground upon the other side.

A fine sample of this sort is the present home of
Samuel James, built in the year 1729.

256 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

It Stands upon King Street at the west end of the lot
that formerly reached to the site of the Norfolk House.

Thomas James, who built as we supposed in 1705
where the Norfolk House now is, gave to his oldest son,
Thomas, the upper end of his lot, and there in the year
1729 the young Thomas James built his home that still
remains in the family name.

If only some one could discover the tax lists that have
been lost previous to the list of 1737 several more ancient
houses could be traced back.

There is one on North Main Street which has an
Indian legend connected with it going back to a very
early date. It is the home of Thomas Lincoln Bates and
of the late John Bates, his brother. The widow of Heze-
kiah Lincoln used to tell her little grandson, Thomas
Bates, the father of the two brothers named, that the
Indians long ago used to glide unseen up to the door, and,
pushing it open, they would ask in a gruff tone for some
corn. The grandmother told many times how startL'd
she had been by the stealthy savages, whose camp was in
some neighboring hollow, and whose indolent ways made
begging for corn a necessity. The father of this grand-
mother was Hezekiah Lincoln, whose boyhood was men-
tioned in our chapter on "The First Homes" ; and if he
built this house when he married, it would date back to
the year 171 1.

Of the fifty houses in the tax list of 1737 some others
are supposed now to be standing in Beechwood : Prince
Joy's, Ebenezer Kent's, Stephen Stoddard's, Isaac Bates',
and perhaps others named in the list.

One or two of the old houses on King Street near to
the railway station of that name were Beal houses, and
may be followed back to a date much earlier than 1737.

To any one that will study the list of fifty dwellings of
that year there may come the discovery of still further
ancient dwellings, but enough have been mentioned to

SEPAKA TION FROM II INGHAM. 257

preserve in our day the flavor of those early precinct
days.

It is interesting to note, furthermore, that more than
twenty-five acres of orchard, eighty acres of tillage land,
and one hundred and fifty acres of mowing land were in use
as early as 1737 ; but such was the growth of the precinct
and the energy of its inhabitants that these figures were
all doubled in sixteen years, as the tax list of 1753 reveals.

The houses had multiplied from about fifty to nearly
one hundred ; and the doubling process was so universal
in the wealth and population of the precinct that this
sixteen-year period from 1737 to 1753 might fairly be
named the hundred per cent era.

It was at about the height of this energetic progress
that the efforts to break away from the domination of the
Hingham town government were inaugurated.

The vigorous precinct had been forced by its growth to
tear down the old meeting-house and to build larger.

No sooner was the new large building finished than
the agitation began which culminated in the charter for
the separate township of Cohasset.

On February 11, 175 1, the pulse of the community was
first taken upon the subject of separation. The record
reads : " A vote was tryed whether we should Petetion the
other part of y^ Town that we might be sett off a distinct
District or Township — passed in y'^ affirmative." John
Stephenson, Samuel Gushing, and Isaac Lincoln, Jr., were
appointed a committee to present this petition at the next
town meeting at Hingham, in May of that year.

They performed their disagreeable duty on May 16,
175 1, and the Hingham records read as follows: "The
Petition of the Inhabitants of Cohassett Read & the Ques-
tion put whether the prayer of the petition be Granted —
passed in the negative."

This was the first repulse in their twenty years of
petitioning for town rights. The next move was to ap-

258 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

peal to the General Court ; but at the August meeting
of that year the effort was put off.

After talking about the matter all that winter and
grumbling about their having to travel so far to Hingham
town meetings over their wretched roads, they voted again
the next spring, March 4, 1752, to petition the town for a
divorce. They added two more votes : first, if Hingham
refused, the matter should be carried to the General
Court ; and second, if Hingham consented, they would
go to that same higher legislative body to have the matter
confirmed. Money was appropriated from the treasury to
pay the expenses of this petitioning. On May 14, 1752,
just about one year from the first refusal, the following
Hingham record was made: "The Petition of Sam'l
Gushing Esq"", Messrs Isaac Lincoln the third & Daniel
Lincoln in behalf of them Selves & the Second Parrish in
s'^ Town that the s"^ Parrish m&y be Set off a Seprate Dis-
trict or Town, Read & the Question put whether the prayer
of the petition be Granted — passed in the negative."
Again the matter rested. In the mean while, to secure the
hearty codperation of the Beechwood residents, the advo-
cates of separation made a pledge to back up the Beech-
wood demand for lands to pay for the land they had
sacrificed in laying out "Wood" Street through their lots,
as we mentioned in a previous chapter.

Once again, November 27, 1752, the walls of the church
on our Common echoed the determined vote to petition
the town for separation. A new committee was chosen,
consisting of Lazarus Beal, Aaron Pratt, and David Bates.

But this Beechwood alliance was no more successful
than the former petition.

On the following March 19, 1753, the original committee
of three were again appointed to get the plea for separa-
tion before the General Court at Boston, but there is no
minute in the records of the General Court that shows
whether the petition was sent to Boston.

T

SEPARA TION FR OM HINGHAM. 259

For three years this agitation had been rife in the pre-
cinct, and nothing had come of it but disappointments.
Now for three years the matter was given up. It was not
wholly given up, however, for the demand was too deeply
justified in the nature of things to be relinquished very
long.

The harbor of this community was separated from the
other harbor at Hingham by a long fifteen miles — nearly
as much as from Boston ; and it was much easier on
account of the winds and tides to go to Boston than to
the other harbor of our own town.

Add to this absurdity of keeping two such distant har-
1 bors under one town government, the other great difficulty
of a connection overland.

The distance was five miles only, but such a five miles
as wearied both soul and body. The joltings of their two-
wheeled ox carts were simply terrible. And even if men
should ride horseback the journey was a tedious one, with
very few stretches of road where the horse could gallop
safely. And the Beechwood people had still farther, even
as many as nine miles to travel, if they went by the old
cartway to the Hingham town meetings. It is true that
the Beechwood people had a short cut of four miles to
the Hingham meeting-house, where the town meetings
were held ; but that short cut was only a footpath, so that
all who rode must go the long " nine-mile " way through
Cohasset.

Another difficulty was the frequency of their town
meetings. Nowadays our town meetings occur usually but
once a year at a time when hours are not so precious to
laboring men ; but in those days there were sometimes four
in one year, part of them coming during the busy summer
or at any other inconvenient time.

Who could wonder at the grumbling of dwellers in this
precinct who were unwilling to lose so much time attend-
ing to the town's business .-^ And attend they must, for

26o HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

ordinances that deeply concerned their welfare were being^
passed at any of these town meetings. Furthermore, the
town treasurer was too inaccessible so far away. To pay
him one's taxes or for the school committee to receive
from him the annual grant for schools required a deal of
traveling, which grew ever more irksome as the precinct
became populous enough for a town by itself.

Besides these compulsory trips to Hingham there was
the necessity for any person intending marriage to travel
to the clerk in Hingham to announce his intentions legally.

But what need is there further to specify the difficulties
suffered by the inhabitants of this precinct in their un-
fortunate subjection to the mother town }

After three years of waiting, some of the people much
discouraged and others indifferent, again the precinct, on
March 29, 1766, voted its double-barreled petition, one to
Hingham and the other to the General Court.

The next May 19, Hingham braced itself against the
charge. The town "voted to adjourn all articles preced-
ing that of the East precinct's Petition, untill that was
Considered. Then the s*^ Petition was Read and after a
Long debate upon the Subject matter of it, the Question
was put whether the prayer thereof should be Granted —
passed in the Negative." That long and exciting debate
called forth the strongest efforts of our precinct ; but
their hopes were stunned by that obstinate " Negative "
vote.

Not for many years did the loyal advocates of this pre-
cinct again besiege the town for their independence.

This defeat apparently discouraged the General Court
petition, for the records of that court show no sign that
the petition ever reached it.

Four years afterwards, on May 27, 1760, the precinct
recovered enough to vote that its petition be presented to
the General Court ; but the discouraged ones prevailed,
and that vote was withdrawn.

SEPARA TION FROM H INGHAM. 2 6 I

They were just entering into a period of very hard
times when the struggle for existence was too severe for
them to undertake the greater responsibilities of town
government, A year after their last vote the crops were
nearly a failure, so that in the following spring, May 14,
1762, the town had to borrow money to buy grain lest the
people should starve. The vote was as follows : "That
;^200 be appropriated to buy Grain for the use of the
Inhabitants of s^ Town and that five hundred bushels
thereof (the due proportion in Each Parrish) be storred
for the use of the poor and those who shall be hereafter
in want. And as there is not a surplusage of money now
in the hand of the Treasurer he is hereby ordered and
directed to Borrow Said Sum of Two Hundred Pounds
untill it can be collected by a Tax."

This grain was to be sold for barely enough to pay for
^'carting" it, for " waste," for the " trouble of getting it,"
and for "interest on money." No person was allowed
more than two bushels to each member of his family.

But these periods of discouragement had to be ended.
The time came six years later when this precinct gathered
itself for a final determined wrench from Hingham. The
accompanymg petition* for a precinct meeting was dili-
gently circulated, and the sixty-four autograph signatures
were secured.

Several other towns in the province of Massachusetts

I had already been divided to accommodate the growth of

I enterprising precincts. Accordingly, on January 25, 1768,
at our precinct meeting it was voted to petition Hingham
and the General Court for a district charter, " to be in-
vested with all the Libertys and Privileges of a Town, that
of sending a Representative to the General Court only
excepted, and that they have the liberty of joining with

\ y^ Town of Hingham in the choice of a Representative

; from time to time."

* This interesting document was preserved by the care of Elisha Doane.

262

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Irta.

^JT^Z^CtAi^-' aC*^t^*.iA^ (592c*^c^» ^^rt^'T^^ns-f^ '^''~'% >^ —

(ifaHt/^' /^/^'

/

Petition i'(jk Precinct Mf.ei'ing to vote

SEPARATION FROM HI N Gil AM,

26'

UPON THE Question of becoming a Town.

264 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

The petition as it was presented to Hingham at their
March meeting was as follows : —

The Petition of the Inhabitants of the Second Precinct in
Hingham, to their beloved Brethren of the same town ; Assembled
at their annual meeting in March, 1768.

Humbly Sheweth

1. First that your Petitioners by reason of the badness of the
roads together with our distance from the place where Town
meetings are always held (the most of us living above 5 & many
6 and 7 and some 9 miles as the Road goes and more than one
half of us not being furnished with Horses) are in a great measure
deprived of the Priviledge of having a Voice in the Choice of Offi-
cers and other Affairs usually transacted at the annual Meeting in
March.

2. Secondly that about one tenth part of the Lands within our
Precinct being owned by our Brethren in other parts of the Town
are not taxed for the support of our School nor the Mending of
our Highways which are naturally so rough as to require greater
expense in Repairs than perhaps all the other roads in the Town.

3. Thirdly that although we consist of 136 families & our Rate-
able Polls and Number of Voters are nearly one third part of the
whole Town vet we are allowed to have but one out of five of the
Selectmen.

4. Fourthly that the Monies for Records, Certificates, &c, all
Entered in the first Precinct, and that the trouble and expense
of travelling so far to transact such business, are so great as that
some Necessary Records are Undoubtedly Neglected.

5. Fifthly that our assembling but one day in the year would
be sufficient to transact the whole business which now neces-
sarily requires three meetings to our great expense and loss of
time.

Considering these difficulties, it is our earnest request that you
would from Brotherly Affection toward us, vote that we may be
set of from you as a seperate and distinct District to do the
Duties and enjoy the Priviledges of a Town that of joining with
you in the choice of a Representative Excepted, And that our
Extent be the same that it was when we were first made a Pre-

SEPARA TION FR OM HINGHAM. 265

cinct excepting the Dwelling Houses and Homesteads of the late
Ebenezer and Daniel Beal and Jeremiah Stodder these to remain
as they were when set of from us. Moreover that you would con-
firm to us that part of the Grist Mill at Strait's Pond which is now
taxed here and also let us still enjoy our right in the Town Pow-
der House, Arms, Ammunition &c, and allow us the money for
our part of the Wharfe which we lately joined with you in build-
ing at the Town Cove.

We are fully sensible Brethren that it is in your Power & we
doubt not agreeable to your inclination to remove some of the
Difificulties beforementioned, but we beg leave to observe that the
most Material of them are absolutely insuperable. Particularly our
Distance from the usual place of Town Meetings, the badness
of the Roads and the Multiplication of our Meetings for the
Transaction of our present Precinct Business : wherefore suffer us
to entreat that the prayers of our petition be granted Viz. that
you will do what in you lies that we may be Incorporated as a
Seperate District with the above Mentioned Priviledges.

The Hingham tovi^n records for this period are not to
be found in the town safety vault, so that the disposal of
this petition may only be guessed. The town appointed
a committee to meet the General Court in opposition to
the Cohasset committee. But the petition was already
storming the citadel with promise of a complete victory.
In the March meeting of our precinct the committee was
reappointed to renew its petition to the General Court and
to "persue the same to the final issue."

In that summer session of the court, June 30, 1669,
the persistent petition came up before the higher house of
legislators in Boston, and was read as follows : —

To his Excellency Sir Francis Bernard Baronet Capt General
and Governour in Chief in and Over his Majesty's Province of
the Massachusetts Bay in New England, to the Honb' Council
and House of Representatives in General Court Assembled June
12, 1769

266 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

The Petition of a Committee in behalf of the Inhabitants of
the Second Precinct of the Town of Hingham humbly Sheweth

That the Said Inhabitants by Reason of the badness of the
Roads, the difificulty of the Season and their distance from the
place where their Town Meetings are always held, the most of
them living more than five and many Six or Seven and Some
nine miles as the Road goes are often deprived of the Priviledge
of having a Voyce in the Affairs transacted at the Annual Meet-
ing in March, and they are obliged to Assemble Oftner than
would be Necessary if they were seperated into a District or
deprive themselves of the Priviledge ; That they have been de-
prived of the Tax Raised on a Considerable part of the Real
Estate within Said Precinct towards the Support of the Schools,
and also for the Repairs of Highways which are naturally so
Rough as to require a greater Expence for Repairs tlian Perhaps
all the other Roads in the Town. And that they are also Obliged
(although Consisting of more than One hundred and thirty Fam-
ilies) to Travel to the Centre of the first Parish for the Banns of
Matrimony Certificates, Records &c : which is a very great
Burthen, and that undoubtedly Some necessary Records are neg-
lected which in time may prove very detrimental and many more
Difficulties might be mentioned : — Wherefore your Petitioners
humbly pray that your Excellency and Honors would be pleased
to Sett off all the Lands lying in Said Precinct into a distinct and
Seperate District, and that the Inhabitants may be vested with all
the Priviledges of a Town, that of Sending Representatives to
the General Assembly only excepted : Notwithstanding that they
may yet enjoy the Priviledge of joining with the Town in the
Choice thereof. And that they may also enjoy their Rights in
the Town Wharfe So called ; and in the Powder House, Arms and
Ammunition &c. and that they have a Right of Taxing the one
half of the Grist Mill at Straits pond So Called or Otherwise as
to your Excellency and Honours Shall Seem meet.

And we beg leave further to Observe that we presented the
foregoing Petition in June last and it past both Houses & the
Town Clerk was serv*^ with a Coppy but by Reason of the Dissatis-
(fac)tion of the General Court the Matter was not brought to an
Issue :

SEPARA TION FROM HINGHAM. 267

Wherefore we humbly pray that the same may now be Consid-
ered and Acted upon as to your Excellency and Honours Shall
Seem meet.

And your Petitioners as in Duty bound Shall ever pray &c.

ISAAC LINCOLN Junr
JOHN STEPHENSON Junb
LAZs BEAL Junk

The matter was deferred until the following March 28,
1770, when the answer of the Hingham committee ap-
pointed to prevent the separation was read.

It was plainly an advantage to Hingham that the Co-
hasset section be retained on account of the strength of
numbers and of wealth, which any town needs in the per-
formance of its domestic ordinances as well as in its larger
functions of State legislation.

It was fitting, therefore, that the most eminent political
leaders of Hingham should be appointed to preserve the
integrity of the town.

The following is their noble plea in remonstrance to the
Cohasset petition : —

To his Honor Thomas Hutchinson Esq. Lieut. Gov. & Com-
mander in Chief of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, the
Honbi his Majesties Council and House of Representatives in
General Court assembled.

The Respondants to a Petition of the Second Parish in Hing-
ham beg leave to observe that your Petitioners in the first place
say " by Reason of the Badness of the Roads the Difficulty of
the Season and their distance from the Place where Town Meet-
ings are alway held the most of them living more than five some
six or seven and some nine miles as the Road goes are often
Deprived of the Priviledge of having a voice in the affairs Trans-
acted at their annual Meeting in March, and that they are
obliged to assemble Oftener then they would if they were made a
District "

As to the Roads, they have been Repaired by the united assist-
ance of the whole Town and are now very passable and are not
Difficult to travel in Even with Carriages.

268 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

As to the Distance from the Place where Our Town Meetings
are always held it is true the Centre of the Second Parish is
about five Miles from the Center Meeting House in the Town
where Town Meetings have been held as tlje whole was there
best accomodated being Near y^ Real Centre of the Town and
such of their People who are at the greatest distance as the Road
goes (or as the Highway is) are the most Indifferent with respect
to being set off for the way by them Generally Used to Assemble
at Town Meetings is but little further then they would have to
travel if they were made a District.

The Petitioners say they must assemble oftener while united ;
this cannot be considered as very Burthen seeing we have but
Two Town Meetings in a year unless something very perticular
Viz. March & May the Latter they ask to Attend and the former
being at a very Leisure Season of the year.

"The Petitioners complain that they have been deprived of
the Tax Raised on a Considerable part of the Real Estate within
Said Parish Towards the Support of the Schools, Repairs of High-
ways, &c." With Respect to the Schools the Case is truly this
for many years past the Inhabitants of Each Parish have been
allowed to draw out of the Treasury the whole of the money
Raised for the use of the Schools which they placed therein And
improve it for the purpose to which it was appropriated in a
manner they should think best comported with their circum-
stances while the first Parish have kept the Grammer School
which by Law the Town is obliged to do and in the country is
Looked upon as the Burthen the Doors of which have at all
times been opened to the Grammer scholars of both the other
parishes by the free and united consent of the whole.

As to their Roads we are Constrained to observe that we look
upon the representation given as to y*^ Badness of them to be
greatly Exaggerated by the Petitioners for it is Conceived by
many that they do not want Greater Expence of repairs yearly
than an equal proportion with the other Roads in the Town Not-
withstanding that the Town ever has taken part of the Roads in
the Second Parish and made them without any of their assist-
ance, and more lately since the Highway, have been repaired by
a Tax, the whole they asked for hath been done for them to the
amount of four or five pounds Lawful Money in a year.

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM. 269

The petitioners further Complain that they have to travel to the
Centre of the First Parish for Banns of Matrimony &c. this we
leave to operate as it stands seeing the Clerk is chosen by the
United Suffrages of the whole therefore remaining Quite an un-
certainty to which parish for y^ future we may be obliged to
Travel. Upon the whole we humbly submit the Observations by
us made to the wisdome and Justice of your Honor & Honors
And if you should think so widely different from us as to Judge
it Expedient and for the Benefit of this People to Cause a Divi-
sion of the Town of Hingham which is now supposed to be less
than five miles square, notwithstanding the many disadvantages
that must arise thereby to divide old towns for the reasons offered
by your petitioners, your Respondants must submit to it.

Should that be the case we beg leave further to Observe as to
the Bounds they ask for (upon supposition they don't Intend to
Include a number of Families and their Homesteads which was
reannexed to the Old Parish a.d. 1747*) their Joining with us in
Choice of a Representative to the General Court their holding
their Right in the Powder House Arms & Amunition and the sole
right of Taxing One half of the Mill at Straights Pond so called
we acquiesce in ; but as to their Enjoying their Right in the
Town Wharf we view in a very different light, for it is Built upon

* Hingham March 2nd 1746-47. Pursuant to the orders of the First and Second
Parishes in Hingham to run ye Line between ye s<J Precincts Wee, the subscribers
have proceeded as followeth — the Dividing Line begins, as by order of the Court,
at the Bridge on Hingham side, near ye dwelling-house formerly Lazell's at
Straights Pond, and continues as the rhoad or highway runs from thence unto ye
hill called Turkey Hill, and from thence we run by the East side of ye Land called
Turkey Hill Lane over sd Hill South about 5 deg. East and from thence South
about eleven and ^ deg. East 1% miles and about 40 rods, to ye North-west end
of ye Line between ye 53 & 54 Lotts in ye second part of ye thud Division — by
a range of Trees and Stakes marked and lettered with a marking iron W westerd
& E eastwd and stones laid about ym from thence to ye Pattent Line between
said 53 & 54 Lotts the Course is supposed to be about South 32 or 33 deg. East
all ye courses above mentioned being by ye needle.

JOHN JACOB
JACOB BEAL
SOLOMON CUSHING
ABEL CUSHING
EBENr BEAL
STEPHEN STODDER
Committees 0/ ye First 6* Second Precincts.

270

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

a spot of ground of Eight or Ten Rods (the only Spot tlie Town
hath at the Cove so calld) which Nature made fit for a Landing
place and for that purpose it hath been Improved from the first
Settlement of the Town. Now should they continue to hold
their right in the same they would enjoy a certain priviledge with-
out their Bounds while they ask to hold all within. Should they
ask then that the expense of building be refunded to them we
say it hath been already, for the Wharf and the landing place
Afores^ hath let for more money then the Building of it Cost ;
but if there had been none refunded we should judge the asking
for it an unreasonable request as the first motion for a Building
the wharf was to secure the Gristmill adjoining thereto and in
that they will continue to enjoy their former benefit.

And we ask that they be held to take their Just Proportion of
the Public Taxes for the future according to the Last Valuation
and the same proportion of the present poor, and in case any
who have now removed from the Town of Hingham and have
not gained a legal settlement elsewhere should any of them
return, that they pay their Proportion of that Expence as afore —
All which is Humbly P.

JOSHUA HEARSEY
BENJAMIN LINCOLN Junr
JOSEPH ANDREWS
JOSEPH THAXTER
THEOPH. GUSHING
Committee of the Town of Hiiighat/i to make
answer to the Second Parish petition

Hingham March 26th 1770

These two petitions are remarkably free from personal
spites and are fairly clear in their statements of the case.
It v^^ill be readily seen that the Hingham argument only
trimmed a little off from the CoTiasset pleas without essen-
tially weakening them. And, most of all, the desire to be
a separate town with the manifest ability to take care of
themselves was an unanswerable argument for separation.
The espousers of independence were not, however, free
from opposition in their own precinct, as we shall soon see.

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM.

271

On that twenty-eighth of March, 1770, the General
Court, consisting of both Council and House, appointed
three men, Jonathan Bradbury, Colonel Gerrish, and
Major Bancroft, who were ordered April 11 "to repair to
Hingham, as soon as may be, view the said Parish, and
report to the Court what in their opinion is proper to be
done."

An interesting document of remonstrance was written
to this committee from a sturdy dweller in Beechwood,
who seems to have been the only objector with the courage
to sign his name.

It reads as follows : —

To the Honb' John Bradbury Chaireman of Comm.

We the Subscriber Who are Inhabitants of the Second Parish
in Hingham & Petitiners that the Same may not be made a
Destrect, beg Leave to offer the following Reasons for our Dessent-
ing from the other Part of the Parish, that is

ist. The Parish is Small

2 The fishery fails Which is a Considerable Part of our Depend-
ance

3 It is Represented to be Nine Miles to Tend Publick Meet-
ings. We are the Parley and by going four we Cann attend metings
for it is that Dist to our own Meeting house

4 We have been att the charge of bulding a Wharfe and Pow-
der house in s^ Town.

5 . We are Threatened that we Shall not Draw our Proportion
of the School money, as has been for years Past by Reason the
Inhabitants Living So Scattering that Small Children may Have the
benefit of Schools

6. It is our minds that Halfe the Parish would Chuse to Con-
tinue as we are

7. And We are Pers waded that it will Create Charge Which our
Present Circumstances will not admit of.

8. We ar apprehensive it is only Push^ by Designing men

9. We understand it is Represented that what we have Done is
out of Spite which is altogather Groundless. Where as we only
mean the good of the Parish.

272 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

10 It is Represented to be Chargable to attend Publick meet-
ings att Such a Distance Which we think would Cost as much att
our Parish Considering the kindness of the Towns people.

1 1 . Where as their has been Complaint made about School
money, by Reason of their Lands Lying in our Parish, for Which
they have always Kept the Grammar School & it is thought by our
Principal men that if we are set of, we should Not Raise So much
money as is allowed by the Town.

'"peSnl^l JOSEPH SOUTHER
HiNGHAM April 6. 1770

The committee was entertained at Lazarus Beal's, and
the court charged the expense of the committee, £,^
lys. lod., to the whole town.

April 25, 1770, upon the return of the committee, the
petitioners* were given liberty to frame a bill for incorpo-
rating themselves into a separate district.

The next day, April 26, 1770, the following charter,
which had been carefully prepared, was made a legislative
document for the foundation of our town : —

THE PROVINCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

■^^EAI^^

ANNO ^X^V^ REGNI REGIS

■^SEAL^
GEORGII TERTII ^C ^>^^ DECIMO.

An act for incorporating the second Precinct in Hingham into
a District, by the name of Cohasset.

Whereas the Inhabitants of the second Precinct in Hingham
labor under many difficulties and inconveniences by reason of
their not being incorporated into a District.

Be it enacted by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and House
of Representatives, that the inhabitants and lands within the
present bounds of the second Precinct in the Town of Hingham
(excepting a number of families and their Homesteads which
were reannexed to the first Precinct in said Town in the year one

*The cost of all this petitioning was;^ii2 2S. lod. old tenor, and it was ordered
paid in 1770 after he district got into running order.

SEPARATION FROM HINGHAM. 273

thousand seven hundred & forty seven) be and hereby are incor-
porated into a District, by the name of Cohasset ; and that the
inhabitants thereof be and hereby are invested with all the
powers, privileges, and immunities which the inhabitants of Towns
within this Province do, or by law ought to enjoy (that of sending
a Representative to the general assembly only excepted) and that
the inhabitants of said District shall have liberty, from time to
time, to join with the Town of Hingham in the choice of a Repre-
sentative or Representatives, which Representative or Representa-
tives may be chosen indifferently from said Town or District, the
pay or allowance of such Representative or Representatives to be
borne by the said Town or District, according to their respective
proportions of the Province Tax and that the Town of Hingham
as often as they shall call a meeting for the choice of Representa-
tives, shall from time to time give seasonable notice to the Clerk
of said District of Cohasset for the time being, of the time and
place for holding said meeting, to the end that the said District
may join therein, and the Clerk of said District shall set up in
some public place in said District, a notification thereof accord-
ingly. And be it further enacted, that the said District shall have
the privilege of taxing that part of the Grist Mill at Strait Pond
so called which has usually been taxed by the town of Hingham,
and that the said District shall have their proportion of the
Powder House, or the value of the same, also of th^ Town's
stock of arms and ammunition ; to be adjusted by the rule of
their pay to the Province tax set on said Town of Hingham.

And be it further enacted. That the inhabitants of said District
shall take to themselves & hereafter support their just proportion
of all such poor persons as are now wholly supported by said
town of Hingham, and also their proportion of all such poor
persons as now have a settlement in the Town of Hingham, but
dwell in other places, whom the said Town of Hingham may
hereafter be obliged by law to support ; and that the inhabitants
of said District shall pay all Province, County, & Town assess-
ments, now set or assessed on them, as if they had remained to
said Town of Hingham.

And be it further enacted, that Benjamin Lincoln Esq"^ be,
and hereby is empowered to issue a warrant to some principal

2 74 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

inhabitants of said District of Cohasset, requiring him to call a
meeting of said inhabitants, in order to choose such ofificers as
towns are by law empowered to choose in the month of March
annually; and at said meeting such persons, inhabitants in said
District shall be allowed to vote, and only such, as would have
been allowed to vote in the choice of town officers in the said
Town of Hingham if this act had not been made.

April 26th, 1770 — This bill having been read three Several
times in the House of Representatives, passed to be enacted.

THOMAS GUSHING, Speaker.

April 26, 1770 — This bill having been read three several times
in the council — passed to be enacted.

A. OLIVER, Sec'y.

April 26, 1770. By the Lieutenant Governor I consent to the
enacting of this Bill.

J. HUTCHINSON.
A true copy.

Attest, ALDEN BRADFORD,

Secy of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Pursuant to this legislative act, Benjamin Lincoln gave
notice immediately for a meeting to be held in the Co-
hasset meeting-house on the Common.

The sturdy citizens met gladly on May 7, 1770. The
work of twenty years was accomplished. Just one hun-
dred years had passed since the lands were divided, fifty-
three years had rolled along since they had become a
precinct, and now was held on the seventh day of May,
1770, their first town meeting in the church on the Com-
mon, with the man for moderator who had borne the brunt
of the fight, Deacon Isaac Lincoln.

Although technically only a district, it is plain that we
were practically a town. In fact, the Legislature so inter-
preted the matter officially when in the year 1786 they
passed the general act that all districts incorporated be-
fore 1777 should be towns.

SEPARAT/OiV FROM MING J JAM.

275

I'he list of Cohasset taxpayers for the year i 771 — the first after
the town's incorporation — showing valuation of real estate in
pounds and shillings. Names given in original order and spelling.

Samuel Gushing 171 12

Thomas Lothrop 383 2

Thomas Pratt ...... 236 14

Solomon Gushing 16 10

Gushing Kilby 27 o

James Stodder 61 16

Philip James 115 4

Micah Nichols 27 12

Israel Nichols 7 10

Mordecai Bates 9 o

Joshua Beal 6 o

Adam Beal 15 o

Galebjoy 9 18

Ebenezer Orcult 918

William Bailey 43 4

Thomas Bourn 38 14

Elijah James 9 o

Beza Gushing 6 o

Thomas Lincoln 140 14

John Pritchart 15 o

Richard Tower 8 8

Oliver Pritchart 9 o

Urian Oakes 99 18

Abel Kent .59 8

Thomas Stevenson 50 2

Noah Marble 22 16

Luther Stephenson 10 10

John Kilby 18 o

David Marble 18 o

Jesse Stephenson 54 6

Benjamin Jacobs 6 18

Solon Stephenson 11 8

Edward Amos 6 12

Widow Abigail Neal .... 7 10

Sam'l Gushing, Jr 7 10

Aaron [Pratt] 272 o

John Stephenson 88 4

Jerome Stephenson .... 88 4

Lusitanus Stephenson • • • 33 6

Ignatius Orcutt 114 6

Abner Bates 24 6

David Marble, Jr 9 o

Obadiah Lincoln 41 8

Solomon Bate 60 o

Edward Battles 29 8

Seth Gannett 9 o

L

Deacon Isaac Lincoln . . . 297

Mordecai Lincoln .... 92

Jacob Lincoln 183

Abraham Lincoln 89

Caleb Lincoln 7

Jesse Willcutt 67

Nathaniel Bate 38

John Wheelwright .... 24

Widow Abigail Bate .... 9

Deacon Joy 40

John Willcutt 72

Ephraim Battles 6

Joshua Bate 108

Joseph Souther 42

Elisha Bate 52

John Pratt 401

Joseph Souther, Jr 7

Israel Whitcomb 45

Job Whitcomb 45

Joseph Whitcomb 45

Lot Whitcomb 45

Jonathan Pratt 67

James Litchfield 9

Simeon Stodder 52

Seth Merritt 18

*Jacob Gushing 11

*Thomas Loring 72

*Gornelius Barns 5

*Isaiah Gushing 16

♦Deacon Benjamin [Gushing] r6

*Joseph Cashing 16

*Ebenezer Lincoln 24

*John Fearing 39

*John Burr 6

*Joseph Mansfield 4

*EIisha Burr 26

*John Leavitt 27

*Joshua Leavitt 30

*Jonathan Burr 29

*Samuel Burr 30

*rhomas Burr

*Stephen Gushing 6

*Peter Gushing 49

*Jacob Sprague 5

♦.■^cten Tower 18

*Deacon Theoph. Gushing . . 38

16

16

16

76

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

£ ^-

Jonathan Beal 113 2

Obadiah Beal 12 o

Widow Anna Humphrys . . 93 18

Joseph Hudson 36 14

Abel Beal 27 o

Hezekiah Hudson 19 10

Joseph Hudson, Jr 14 2

Matthew Stodder 612

Noah Nichols 74 8

Ephraim Lincoln iii 12

Catharine Nichols 122 2

Jazaniah Nichols 221 2

Thomas Nichols 72 18

John Tower i 10

Daniel Souther 48 o

Ebenezer Lane 69 o

Daniel Nichols 60 12

Widow Martha Leavitt ...90

Job Tower 217 10

Benjamin Beal 9 o

Abner Joy 19 10

Gideon Hayward 9 o

Samuel Bate, Jr 21 12

Stephen Stodder 121 16

Isaac Tower 9 o

James Hall 18 o

Daniel Tower, Jr 213 18

Samuel Bate 146 2

Joseph Bate 40 16

Joseph Willcutt 47 8

Sarah Phillips 17 8

Thomas Beal .... . . 100 16

Hezekiah Lincoln 192 12

Ezekiel Lincoln 12 o

£

Elisha Lincoln 149

Luke Orcutt 13

Lazarus Beal, )r 102

Hezekiah Warrick ....

Isaac Burr 19

John Beal 141

Joshua Burr 121

Timothy Gushing 9

Thomas James 105

Jonathan Bate 23

Joseph Battles 9

John Burbanks 17

Widow Joanna Tower ... 20

Jesse Warrick 6

*Benjamin Lincoln, Esq. . . 59

*Deacon Andrews 56

*Joseph Andrews 89

*Joshua Barker 6

*Elisha Leavitt 96

*Elias Magoon 21

*Jedaiah Lincoln 40

*Gaptain Francis Barker ... 12

*Enoch Lincoln 5

♦Elijah Fearing i

♦Stephen Lincoln 31

♦George Lane 47

♦Deacon Josiah Lincoln ... 33

♦Widow Elsie Hersey .... 19

♦Jacob Hersey 19

♦Matthew Lincoln 62

John Beal, Jr 40

Ebenezer Beal 15

Jeremiah Stodder 56

Pompey Bremes (negro?) . . 7

8 12

14
14

I have starred the names of those who were probably Hingham residents own-
ing real estate in Cohasset. They come at the ends of the first and second bills.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

THE independence of this community from its mother
town had been gained only five years before that
greater independence of the American colonies from their
mother nation was begun. In that mighty revolt against
a foreign tyrant the town of Cohasset bore a humble
part. In the blood of our citizens who were slain, and in
the hard-earned money we poured into the war, was a
pledge of our devotion fully commensurate with our
strength. The hardships of war had already been learned
by some of our citizens, for, during the wars between
France and England in America, many Cohasset young
men had borne arms for the king of England.

The famous capture of Louisburg, that massive French
fort upon the island of Cape Breton, on June 17, 1745,
was no doubt participated in by one or more men from
Cohasset.

The rolls of New England troops of that expedition
have been lost from the State archives, but John Stephen-
son, who afterwards married Nathaniel Nichols' daughter,
was on the pay roll for assisting in " wooding the garrison."

Another young man who was present at that " glorious
victory" is Ebenezer Beal, of North Cohasset, for that
name occurs upon the list of men who volunteered to
.storm the Island Battery in the harbor of Louisburg.

A third is John Wheelwright,* afterwards the tanner of
Beechwood, whose old bayonet used at Louisburg is now
in the possession of Edward Wheelwright, of Boston.

* He enlisted in 1745 at twenty-six years of age under Pepperell as a private in
the 7th Massachusetts Regiment, Shubael Gorham colonel, 4th company, Elisha
Doane captain. November 20, 1745, he was in one of" the 3 Companies that Doe
Duty in the town." (See the original Pepperell Papers, Massachusetts Historical
Society, Vol. H, p. 51.)

278 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

Francis Parkman's thrilling history of the romantic
exploit of Louisburg belongs therefore partly to us. If
there were no other soldiers from this community, the
whole precinct nevertheless participated in the victory ;
for the increased provincial taxes to carry on Governor
Shirley's patriotic ventures were paid by all.

For ten years after this Louisburg expedition nothing
called forth our soldiers until the troublesome French
Acadians in Nova Scotia were to be banished in 1755.
One Cohasset soldier was Gideon Hayward, who happens
to be mentioned by Colonel Lincoln in 1759 as having
been with him in the Nova Scotia expedition of 1755.
Another is Robert Tower, who died in the army Septem-
ber 18, .1756, aged twenty-one, the grandson of Hezekiah
Tower. But not until the year 1757 did the first strong
excitement of war sweep through our precinct.

It was when the French army of eight thousand men
was marching upon Fort William Henry of northern New
York held by only twenty-two hundred English soldiers.
General Webb at Fort Edward in his frenzy sent for
reinforcements, and among the hundreds who quickly
responded from Massachusetts were no less than twenty
men from Cohasset. The whole precinct had only one
hundred and fifty men in it that year, and the excitement
must have been intense to have taken so many. The
captain of one of the companies was Ebenezer Beal,
about fifty-six years of age, who had already gained ex-
perience at Louisburg twelve years before. He kept the
Black Horse Tavern at North Cohasset, where curses
upon the French were frequently enough aired in the
hearing of those who stopped on their way to and fro.

The first lieutenant of the company was Daniel Lincoln,
some thirty-eight years old. The fourth sergeant was
Obadiah Lincoln, and the third corporal Elisha Tower,
Jr., both twenty-nine years of age.

The following privates, with their ages as nearly as can

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

279

be ascertained, have been picked out of the list of the
company, which includes many from the two other pre-
cincts of the town : —

John Wheelwright .

• 57

Micah Nichols . .

. . 20

Job Tower

• 31

Simeon Bates

• • 19

John Pratt . . .

. 29

Ignatius Orcutt . .

• • 19

Calvin Gushing .

. 26

Hosea Orcutt . .

. . 18

Jacob Beal . .

. 22

Frederic Bates . .

. . 18

Price Pritchart . .

20

In another company Noah Nichols was first corporal,
and the following from Cohasset were privates : —

Thomas Lothrop
Uriah Oakes . .

19

28

Caleb Joy .
Obadiah Beal

26

27

Some Hingham soldiers had already gone to the front
and were in danger of being annihilated by the over-
whelming army of French and Indians about Lake
George. It was partly the hope of rescuing these friends
or at least of gaining a soldier's revenge that mustered
out twenty young men from this little precinct of one
hundred and fifty.

The oldest of the privates was only thirty-one and the
youngest was eighteen, so that between these ages there
could not have been left in town a dozen men.

They started the march on the fifteenth of August,
1757; but the purpose of the expedition was dead before
they started. Fort William Henry had already surren-
dered, after a brave resistance, on August 9 ; and on the
next day fell that savage butchery of helpless captives
that usually attended the victories of the French with
their Indian allies. The relief expedition was therefore
of no avail. In eight days after leaving they returned to
their homes.

But the war was not ended, and this taste of army life
was for some the beginning of a soldier's career.

2 8o HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

The next year, 1758, a more serious enlistment was
made for the prosecution of the war that resulted in the
capture of all Canada, and the final termination of French
control in the colonies. The Cohasset men who enlisted
in this year were, with their ages : —

Shadrach Tower • • • 37 Micah Nichols .

Calvin Cushing . . . . 27 Thomas Lothrop

Oliver Southward . . (?)34 Mordica Bates .

Solon Stephenson ... 24 David Bates , .

Nathaniel Bates .... 24 Jerome Stephenson

Abner Bates 23 Joseph Battles, Jr.

21
20
20
20
20
18

These were all privates under Captain Edward Ward, of
Hingham, and their fellow soldiers were thirty-seven more
townsmen from the two other precincts.

These, and probably others in other companies, lists of
which are imperfect or wholly lost, maneuvered in New
York State and on the border of Canada during that sum-
mer of 1758, when Bradstreet captured Fort Frontenac
on Lake Ontario with his army of provincials.

One of our men, of whose presence under Bradstreet
in that campaign we are certain, was Thomas Lothrop, a
private then, but in later years in the Revolutionary War
a colonel. Again we claim in this part of Parkman's thrill-
ing history of "Montcalm and Wolfe" a fair degree of
ownership.

Following that campaign in the West was another under-
taken in the region of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
in the year 1759. During all that summer Captain Jotham
Gay's company of Hingham men was stationed at the garri-
son in Halifax. The pastor of the Cohasset church. Rev.
John Brown, was stationed at Halifax as chaplain in the
army, and the following fragment of a letter to him from
Rev. Ebenezer Gay, the Hingham pastor and the father of
Captain Jotham Gay, is full of living interest. The date is
June 25, 1759 : " I wish you may visit Jotham and minister

THE RE VOL U TIONAR V WAR. 2 8 I

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."

This warlike minister, Rev. John Brown, we shall notice
again soon.

The second lieutenant of the company was Thomas
Lothrop, just twenty-one years of age. Other Cohasset
men in the company were : —

Luther Stephenson ... 29 Micah Nichols . . . . 22

Calvin Gushing .... 28 Jerome Stephenson . . 21

Lusitanus Stephenson . . 27 Charles Ripley . . . • (?)

Gideon Hay ward . . . (?) Micah Humphrey ... 18

In all these various expeditions of New England yeo-
men, the English authority in North America was rapidly
forcing Frenchmen to the wall. The "total reduction of
Canada" to British control was their maxim, and it was
wholly accomplished after Wolfe's marvelous capture of
Quebec, when in the year 1760 Montreal, the last strong-
hold of the French, surrendered.

But the victories of the British carried the seeds of
future failure of her authority in the American colonies.
In the first place it gave her an overweening sense of her
rights in the new country that soon degenerated into
tyranny ; and in the second place it developed an army in
these colonies so self-sufficient that when the time came
to declare our independence, there was brawn and bravery
enough to fight out our claim. The storm of the Revolu-
tion began to gather within two years of the fall of Mont-
real. The brilliant orator James Otis, of Boston, in the
year 1762 made the walls of the Massachusetts capitol
echo with these startling words : " It would be of little
consequence to the people whether they were subject to
George or Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French

282

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

king, if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could
levy taxes without Parliament," A cry of "treason"
greeted this bold statement ; but it was the sort of treason
that many patriots were beginning to feel over the tyran-
nical methods of King George's taxation of our colonies.
Then came the Stamp Act with its threat of compelling
free American subjects of the king to pay taxes on legal
documents as no other subjects of that king were com-
pelled to do. In defense of the rights of Americans the
great William Pitt hastened from a sick bed to Parliament,
where his mighty bursts of eloquence glorified American
resistance and accomplished the repeal of the odious Stamp
Act in the year 1766.

At that time we were only a precinct with a population
of less than one hundred and sixty voters, but these polit-
ical events excited the whole community.

Some one, perhaps many, owned a bronze medal struck
off in honor of William Pitt with this fond inscription:
"The man who having saved the parent pleaded with
success for her children." One of these was found a few
years ago, buried some four feet underground, in laying our
water pipes near the creek at the head of the Cove,
evidently lost there at the time when the roadway was filled
in upon the marsh at the creek. The love for the great
Earl of Chatham, which throbbed then in the hearts of
Cohasseters, may be guessed from this bronze token.

William Pitt Medal — 1766.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 283

But the time for more sturdy patriotism was yet to
come. During the ten years of excitement in Boston pre-
ceding the outbreak of war some of our young men, who
were learning their trades of shipbuilding or of what else in
that town, were fast developing their sentiments of rebellion.
But no specific deed of historic interest was participated in
by us until the memorable Tea Party of December 16, 1773.
On that occasion, which the historian John Fiske calls
"one of the most momentous days in the history of the
world," three of our young men were active participants.
We all have read of that whole day mass meeting in the
Old South Church, Boston, where a throng of seven thou-
sand men on the streets and indoors struggled to keep
down their anger while they discussed the means of pro-
tecting themselves from the tyranny of King George.
They were determined not to allow the Dartmouth to
land her cargo of tea with its odious tax ; but they had
tried in vain every lawful means of defense.

It had now grown dark and the church was dimly lighted
with candles. Amid profound stillness Samuel Adams arose and
said, quietly but distinctly, " This meeting can do nothing more
to save the country." It was the declaration of war; the law had
shown itself unequal to the occasion, and nothing now remained
but a direct appeal to force.

Scarcely had the watchword left his mouth when a war whoop
answered from outside the door, and fifty men in the guise of
Mohawk Indians passed quickly by the entrance and hastened to
Griffin's Wharf. Before the nine o'clock bell rang, the three
hundred and forty-two chests of tea laden upon three ships had
been cut open and their contents emptied into the sea. Not a
person was harmed, no other property was injured ; and the vast
crowd, looking upon the scene from the wharf in the clear frosty
moonlight, was so still that the click of the hatchets could be
distinctly heard. Next morning, the salted tea, driven by wind
and wave, lay in long rows on Dorchester beach, while Paul
Revere, booted and spurred, was riding posthaste to Philadelphia,

284 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

with the glorious news that Boston had at last thrown down the
gauntlet for the king of England to pick up.*

It is no small honor that three of our young men were
among those who boarded the vessels in that last manly-
endeavor to maintain the bulwarks of fundamental human
justice.

The oldest was Jared Joy, of Beechwood, then twenty-
four years of age and afterwards a soldier of the Revolu-
tion. His tombstone in the Beechwood Cemetery, where
he was buried in his forty-third year, receives annual
decoration at the hands of the Grand Army.

The second was Abraham Tower, twenty years of age,
the grandfather of our present town treasurer, and after
the Revolution owner of a large commerce at the Cove.

The third was James Stoddard, a lad of seventeen,
afterwards "major" in the local militia. The bits of tea
which lodged in his clothing and shoes were scattered
upon the floor at his boarding house in Boston the next
morning, and caused him no little alarm lest he might be
discovered and punished. But honor and not punishment
is now measured to all three of these Cohasset boys.

However, the wrath of English officials was to be
poured out upon Boston. The next April, 1774, General
Gage was commissioned to take control of the Common-
wealth and to annul the charter of rights. On the first
day of June he was to close the port of Boston and thus
he was to starve the citizens into obedience.

The growth of patriotism that summer was rapid and
strong. Contributions of cattle, sheep, corn, vegetables,
and fish came pouring into Boston from all the neighbor-
ing and distant towns where sympathizers abounded.

The Correspondence Committee recommended the or-
ganization of a provincial congress to meet in a safe
place and to plan for self-protection. Deacon Isaac

♦John Fiske's .American Revolution, Vol. I, p. 90.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 285

Lincoln was appointed by us at a meeting in the church
on our Common, October 7, 1774, to represent us in that
provincial congress to be held at Concord.*

At this same meeting it was voted " to have a Closet
built in sum proper place in the Meeting-house for to
deposite the District stock of Ammunition in, and the
Selectmen be a Committee to se it done."

This hiding place of the munitions of war reminds us
of the Concord people, whose hidden stores brought
British soldiers to that town only a few months later to
shed the first blood of the war.

The day following Christmas another town (or district)
meeting was held and a Committee of Inspection was
chosen to be on the watch for the town's defense. They
were : —

Jesse Stephenson. Thomas Lothrop.

Daniel Nichols. James Hall.

Samuel Bates. ■ Thomas Bourne.

Joshua Bates. Jerome Stephenson.

Deacon Isaac Lincoln. Abel Kent.
Urian Oakes.

In order that any citizens opposed f to the patriots'
cause might be detected and disposed of, a subscription
paper was drafted to be signed by all freeholders that
approved of the Continental Association, then forming
throughout the colonies for their common protection
against the invading army of the king.

Thus from that moment our governmental allegiance
was transferred away from the appointees of the king of
England to an independent congress of our own choosing.
The taxes of that year were ordered by a vote of the town,

* He was allowed 2 shillings per day for 32!/^ days and 12 shillings for his horse.

fThe doctor of the town was a Tory, Dr. Lazarus Beal, living on North Main
Street near what is now the King Street station at the Spaulding Farm. The
patriots had some trouble with him and went so far, says tradition, as to confiscate
his property. His oldest daughter many years afterwards married Dr. Lyman
Beecher as the stepmother of the famous Henry Ward Beecher.

286 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

January 5, 1775, to be paid, not to the king's treasurer, but
to the patriots' provincial treasurer, Henry Gardner, Esq.,
of Stow, a little town west of Concord. At Concord the
provincial congress was to be held on the twenty-second
day of March, and Cohasset with Hingham appointed
Col. Benjamin Lincoln to represent them. This man
afterwards became a famous general of the American army
under Washington, and received the sword of Cornwallis
at Yorktown at the close of the war.

The battle of Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775,
exploded the pent-up fury of a myriad of yeomen through-
out the colonies.

When the news reached Cohasset nearly every* man in
the town able to bear arms was ready to spring into battle.
Thomas Lothrop, who had already served in the province
wars with a lieutenant's rank, hastened to the scene of
bloodshed, where he was soon commissioned a major.

Of others who seized this first opportunity for martial
promotion was probably James Hall, who afterwards be-
came an aid to General Washington.

There were doubtless other young men who did not
wait for the formation of a company to march, but started
at once for the seat of war, because they had no family
responsibilities to keep them at home.

The whole town was trembling with excitement, and a
town meeting was immediately called to convene on the
twenty-eighth day of the month. They voted to lay in
a stock of corn — five hundred bushels — because food
might soon be sadly needed if the war should rage. They
also voted to buy one hundredweight of gunpowder, and
five hundred flints for the old flintlock guns which had
been used by the militia of the town since the beginning.

The men who swarmed about the church that day on
the Common may be imagined from the muster roll of
men enlisted within a few days.

* The total number of white jiersons in the town that year was 754.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

287

Captain Job Gushing was getting the Cohasset militia
into shape for marching as fast as it could be done. His
lieutenant was Nathaniel Nichols, of Jerusalem Road, a
young man of twenty -six years. His other officers and
privates, making in all a company of fifty-six men, were as
follows. Among them were Gideon Hayward, who had
served against the French seventeen years before, and
Jared Joy and James Stoddard of the Tea Party : —

MUSTER ROLL OF COMPANY UNDER CAPTALN JOB

GUSHING, COLONEL GREATON
COHASSET, AUGUST i

*Job Gushing, Captain, May 16
*Nath'l Nichols, Lieutenant, May 16
*Josiah Oakes, Ensign

Eltazer James, Sergeant, May 18 .

Gideon Howard, Sergeant, June i

Isaac Burr, Sergeant, May 16 . .

Peter Nichols, Sergeant, May i6 .

Abraham Tower, Corporal . . .

Adna Bates, Corporal.

James Bates, Corporal.

Bela Nichols, Corporal.

Levi Tower, Drummer.

William Stodder, Fifer.

Elisha Bates, Private.

Jonathan Bates, „

Josiah Bates,
Zealous Bates,
Ephraim Battles,
Jared Battles,
Joshua Beal,
Samuel Beal,
Amos Brown,
Calvin Cusliing,
Obed Dunbar,

S REGIMENT.
1775- t
m. da.
21
21
21
19

19

16
1 1

9
4
3

4
4
3

o

o

12

o

4
12
12
II

"Geo. Humphrey, Private.

Benjamin Jacob, „

Jared Joy, „

Melzer Joy, „

John Kilby, „

^Jno. Kilby, Jr.,

Galen Lincoln, ,,

Jerom Lincoln, „

Charles Luneaud, „

Joseph Neal, „

Daniel Nichols, „

Caleb Nichols, „

Ebenezer Orcutt, „

Ephraim Orcutt, „

Luke Orcutt, „

Haugh Oakes, „

t Revolutionary Rolls, \'ol. XIV, p. 53.

288 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Samuel Oakes, Private. Joseph Souther, Private.

Joshua Oakes, „ James Stodder ,,

Caleb Pratt, „ Benjamin Stutson, „

Oliver Pritchard, „ Reuben Thorn, „

Richard Prichard, „ Jesse Tower, ,,

Elisha Stephenson, ,, Isaac Tower, „

Luke Stephenson, „ Jesse Warrick, „

John Sutton, ,, Gershom Wheelwright, „

All served time from 2 months 5 days to 2 months 21 days.
All but starred ones took advance pay of £^2. Pay ranged
according to time. Average pay for private, ^2) ^o-^'

While this company was being enlisted there w^ere crises
in more than one family. Sons eager for a taste of war-
fare u^ere straining parental authority to the last notch,
wishing to go in spite of their parents' disapproval.

Some of the cynical sort scoffed at the enthusiasm of
patriots. When on one occasion the pastor, John Brown,
urged men to enlist, one of these cynics taunted him upon
urging others to do what he himself dared not do ; but the
warlike preacher raised his cane and threatened to thrash
the "old Tory " who insulted him. This pastor who had
been a chaplain in the army at Halifax seventeen years be-
fore, now marched out at the music of drum and fife with
the Cohasset soldiers, and tradition points out the old elm
tree near the boundary in Hingham where he preached
his patriotic sermon to the volunteer soldiers.

This first company of Cohasset soldiers were quartered
probably in Roxbury at the fort upon the hill, making the
extreme right of the American lines. They were part of
that motley crowd of sixteen thousand patriots bent on
pushing the British army of ten thousand drilled troops
out of Boston. George Washington had not yet been
made general of the army, and a confusion of military
methods and military authority prevailed. The British
general, Gage, issued a proclamation threatening with the
gallows all citizens captured bearing arms.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 2 8q

In reply to this, four days afterwards, on the sixteenth
of June, twelve hundred men marched under Colonel
Prescott to Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill in Charlestown,
intending to plant their heavy guns upon these heights
and to worry the British out of their metropolis.

Several Cohasset * men were among them, and in that
famous battle of Bunker Hill the next morning, June 17,
they helped to withstand those three furious assaults
of British regulars, and poured hot shot into the gleam-
ing redcoats. The situation of the patriots in receiving
the last charge when their ammunition gave out was piti-
ful in the extreme. It was one of our Cohasset men,
Joseph Bates, who stood his ground while the British were
pouring over the barricade, and when he no longer had
anything to shoot he seized stones and hurled them at the
enemy in his desperate helplessness. The belief in the
minds of some P^nglishmen that Americans could not or
would not fight was that day dispelled forever.f

In a few days, July 2, 1775, General Washington took
charge of the patriot army under the old elm in Cam-
bridge.

Soldiers had to be drilled, the commissary department
had to be organized, and an efficient body of staff officers
had to be trained to aid the general in his command of
the army.

Cohasset may have had something to do with furnish-
ing food for this army, for in the town records at the close
of the war, March 11, 1782, there was a vote not to pay
a certain "committee for purchasing and driving beef to
Roxbury "

One of the times at which Cohasset served in supply,
ing food for Washington's army is well assured. It was
in the year 1775 during the month of August ; one hun-

* Besides Joseph Bates was Isaac Tower (not in the line of Ibrook).

t Alexander Williams, of Beach Street, remembers stories told by Aunt Betsey
Briggs about her going up on top of the hills to listen to the firing ;it the battle of
Bunker Hill.

290 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

dred barrels of flour, brought in a coaster from New
York to the head of Buzzard's Bay, were taken overland
from Manomet to Scusset River and thence in boats to
Plymouth. The next morning the whaleboats loaded with
flour were rowed cautiously up the shore for fear of the
enemy's ships to Cohasset Harbor, where they landed at
five o'clock in the afternoon. Carts were procured and the
precious food stuff was hauled overland to Washington's
camp.*

Another piece of blockade running at this period of the
war is credited to a Cohasset heroine, Persis (Tower) Lin-
coln. She was the daughter of another heroine of whom
we shall speak, Mrs. Daniel Tower, nicknamed " Resolu-
tion " Tower, because of her indomitable disposition. Per-
sis had been married to Allen Lincoln, November 23, 1775,
and they lived on Elm Street, where the Osgood School
ground now is. Allen Lincoln was a seaman, and tradi-
tion says that he was taken from a vessel which the Brit-
ish captured and was carried to England, where he was
placed in Dartmoor prison, from which he never returned.
The wife of this absent seaman knew how to sail a boat
and was not afraid of the sea. In that year when Boston
was besieged by our soldiers on land and when the harbor
was filled with British vessels, it is said that Persis did
the work of our absent men by sailing one of our vessels
across the bay to Gloucester to get supplies that could not
be had in the blockaded port of Boston. This daring
deed makes her properly a Revolutionary heroine ; and it
was fitting that after the war was ended, which had made
her a widow, she should marry, 1786, the gallant Captain
James Hall.

While the soldiers were in active service upon the field
of war, the townsmen who were left at home did their
share in adjusting the country to an independent govern-
ment. A Committee of Correspondence was chosen on

*See Pilgrim Republic, Goodwin, p. 291, note.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

291

May 29, 1775, to keep in touch with similar committees all
over the province. They were : —

Deacon Isaac Lincoln. Thomas Bourne.

Obadiah Lincoln. Thomas Lothrop.

Stephen Stoddard. Benjamin Gushing.
Abel Kent.

Six or seven town meetings in course of the year were
held to do necessary legislating.

What became of the Cohasset company after the battle

Military Hat and CARTRmcE Box, worn by Cohasset Revolution-
ary Soldiers. The Box was at Burgoyne's surrender.

of Bunker Hill can never be very fully known. Their
time was out on August i and they were paid off,
averaging about seventeen dollars for privates, less than
seven dollars a month. No doubt many were reenlisted
in other service. Perhaps some went with Benedict
Arnold upon his daring march into Canada, losing their
lives in the terrible journey through the woods of Maine
or in the fierce assault upon Quebec. Some came home
again to do their farm work which had been sadly neg-

!92

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

lected in the excitement of war. A few of them reappear
upon later pay rolls for service on guard at Hull from that
December to the next April.

The British soldiers were in the habit of foraging for
food and booty at convenient distance from their ships-, so
that these coast defenses were posted. The one at Hull
was the famous fortification overlooking the channel of
Boston Harbor.

A PAY ROLL FOR

LIEUT. OBEDIAH BEAL'S GUARD THAT WAS

STATIONED AT HULL BEACH. FROM DEC

12, 1775.

TO APR. 3

. 1776.*

Time of Service.

I

>ay.

£

y. d.

Obediah Beal, Lieutenant . . 3 mos.

24 days

13

13 7

Richard Tower, Sergeant

J>

5>

8

7 2

Noah Merrill, Corporal

J>

)J

7

12

Elisha Dunbar, Private

>>

)>

6

[6 10

Micah Nichols,

}>

• >5

)>

6

[6 10

James Stoddard,

3>

>>

.r»

6

16 10

Thomas Bourne,

>j

>>

JJ

6

16 10

Joseph Willcutt,

>>

>)

Jr

6

16 10

Joseph Bates,

jj

• >)

>>

6

16 10

John Tower,

)>

>)

)>

6

[6 10

Ephr'm Lincoln,

3>

)J

5>

6

16 10

Joseph Hudson,

»

J>

J>

6

r6 10

Hezekiah Hudson,

J>

>J

JJ

6

16 10

Abel Beals,

)>

5>

35

6

16 10

Joshua Beals,

JJ

>J

JJ

6

t6 10

Wetwm Beals,

JJ •

J>

JJ

6

[6 10

Samuel Kilby,

5J

J>

)>

6 ]

[6 10

Henry Lambert,

)>

J)

J)

6

[6 10

Nicholson Lobdon

5>

• 5J

JJ

6

[6 10

HiNGHAM, December 23,

177

6.

Oath by Obediah Beal before Benj. Gushing, J. P.

WOODBRIDGE & BROWN,
SETH LORING,

Examined December 25. Clerks on part of the Board.

* Revolutionary Records, Vol. XXV, p. 83.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 293

Washington's plans to oust the British were getting
into shape during the winter that followed his appoint-
ment. Heavy guns were necessary to be planted upon
the Dorchester Heights commanding Boston Harbor on
the southeast.

Henry Knox, a trusty artillery colonel of General
Washington, under whom our James Hall was a sergeant,
brought in a great quantity of cannon by March i, 1776,
some of them dragged on sleds all the way from
Ticonderoga.

During the night of March 4, a heavy roar of cannon-
ading disturbed the rest of our sleeping townsmen ; but
the noise of it was just what our crafty general wanted.
By keeping the attention of the British upon the guns at
Somerville and East Cambridge and Roxbury, his long
procession of wagons with timber and artillery moved
unnoticed to Dorchester Heights,* and in the morning
the outwitted British general, Howe, beheld with amaze-
ment the sudden fortress covering his fleet.

The part of Cohasset in this first masterly stroke of
the war may be guessed by the thirty-three men who had
marched the preceding day to Dorchester under Captain
Obediah Beal to take part in this emergency.

ROLL FOR CAPTAIN OBEDIAH SEAL'S CO. OP^ COHASSET,
MARCHED TO DORCHESTER, MCH. 4, 1776 — 20 MILES.f

Obediah Beals, Captain. Caleb Pratt, Corporal.

Levi Bates, Lieutenant. Levi Tower, Drummer.

Gideon Howard, Lieutenant. Aaron Pratt, Private.

Isaac Tower, Sergeant. James Lichfield, „

Zealous Bates, „ Ignatius Orcutt, „

Isaac Burr, „ Job Whitcomb, „

Simeon Stodder, „ John Burbank, „

Caleb Joy, Corporal. Nat'l Bates, „

Jerod Battles, „ Benja. Cashing, „

Jona. Bates, „ Lot Whitcomb, „

* Now South Boston. f Revolutionary Records, Vol. XVII, p. 71.

294 HISTORY OF CCII ASSET.

Ambrose Bates, Private. Abraham Lincoln, Private.

Joseph Briggs, „ Benjamin Jacobs, „

Bozworth Collier, „ Abner Bates, „

Thos. Pratt, „ William Collier, „

John Prichard, „ Luke Orcutt, „

Eli Lane, „ Stephen Stodder, „

Obediah Tower, „

November i, 1776, at Hingham, Captain Obediah Beal made
oath to the foregoing roll before me.

BENJ. <Z\]'6\IW<G, Jus. Peace.

It was a day of gladness for this town as well as for
Boston when on the seventeenth of March, 1776, the
British fleet was seen sailing out of the harbor to Halifax.
The brunt of the war never again came so close to our
thresholds ; but the coast guards at Hull and other places
were kept up, and forces were continually on the alert.

An amusing incident of that period is told about a
British vessel loaded principally with rum which had not
learned the news of the withdrawal of Howe's fleet.
She catne sailing slowly towards Boston, in sight of our
shore, intending to supply the British soldiers with their
customary beverage ; but our sailors caught sight of her
and quickly organized an attack under James Stoddard,
who afterwards became a militia major. The becalmed
brig had nothing but Quaker guns for a make-believe
defense, and she therefore fell captive to our little priva-
teer crew.

She was steered into our harbor as a prize of the daring
young men that captured her. It is a pity that nothing
better than rum should have been her cargo ; but in those
days rum was not a disgraceful commodity, and it readily
sold for good money. The town gossip for many days
was filled with reiterations of the incidents in this capture.
It was even proclaimed from the pulpit on Sunday, April
14, 1776.

THE RE VOL UTIONAR V I FAR. 295

Rev. John Brown had a sermon upon the text, " Re-
joice with them that do rejoice; and weep with them that
weep," which had been written more than fifteen years,
but had done duty on several important occasions.

It had been delivered on January 25, 1761, "when the
small pox was raging at Hingham Plain," says John
Brown on the margin of his manuscript, and again "after
the Death of B. Stutson's Wife, Sept 25th 1774." This
sermon was brought out and preached again in honor of
our patriots' good fortunes, with emphasis upon the "re-
joicing" part of the text.

The preacher's addition to suit the occasion of the rum
capture was as follows, in part : —

God has blessed a number of our neighbors in the week past,
by prospering them in taking from those who were designing to
supply our barbarous enemies a very considerable part of their
property. It becomes us to adore that Providence who setteth
down one and setteth up another. Let none of us be so in-
humane and antichristian as to murmur or be envious but let us
rejoice with them that do rejoice &c &c — a more signal instance
of the smiles of Providence in temporal accounts we have not
known in this place.*

Thus the public delight at our war prize was encouraged,
and doubtless other incidents of privateering must have
occurred. The peninsula of Hull at the entrance of
Boston Harbor was particularly convenient for utilizing
Cohasset volunteers upon guard duty. The following
lists of men engaged in that service add to the Revolu-
tionary record of the town : — •

tA True return of the travil & time of Service of the Men
belonging to the foot company in Cohasset under the command
of Capt. Obediah Beals in Col. Solomon Levels Regt. Assembled
at Hull June 14, 1776.

*This manuscript sermon is owned by Mrs. George L. Davenport.
+ Revolutionary Records, Vol. XXV, p. 78.

296

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

£

d.farth.
II 2

2 days' service. Pay for Privates 04

Captain o 10 3 2

Travel 20 mi.

„ fees \s. 8 farthings.

HiNgham, March 24, 1777.

Then Capt. Obediah Beal swore to following roll before me.

BENJA. GUSHING, /. P.

Obediah Beals, Captain.
Levi Bates, Lieutenant.
Gideon Howard, „
Richard Kilby, Sergeant.
Zealous Bates, „
Isaac Tower, „

Caleb Joy, Corporal.
Caleb Pratt, „
Nathaniel Bates, Private.
Adna Bates, ,,

Lusitanus Stephenson, „
Elisha Stephenson, „

Timothy Cushing, „

Jacob Beals, „

Luke Stephenson, „

Jared Battles, ,,

John Prichard, „

Jerom Lincoln,
Bozworth Collier,
Ephraim Lincoln,
Richard Tower,
Stephen Stoddar,
William Bates,
Ambrose Bates,
Allyn Lincoln,
Jonathan Loring,
Samuel Kilby,

Lambert,

Elijah Hudson,

Whitcomb,

eon Stoddar,

Stoddar,

Hudson,

Private.

*True Return of the Travil & Time of service of the men
belonging to Hingham & Cohasset under the Com. of Capt.
Peter Cushing in Col. Solomon Lovel's Regt.

Assembled at Hull December 14, 1776. Time, 4 days. Pay,
8 J. xoV-zd.

fLevi Bates, Lieutenant.
Jerome Stephenson, Lieutenant.
John Burbank, Sergeant.
Nathaniel Bates, Corporal.
Levi Tower, Drummer.

Benjamin Joy, Private.

Abner Bates, ,,

Jno. Wilcutt, Jr., „

Daniel Nichols, Jr., „
Gershom Wheelwright, „

•Revolutionary Records, Vol. XXV, p. 95.

fSome names taken from complete list, Cohasseters guessed at.

THE REVOLUTIONARY IVAR. 297

Ambrose Bates, Private. Jona. Bates, Private.

Zenas Lincoln, „ John Pritchet, „

Job Wilcutt, „ Adnai Bates, „

Samuel Bates, Jr., „

In the summer of 1776, on the eighth day of June,
Richard Henry Lee in Congress at Philadelphia submitted
the resolution which became afterwards the Declaration
of Independence. Six days after it was submitted, having
heard the news but not knowing whether Congress would
adopt it, we pledged ourselves at a town meeting to sup-
port it " with our lives and fortunes, if the American Con-
gress should declare the United Colonies independent of
the kingdom of Great Britain." Thus the Fourth of July
began here on the fourteenth day of June.*

The lives and fortunes of the town were soon taxed.
August 22, 1776, they voted to raise fifty-two pounds to
give as a bounty, in addition to the province bounty, to
the four soldiers that were required of them for the
Northern army. These four men, whoever they were,
probably took part in the brilliant naval battle under
Benedict Arnold in Lake Champlain, October 1 1, 1776, and
rested with him at Ticonderoga if they were not slain in the
battle. Before this battle had been fought sixteen more
soldiers had been called by our town, September 19, with
a bounty of sixty-four pounds, to march into Connecticut
as a part of our State forces. In case these men were to
be ordered into the regular Continental army the town
voted, December 5, additional pay of forty shillings per
month wages. But the war had ceased to be a novelty.
Nearly two years had passed since the first excitements,
and men were not easily to be found that could leave our
already depleted communities.

On December 9, 1776, the committee reported their
failure to raise men, so that twenty shillings more were

* The moderator of this meeting was Abel Kent, the noble Isaac Lincoln, so
long moderator and the virtual father of the town, having died in 1775.

298 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

added to the offer of forty shillings. An increase of three
pounds a month was voted for any who might be ordered
out of our State forces into the Continental service.

From this time forward the Cohasset men were sepa-
rated into different parts of the Continental army as
well as in the State forces, and fought — no one knows
where. It is probable that in each of the principal
events * of that long war some men from Cohasset par-
ticipated. We are fortunate in having a diary of one of
them, Ambrose Bates, which tells of that first glorious
victory over a large British force when General Bur-
goyne surrendered at Saratoga, N. Y.

His messmates seem to have been : —

Lazarus Lincoln. Josiah Bates. Seth Briggs.

Elisha Joy. Eaton Simmons. Luke Stephenson.

Zenas Lincoln. Seth Stowell. Briton Nichols.

David Hersey. David Harmon.

Of these men, David Hersey and Seth Stowell were
probably from Hingham, for men from both towns were
often thrown together in the Continental army. In the
Hingham town history there are several lists in which
Cohasset men are included.

What other men from Cohasset might have been with
Ambrose Bates in the Burgoyne campaign, serving either
in the militia or in the Continental army, there is no
means of knowing.

At least one more, Cornelius Bates, whose grave is in
Beechwood, did service in the New York maneuvers.

At a town meeting on August 18, 1777, it was voted to

* One example of unwritten records in the Continental service is the story of
Noah Nichols, who lived many years after the war and who used to tell how
General Washington ordered him.to repair the wheel of a gun carriage while on
one of his forced marches. When Nichols asked permission to stop off to mend
the wheel the General answered him with an abrupt refusal. " It was the hardest
thing I ever did," the veteran would add in telling the story, " hut I did it."
(See Judge Russell's Centennial Address.)

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 299

" raise a sum of Money to incurrage our proportion of
Men voluntarily to engage in the Service until the last
day of Nov. next."

A committee was appointed to get twelve men either
from this town or elsewhere as cheaply as they could.
They had much trouble and it took eight men on the
committee to procure twelve soldiers, and that only at
excessive cost. But the men had to be furnished. There
were some opposers to the patriot cause in this com-
munity, for the town clerk was allowed " to draw out a
sum of money from the treasury to carry on a Process
against those persons of the town who are esteemed
inimical * to these States," The soldiers to reinforce the
Northern army went, and the following is the diary of
one of them : —

DIARY OF AMBROSE BATES.

(The Campaign against General Burgoyne which ended in his surrender at

Saratoga, N. Y).

Cohasset August the 27'^^ day 1777.

that night stopt in Hingham.

the 28 day that night stopt in Roksbury.

the 29 day that night stopt in Sutbury.

the 30 day that night stopt in Suseburry.

the 31 day night Spenser.

Sep stopt in ware town.

the 2 day that night stopt in hadlay.

the 3 day that night stopt in North hamton.

Several pages are missing here. They may have re-
counted the incidents of a march to Lake Champlain for
the purpose of cutting off the supplies of Burgoyne. At
any rate, Gen. Benjamin Lincoln's strong force of mi-
litia pressed down upon Burgoyne from the North, while
the army of General Gates pressed from the South. The
diary continues after twenty-five days : —

*See note on p. 285 about Dr. Lazarus Beal.

300 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Sep 28 and had orders to march and man the lines, we
marched to headquarters and then marched back to our own
quarters and had orders to march to H. Q. with baggage by the
break of day.

the 29 we marched to head Qu by the Gun firing, then
marched to sum Bush Tents and there to stay till further orders
and was to turn out to larrumpost at 4. o'clock in the morning
and at role call at the Gun firing at night.

the 30. this morning we turned to Larrumpost and turned sum
men for picket.

October the i. 1777 Nothing new today.

October the 2. last night we took i British fifer.

October the 3. we took 65 prisners and 40 head of cattle.

October the 4. nothing new today, only we were alarmed with
a skouting party of the British.

October the 5. nothing new today.

October the 6. today there came in 12 Hessians, and we
was alarmed and marched to the larrumpost and back again.

October the 7. 1777 today we had a fight we were alarmed
about noon and the fight begun,

the sun two hours high at night and we drove them and took
field pieces and took sum prisners

October the 8. 1777 today our people marched off down to
the enemys lines and then towards Serretoge and then came in a
major Hession and 80 with him.

October the 9. 1777 today the enemy left their lines and sick
and wounded and 200 barrels of flour and are retreating.

the 10. today we took 1000 Pork and 2 pieces of Cannon
and some prisoners.

the II day today we took 50 prisoners and got most round
Burguine.

the 12 day today we took 50 deserters and have got all round
Burguines army.

the 13 day today we took 30 prisoners and had 10 or 20
deserters.

the 14 day nothing done today only cessation of arms for this
afternoon and they are sending flagatruces one to another and 12
deserters came in.

the 15 today Gen. Gates and Burguine were trying to settle so

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 30I

as not to have no more fighting and there has been a cessation of
arm's for 2 days.

the 16 today the articles were signed by Gen. Burguine and is
to come out the 17 day at 10 o'clock in the morning.

fey ,. 7^ /z..^-^ 'v?^-^'-^^'/i-'^5

A Leaf from the Diary of Ambrose Bates, one of our Cohasset

Revolutionary Soldiers, telling of Burgoyne's Surrender

at Saratoga, N.Y., October 17, 1777.

302

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

the 17 today Gen, Burguine and his whole army came out and

delivered themselves up as prisoners of war, grounded their arms

and marched through our army.

AMBROSE BATES

the 18 day today the prisoners marched for Boston, the num-
ber near as I can hear is 5545

the 19 today all peace and quietness.

the 20 today we nnarched to Half moon 15 miles

the 21 today we marched to Albany 12 miles, and it was a very
smart snow storm.

the 22 day nothing new today.

the 23 day today we had orders to march down the river.

the 24 day we went down the river miles to Greenbush.

the 25 day we went down the river to Cononburg 16 miles and
there staid i day in tent

the 27 today we went down the river to Catskill 10 miles and
there staid the 28 & 29

the 30 day went down the river to West Camp 12 miles

the 31 day we went down the river to Esopus 12 miles

November the i day 1777 today we went down to fort patten
9 miles.

November the 2. 1777 today went down the river to New Win-
sor 21 miles.

November the 3. day 1777 today we went back to Newberg 2
miles.

Newberg. Nov. the 4 day. nothing new today.

5 today we went down the river to Peekskill 25 miles

the 6 day nothing new today. Cap of the sloop
with 200 barrels of flour.

the 7 day today we went down the river to Tarrytown 25 miles.

Tarrytown Camp. November the 8 day 1777 Nothing new to-
day

the 9 day nothing new today.

the 10 day nothing new today.

the 1 1 day nothing new today.

the 12 day today we marched to White Plains 8 miles

the 12 day today there came in 10 tory deserters.

•the 13 day today there came in 5 regular deserters

the 14 day nothing new today.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 303

November the 15, 1777 nothing new today.

the 16 day nothing new today came in one deserter

the 1 7 day, the regiment brigade was alarmed

the I 7 day nothing today.

the 18 day today the brigade was alarmed by a scouting party
of the Regulars which landed below Tarrytown and burnt some
houses and some barns and carried off 2 horses and some men.

the 19 day nothing new today.

Tarrytown Camp, November the 20 day 1777 Nothing new
today.

the 21 day today there was alarmed and a 'tachment of 300
men out of the brigade were sent down to Tarrytown and there
was nothing there : so we drawed a gill of rum and came back
again

the 22 day nothing new today.

the 23 day nothing new today.

the 24 day nothing new today.

Tarrytown Camp November the 25 day. nothing new today.

the 26 day nothing new today.

the 27 day today the brigade was alarmed and marched down
towards Kings Bridge and then marched back to New Rochelle
and there staid till the 29 day.

November the 30 day. Captain Manner's Camp, today our
times are out and we march for home.

December the 7 day we arrived home.

End of Journal.

The joyful news of Burgoyne's surrender reached Co-
hasset much earlier than her soldiers returned, but on both
occasions there was no little happiness here. The success
of the American cause seemed now assured, and it was
confidently expected that within another three years the
soldiers of King George would all be driven from our land.
A new call for Continental soldiers was therefore issued
for a service of three years, or till the end of the war.
When Burgoyne's prison army came to Cambridge, our
town had to furnish its share of soldiers to keep guard of
the captives, so the town records say. First, six men were

304

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

called " to do duty until the first of the following March,"
and then in February, seventeen more were required "to
do duty as guard for three months at or near Boston."

The following list of men, with the captains of their
companies and the colonels of their regiments, was sub-
mitted by Captain Obediah Beal, and may be of interest
here : —

A RETURN OF MEN WHO HAVE ENGAGED IN THE CONTINEN-
TAL SERVICE FOR THE TOWN OF COHASSET
FOR THREE YEARS.*
Colonel.

Captain.

Graton.

Crane.

Baileys.

J)
Jackson.

Langdon.

Ruben Thorne.

Amos Brown.

Joseph Willcutt, Jr.

Luke Bates.

Elisha Bate, Jr.

Joseph Marble.

Joseph Souther, Jr.
fThomas Guy.
tWilliam Connelly.
■j-Jean Philip Beaunard.
t Nichols Brown,
t David Atwood.

William Staples,
t Nathaniel Dispereau.
fBenjamin Adams,
tjohn Bowels.
fBenjamin Alld.
■f-Samuel Orr.

Andrew Beal.

Caleb Nichols.

Bela Nichols.

Melzarjoy. „ „ „

James Stoddar. „ „ „

Jonathan Bates. „ „ „

Return made by Captain Obediah Beal for Cohasset, February
i6, 1778.

* Revolutionary Records, Vol. XL, p. 204.

t Several hired by town of Cohasset whose homes were elsewhere.

Nathaniel Jarvis.
Garvin Brown.

Noah Nichols.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

305

r"

The war expenses were enormous for a country so poor,
and our Congress had only the meagerest power to raise
money. Our town was in debt about one thousand
pounds, and the wealthiest of her citizens from whom she
might borrow were now nearly bankrupt.

The Continental paper money was depreciating so fast
that a soldier's wages
melted away in his
hands without being
spent. In fact, the
soldiers of our town
demanded corn for
payment of the
town's part of their
money. A cynical
barber in Philadel-
phia papered the walls
of his shop with the
cheap stuff, and
another person tarred
and feathered a dog
with bills. Our fish-
ing interests had been
killed for several years
by the British cruis-
ers, so that this town
lost one important
source of revenue.

When the poor
soldiers at Valley
Forge that winter, 1777-78, needed clothing it is probable
that some Cohasset homes received piteous letters from
the suffering patriots, and the clothes needed by Cohasset
men were paid for out of the town treasury.*

* Vote of April 13, 1778. Jeorum Lincoln was at least one Cohasset soldier in the
Jersey campaign camping that winter and in the battle of Morristown.

-^E^^

Ir'H,

\j;\t

40 < ■.■j-">.

Face and Back of a Fifty-dollar Bill,

1778.

" Not worth a continental."

;o6

HISTORY OF con ASSET.

To add to the town's distress the smallpox broke out in
our midst that next summer. In April they had " voted
to have an Enoculation * for the Small Pox opened in this
town where it may be most advantajus and least prejudi-
tial to the Inhabitants thereof." This hospital for the

smallpox was built
upon an open pasture
southeast of Little
Harbor near a small
stream called the Mo-
hawk. Beach Street
was not then cut
through to Atlantic
Avenue, and a mere
wood road led to the
hospital.

The keeper was
Mrs. Daniel Tower
(Bethiah Nichols), a
dauntless woman
who was nicknamed
" Resolution " Tower.
She is said to have
carted water in bar-
rels from Lily Pond
to water the corn
during a drought
while the men
were away in the
Revolutionary War. She lived on King Street, and
was the mother of the similar heroine, Persis, already
mentioned.

The town records say that one Ebenezer Lane claimed
twenty dollars damage on account of this smallpox hospi-

*This inoculation was the preventive treatment practiced before Jenner gave to
the world in 1798 the milder and better vaccination.

;!>r 'I '■^' 1 = -vi-77>. -tar

$z '?^M^'^''

Face and Back of a Four-dollar Bill

paid to a cohasset revolutionary

Soldier.

THE KEVOLUriONARY WAR. 307

tal, and that Lieut. James Hall claimed an allowance for
having to move away his family for fear of infection.

In May of 1778 another levy of soldiers was made; this
time it was "eight men to go to the Southward." An
offer of four dollars per day and sixpence mileage was
made to any person willing to engage for six months upon
this expedition in Rhode Island against the British at
Newport ; but no persons would engage. Whether any
ever went, the town records do not say ; but James Lin-
coln, aged seventeen, was in Rhode Island five months
and twenty days, and probably other Cohasset boys were
there. For the next year the operations of war were con-
fined to the Connecticut coast and southward as far as
Georgia. The activity here in the North was mainly in
raising funds and in making experiments towards a State
government. In the year 1780 the Constitution of our
State was adopted, with its bill of rights containing the
words, " All men are created free and equal " ; and by that
word "free " we stepped far ahead of the national Consti-
tution, so that slavery from the first was illegal in our
State. September, 1780, the first State governor, John
Hancock,* we helped to elect. For his lieutenant we cast
our ballots for the great Hingham general, Benjamin Lin-
coln. Our first State representative was Lieut. Stephen
Stoddard, of Beechwood.

The long and tedious struggle for independence was not
yet ended ; indeed, at this very time, when the State of
Massachusetts was getting organized for an independent
government, the success of the Continental army in the
face of a foe so numerous and strong as the British had
poured into our land was gravely doubtful.

In the summer of 1780 nine men were sent into the
Continental service for six months, as the following inter-
esting lists will show : —

* It is said that Governor Hancock once visited Cohasset, bringing liis servants
with him, and stopped with Rev. John Brown at the pastor's home by the Common.

3o8

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF THE TWENTY-FIRST DIVISION OF SIX

MONTHS MEN. MARCHED FROM SPRINGFIELD UNDER

CARE OF CAPTAIN CLARK. JULY 19, 1780. 97 MEN *

Stature.

Names.

Daniel Hudson
Jonathan Bates
Levi Oakes

Age.
20

23
20

ft.

5
5
5

in.

5
8

.S

Comp.
light

Arrived at Springfield.

July 19, 1780

David Nichols

20

5

10

)>

Elijah Bonney
Thomas Willcutt

16

20

5

5

10

freckles
dark

Luke Stephens
Naaman Nichols

23

18

5
5

9
4

ruddy
light

Briton Nichols

40

5

II

negro

Received of Justin Ely Esq. Commissioner for the state of
Mass. Bay the 97 men — &c raised to reinforce the Continental
army for 6 months Resolve of Gen'l Court of sd State June
5th 1780 and forwarded said men to the army under the care of

Capt. Clark.

JNO. GLOVER, B. General.
True copy.

JUSTIN ELY, Commissioner.

A PAY ROLL FOR THE SIX MONTH MEN RAISED FOR THE TOWN

OF COHASSET AND IMPLOYED IN THE CONTINENTAL

SERVICE IN THE YEAR 1780.1

i^

s-g

Die time
rvice in-
ng time
ome.

Wages Due.

s a

Q

^5

Cohasset.

m. da.

£ s. d.

Daniel Hudson .

I

.

.

.

Levi Oaks, 0 .

July 13

Dec. 6.

250

5 5

10 6 8

Elijah Bonney, B.

,,

250

5 5

10 6 8

Britain Nichols .

N.

,,

250

5 5

10 6 8

Thomas Willcutt

N.

Dec. 8.

250

5 7

10 9 4

Jona. Bates, B. .

,,

250

5 7

10 9 4

Luke Stephenson

Jan. 7

250

6 6

12 8

David Nichols .

N.

,, 18

250

6 17

13 2 8

Naaman Nichols

N.

,, 18

250

6 17

13 2 8

^90 12 0

* Revolutionary Rolls, Vol. XXXV, p. 202.

t/-??a?., Vol. IV, p. 54.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

509

One of these, Levi Oakes, was the youngest son of a
family that furnished five sons for the Revolutionary
War. It is said that the mother, being left a widow during
the war, applied for the release of one of her sons,
that she might have some one to help her in her bereave-
ment.

In December of 1780 there were nine more men to be
procured to serve in the Continental army "for three
years or during the present war " ; but there is no men-
tion of success in getting them, nor can any government
rolls be found telling who the men were.

The next year, 1781, in August, seven more soldiers
were requested to be sent to Rhode Island ; for along the
coast of Connecticut the traitor Benedict Arnold was now
leading a British force to harass the patriots, foolishly
thinking to draw Washington from his great stratagem in
cornering Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.

But the great strategist, our beloved Washington, was
already upon the enemy ; before the end of September
the Continental army with its French allies had sur-
rounded Cornwallis upon that peninsula and had sprung
the mousetrap. Cornwallis and his powerful army of
British soldiers were helpless. On October 19 the
British general placed his sword into the hand of Gen.
Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, and the army marched
through our ranks — prisoners !

The long, weary struggle was ended. With heavy bur-
dens of debt, families broken by the war, and industries
paralyzed, our town began its life under a free flag. The
story of its recuperation is more agreeable than the sor-
rows of its long war period ; but we need never to be
ashamed of the long, suffering patriotism of our town
that sent more than one hundred and twenty men from
its population of one hundred and sixty-five polls into the
ranks of that glorious war.

310

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

The following records of Cohasset soldiers who reached
the rank of officers in the Continental army are taken from
Heitman's " Continental Officers " : —

James Hall. Sergeant in Knox's Regiment Continental Artil-
lery, February to December, 1 766. Second Lieutenant in Third
Continental Artillery, January i, 1777. First Lieutenant in Third
Continental Artillery, September 12, 1777. Captain Lieutenant
in Continental Artillery, April 12, 1780. Served till June, 1783.
Died April 3, 181 9.

Noah Nichols. Captain in Stevens' Battalion of Artillery,
December 16, 1776. Captain in Second Continental Artillery,

1778. Resigned April 3, 1780.

Bela Nichols. Quartermaster of Stevens' Battalion Third
Continental Artillery, July 11, 1777. First Lieutenant, March i,

1779. Resigned April 7, 1780. Died November 18, 1831.
Nathaniel Nichols. First Lieutenant in Heath's Regiment,

May to December, 1775.

Benjamin Beal. Second Lieutenant in Heath's Regiment,
May, 1775.

CHAPTER XV.

RECUPERATING DURING THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

THERE was no abrupt closing of the Revolutionary
War for Cohasset. The soldiers did not come home
in such well-filled companies as marched out when first
the news from Lexington roused the town. Some had
fallen in the struggle, many had returned from the earlier
years of service unwilling to reenlist, and the few that
served until the surrender of Cornwallis came home quietly
to take up again the work of farming or of fishing.

Hard times with crushing debts were upon the people
here as elsewhere in the new nation. But fortunately for
us we had been long accustomed to meager fare, and were
quite capable of squeezing a living out of the tough cir-
cumstances. We could not get much money for our fish
nor for our cord wood ; but we had need of but little
money, for we bought only a few things outside of the
town's own produce.

The financial embarrassment of the town may be in-
ferred from the fact that in May, 1782, not even the
interest upon the town's debts was paid, and it was voted"
to add this interest to the debt to draw compound interest.
The new taxes to support the State were so hard to col-
lect that the town, February 25, 1782, petitioned the Gen-
eral Court for some abatement of the amount laid upon
this town.

Even the church janitor had to wait more than three
years for his yearly pittance of one pound four shillings.

Rev. John Brown's salary for 1780, 1781, and 1782 was
not all paid in May, 1783, and according to the entries in

3 I 2 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

his diary* for the year 1781-82, his meager income was
brought in the form of the necessary food and stove wood.

The activity about our Cove in shipbuilding and fish
packing cannot be accurately known, because of the loss
of so many records or because they were so scantily
written. There was a population of nearly eight hundred
persons to support, and there were probably more than
thirty small schooners engaged in the fishing industry.

The Custom House in Boston might have furnished
more records of vessels built at Cohasset had it not been
for the pillaging by our British cousins.

All the records previous to the year 1776 were confis-

*SOME ITEMS FROM A SHORT DIARY OF REV. JOHN BROWN.
Oct. 1781. Had of Mr Obadiah Lincoln i cord of Wood towards my quota for

the present year.
Jan 1782 514 feet of wood by estimation, perhaps scant.
Oct 1781 Had of Jno Willcutt three barrels of Cyder and one hard Dollar.
Dec. 1781 Had of Aaron Prat i% bush Rye.
Mar. 1781 Had of Samuel Oakes 2 Quarts of Rum
Oct 1781 23 lbs. Corn Beef (poor) 12 Lb Butter i bush Ind. Corn, 14 Lb

Brown Sugar.
June 1781. Had of Zenas Bates a side of lamb, (middling). Weight 14% lbs at

6 pence hard money a pound.
June 2 1781. Lent Mrs Stodder a loin of Veal wt 6^4 lbs. July 6. The Veal

paid.
Mar 7th 1781. Henry Bourn begins his schooling with me.
Sept 25. 1781 Lizzie Nichols comes to live with us for 40^ old Tenor pr annum

or £,S-^A Lawful.
Nov 1782 Paid Lizzie in full and took her receipt.
, June 1781 Tim. Gushing worked half a day weeding corn and potatoes.
June 1781. Borrowed i junk Bottle of Rum of Mr Samuel Bates.
July. I Ditto. Paid both in good Old spirit. And a bottle for bringing keg

from Boston, a present from Mr Doane — A mean demand from my gener-
ous neighbor Bates.
Aug 6 Began upon Mr Doanes Rum.

Oct. 178 1 Had of Simeon Stodder i Quarter Mutton i Hard dollar.
Feb 1782 Galen James brought one cord of wood, paid by certificate to

Selectmen.
Oct 29 1781. Great rejoicing at my house with Col. Doane, son & others at news

of the Reduction of Cornwallis.
Nov II. Sunday. At Home. Preached on Surrender of Cornwallis, a Devil, at

Virginia.
Nov. 29 Went to Hull to marry a couple lodged at Cap. Souter's.
Dec 2 No Meeting by reason of a painful Inflamation in eyes.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

O'-O

catecl and taken to Halifax, N. S., when the British
evacuated Boston and were thrown into a damp cellar.
Nearly seventy-five years later, when some accommodating
Halifax officials searched them out for an American anti-
quarian, they were so rotten and rat eaten as to be utterly
useless.

For thirteen years until 1789 we had no established
port of entry. The earliest enrollment now in our
Custom House which concerns Cohasset, is dated 1790
and records a square stern schooner called the Lark,
built in Cohasset for Eben Parsons of Boston in the year
1 78 1. It was as large as the largest in the fleet of 1768
mentioned in the chapter on the Separation ; but that
was only thirty-five tons. The length of the Lark was
fifty-six feet four inches ; breadth, fourteen feet nine
inches ; depth, five feet eleven inches. She had but one
deck and two masts.

The ship carpenters and sailmakers and blacksmiths
and sawmillers and timber men at work on this schooner
in the summer of 1781 may be imagined. Perhaps more
than the Lark were built that year, and undoubtedly other
vessels built elsewhere were sailed from our harbor.

Captain Nehemiah Manson, of Cohasset, some years
later sailed the Hannah, built in Scituate. Captain John
Sutton, of Cohasset, sailed the Beckey, a fifty-four ton
schooner built in Scituate, 1784. Captain Samuel Bates
sailed and partly owned the Nancy, a sixty-three ton
sloop, built as far away as Damariscotta, Maine, in 1786.

In the year 1783 there was at least one more schooner
built here giving considerable employment. It was the
Hawk, owned by John Lewis, of Cohasset, measuring
sixty-one tons, nearly twice the size of the Lark. In
1784 a large sloop of thirty-seven tons was built and
christened the Spry.

The shipbuilding moved on faster and larger craft
were undertaken.

314

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Three were pushed off the stocks in the year 1785.
The Bethiah, a sixty-two tonner, for John Lewis, and the
Greyhound of thirty-five tons for the same owner, were
two. The Hannah, measuring the same tonnage with the
Greyhound, was the third.

The next year, 1786, there came to the town a man
whose wealtli and energy and culture had a lasting effect
upon this community. It was Elisha Doane,* son of the
Elisha Doane who was called " the richest man in New
England, with an estate valued at 125,000 pounds ster-
mg.

The Cohasset Elisha Doane was one of five heirs to
this estate, and he came here to dwell in a house upon
the corner of the present Sohier and Main Streets, where
now a little cupola covers the old cellar. His father is
said to have owned at one time one hundred vessels upon
the sea, doing a world-wide commerce. The fishing
industry of this town was an opportunity for this son ;
but he began at once to inaugurate also a mill f enter-
prise at the mouth of the Gulf River. He secured the
interest of Deacon Abel Kent, who owned "Kent's
Rocks" on the south side of the Cove, and appealed to
the towns of Scituate and Cohasset for the right to build
a dam where a tide mill of great power might be erected.

In the year 1792 the towns both granted to him and
his partners in the enterprise the right to build a dam
for the use of a gristmill. Flood gates were required for
the passage of vessels into the Gulf, for some ship-
building was carried on farther up towards the mouth of
Bound Brook, and large gondolas of cord wood were fre-
quently shipped down the Gulf on their way to Boston,

It was a sort of stock company divided into sixty-four
parts, owned by Elisha Doane, Isaac Smith of Hingham,

* Grandson of the Captain Elisha Doane in whose company John Wheelwright
was a soldier at Louisburg. (See p. 277.)

tThe town voted, March 12, 1787, " that it is willing to have a Grist Mill set up
at the Gulf."

THE J'IRSr y/'.AA'S OF THE REPUBLIC.

15

Abel Kent, Job Turner of Scituate, and Samuel Stock-
bridge, the total value being about two hundred and forty
pounds sterling. This mill was soon built, and it had

First Map of the Town made for the State.
Gristmills at the Cove and Bound Rock. Reduced to one fourth dimensions.

an interesting career in grinding at different periods of
its existence corn, wheat, barley, rice, and even chalk.

3l6 HISTORY OF con ASSET.

Another enterprise inaugurated by tliis man was in
Little Harbor, which we shall presently review.

It is desirable to stop here at the year 1793 and repeat
the story of one of the most famous shipwrecks in the
history of our perilous coast. In the words of Rev,
Jacob Flint* the story comes to us : —

On February 12, 1793, the ship Gertrude-Maria, of 400 tons,
bound from Copenhagen to Boston, with a cargo estimated at
$40,000, and commanded by Hans Peter Clien, was wrecked on a
small island, among Cohasset rocks, called Brush Island. Hav-
ing entered the bay, the commander knew not the danger of his
situation. Clouds obscured the light of the sun by day, of the
moon and stars by night, and no small tempest with frost and
snow lay upon them. In the awful war of elements, the ship was
at the mercy of the fierce winds and mountainous billows. These
threw her first upon a small ledge, where she suffered but partial
injury ; then on the island, just named, whose sides are covered
with pointed ledges. On these, the angry surges raised and
depressed her with violence, till they broke her asunder. Death
now staring every man in the face, trial was made by two men
with a boat, to reach the shore. The boat was dashed to pieces.
One was drowned, the other left to recover the wreck. At
length, by extending a spar from the stern of the wreck, the
survivors all got upon the island, where the waves could not reach
them. Here they tarried, in the tempest, chilled with wet and
frost, without fire or house to shelter them, till discovered early
the next morning by the inhabitants of the town. Means for
granting relief were immediately adopted. A boat was quickly
brought to the beach, a mile overland. She was manned without
delay, and plunged into the agitated surf, at the imminent hazard
of the lives of the adventurers. She reached the island, and
brought off three of the sufferers. Another attempt was imme-
diately made, but the storm and the tumult of the sea increasing,
it was frustrated by the destruction of the boat against the rocks.
Two other boats were soon brought from a distance, and the
dauntless exertions of tlie boatmen were renewed, till the suffer-

* See his Century Discourses.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

6^ /

ers, twenty-one in number, were all safely landed on the shore.
Thence they were conveyed to the houses of Elisha Doane, Esq.,
and other gentlemen, where they were carefully warmed, clothed,
and fed, as their frozen and perishing condition required. At
these houses they remained, imbibing the wine and the oil,
ministered by the hand of compassion, till their wounds were
healed, and health restored. In the mean time, due attention
was paid to their property, now the sport of the waters. An
account of articles of the smallest, as well as of greater value,
was given to the master of the ship ; insomuch that when all was

Photo, M. H. Reamy.

South Main Street, Center of the Village.

collected, that could be saved, and sold at auction, its amount
was 12,000 dollars. When the captain and his men (all it is said
of the royal navy of his country) were provided with another
vessel, and ready to leave the town, their hearts were swollen with
grateful emotions toward those who, under God, had delivered
and cherished them in their perils and distress. The captain, a
man of much respectability, unable to utter his feelings, told his
benefactors they should hear from him again. He sailed from
Boston, and touching at St. Croix', published there an affecting

3l8 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

account of the compassion and hospitality he had experienced
from the people of Cohasset. When arrived in Denmark, he
gave to the king such a representation of the people here, as
induced his majesty to order the College of Commerce to send in
his majesty's name four large medals of gold, and ten of silver,
with the likeness of himself impressed on one side, and with
Danish words on the other, importing, Reward of Merit — Noble
Deeds.

With the medals of gold came directions — one for Rev.
Josiah C. Shaw — one for Elisha Doane, Esq.* — one for Captain
John Lewis t — and one for Captain Levi Tower. J The silver
medals were designed for other citizens,§ who had been most
active in giving relief to the sufferers. Honorable notice was
likewise taken by the Humane Society, of the commendable
humanity, here manifested to strangers in distress, and a pecun-
iary donation was granted to the deserving agents. The governor
of the Island of St. Croix manifested also the high sense he
entertained of the benevolence of the people here, by his extraor-
dinary kindness, on that account, to a gentleman from Boston.
Mr. Daniel Hubbard, a respectable merchant of that town, was
taken dangerously sick, on his passage home, from abroad, and
put into the harbor of St. Croix, with a view to obtain medical
aid and other assistance, which his perilous condition required.
At first he was refused admission, prohibited by the laws of the
place, lest he should communicate his sickness. But as soon as
it was made known to the governor, that he was from Boston,
he was removed on shore, and the best medical aid and every
assistance and courtesy granted him, till he was recovered ; for
which all compensation was refused — the governor alleging

* The one given to Elisha Doane was stolen in a box of silver.

fTwo communion cups of the First Parish Church have the following inscrip-
tion : " This cup is the gift of the Widow Susanna Lewis, it being the proceeds of a
gold medal from the King of Denmark to her late husband Capt. John Lewis
1824."

The rest of the value of the gold medal was used to make a silver porringer for
Rev. Jacob Flint by his wife, the daughter of Captain Lewis.

The porringer is now owned by Abraham H. Tower.

;JThe Levi Tower medal has been lost.

\ One of the silver medals came to Abraham H. Tower, and it is said to have
been remelted and made into six silver tablespoons, of which Miss Annie A.
Souther has one.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

'9

that he was warranted in his conduct, by the humanity and great
kindness Captain Chen and his crevV had experienced, when ship-
wrecked at Cohasset, near Boston.

This was only one of countless wrecks that have
strewn otir shore, for not until more than two hundred
years had passed was a lighthouse built on Minot's Ledge
in 1847. During those years of wreckage there were
many deeds of noble daring, and also many cases of cruel
pillaging. Besides the good men who aided the unfortu-
nates, there were always evil ones here who delighted to
know of a shipwreck on our shore, because the broken
cargoes of sugar or clothing or lumber or whatever else
might drift ashore could be hauled to their homes from the
beach as prizes of salvage.

It is said that decoy lights were even put up at Green
Hill north of Straits Pond, for the villainous purpose of
imitating Boston Light in order to bring vessels upon the
Cohasset rocks.

Mariners have looked upon Cohasseters more than once
as a set of pirates "as bad as those of Barnegat."

But to return to our shipbuilding at the Cove.

\vl 1787 Levi Tower had the Betsey built for himself,
a schooner square sterned and single decked as they all
were, measuring fifty-one tons. In the same year Samuel
Bates had the Polly built, nearly seventy tons burden, the
largest up to that date. The next year two more were
launched for a career of fishing, the Gannett of thirty-five
tons, for Samuel Bates and others, and the Betsey of fifty-
four tons, for Captain John Lewis.

And thus each year, with few exceptions, from one to
five vessels were built by our Cohasset carpenters. In the
twenty years following 1789 there were launched forty-six
vessels, averaging more than two for every year.

One who strolls about our quiet Cove nowadays can
scarcely imagine the busy gangs of carpenters who for-
merly made the air ring with their mallets and saws and

3 2 O HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

heavy timbers. The sharp click of the calker's chisel is
only a memory now.

There is an old twisted pear tree now standing in the
Lawrence Barrett* estate on the north side of the Cove
where formerly the stems of vessels were set up with keel
pointing to the water. The ribs were hewn from the oaks
of our own forests ; oxen had been hauling them winter
and summer from the hillsides to the shore ; and as they
were lifted one by one to their places along the keel, the
people living about the harbor watched the daily growth.
The noise of planking reached the ears of the whole
neighborhood, so that the hush of the noon hour, when-
the laborers were at their meals, was the familiar respite
of every midday.

Ship carpenters were born here in those days and reared
to that trade from infancy.

The launchings were occasions of delight to many who
might gather to view them ; but especially exhilarating
were they to those who could stand upon the deck when
the props were knocked out and when the wooden bulk
began " to feel the thrill of life along her keel," as she moved
over the greasy ways into the bosom of the full tide.

An important shipyard was at the head of the Cove
where Guild Hall stands.

There was not much travel in those days along Border
Street, for there was no bridge over the Gulf into Scitu-
ate, and the only passing was down to Samuel Bates'
wharf or to the gristmill and Elisha Doane's wharf.

The place of the old saw pit, where a man below and a
man above the timber patiently sawed the whole length
with a long splitting saw, is now to be pointed out next
to a ledge of granite at the edge of the road, a few steps
away from Guild Hall.

Other shipyards no doubt existed around the Cove and

* Since the above was written this estate has become the summer home of C. W.
Barron.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

,21

up the Gulf nearly as far as Bound Brook, but scarcely
a vestige now remains.*

* A list of vessels built at Coliasset from 1789 to 18 10 so far as gathered from the
Enrollment books in the Boston Custom House. Probably others were built which
do not appear enrolled.

Master Carpenter.

Year.

Name.

Tons.

Owner.

1789

Federalist

6S

Sam'I Bates

1791

Harriet

102

Eiisha Doane

179 1

Susanna

56

Sam'I Bates

1792

Nichols

53

Eiisha Doane

1792

Dolphin

58

Sam'I Bates

1793

Brittany

42

1793

Polly

68

John Lewis

1793

Nantasket

45

Sam'I Bates and others

1793

Sculpion

29

Abraham Tower

1794

Hannah

39

Sam'I Bates and others

1794

Deborah

64

Sam'I Bates and others

1795

Neptune

77

Eiisha Doane

1795

Four Brothers

68

1796

Priscilla

66

Levi Tower

1796

Sally

107

Sam'I Bates

This one was 69 feet 6 inches long, 21 feet 2 inches wide, 8 feet 6 inches deep.
1796 Clara 135 Sam'I Bates

71 feet 9 inches long, 21 feet 6 inches wide, 10 feet 2 inches deep.

1797

Elizabeth

72

Abraham Tower

1797

Mary (sloop)

29

Sam'I Bates

1797

Almira

lOI

Benjamin Briggs

1797

Betsey and Polly

57

1797

Rose

71

1798

William

22

1798

Minerva

103

Dan'l Bates of Be

1798

Rebecca

6214

1798

Sally (sloop)

42

Sam'I Bates

1799

Ruth

75

Levi Tower

1799

Mary

43 '/2

Luther Stephensc

1801

Three Brothers

151

Peter Lothrop

A square-rigged brig named from the three Lothrop brothers, John J., Anselm,
and Peter.

1802 Leopard 72 Levi Tower

1802 Sally 57 Levi Tower

1802 Mary changed from sloop to schooner
i8c3 Dexter l^V-i Levi Tower

1S04 Success 79 Job Turner

1805 Lively 55 14 Job Turner

1805 Priscilla 52 Daniel Bates

1805 Ruth Levi Tower

1806 Lydia 65 Several
1806 Betsey 63I4 Peter Lothrop

Levi Tower
Levi Tower
Luther Stephenson
Levi Tower

Adnai Bates

Sam'I Stockbridge
James Stoddard

32 2 BIS TOR y OF COHASSE T.

But what was the purpose of this shipbuilding? They
were all small fishing and freighting schooners, less than
seventy-five feet in length, and nearly all were built for
Cohasset owners. Indeed, what few were built for other
owners were more than offset by the schooners owned
here from other shipyards. It was a thriving fish industry
that stimulated the growing fleet of schooners in our
harbor.

Ever since the year 1737, when our fleet had but eight
"sail," there was a slow increase in the number of fishing
craft. By the year 1800 there were Samuel Bates, John
Lewis, Elisha Doane, Peter Lothrop, Abraham Tower,
and Levi Tower, each owning a small fleet for himself.*
Besides these there were single owners who did a smaller
business.

Levi Tower had two stores at the Cove besides his
blacksmith shop in the year 1793, and at the same time
Samuel Bates had a larger store at his own wharf. From
these stores their vessels were outfitted for their cruises
and the families of sailors and of others were supplied.

The fish that were brought in by the thousands each
trip during the summer were salted and barreled in the
fish houses of the owners. Elisha Doane had a fish house
worth five pounds, as also did John Lewis.

Besides Samuel Bates' wharf there was in 1793 another

Year.

Name.

Tons.

Owner.

Master Carpenter.

1806

Hero

62

Job Turner

Sam'l Sylvester

1806

Randan

50

Levi Tower

Levi Tower

1806

Joanna

48

Sain'I Stockbridge

Sam'l Stockbridge

1807

Clara

44

Levi Tower

Sam'l Stockbridge

1807

Polly

36

Levi Tower

Levi Tower

1807

Mary Ann

44

Peter Lothrop

Adnai Bates

1807

Charles Austin

53

John B. Turner

Job Turner

1807

Liberty

85

Levi Tower

1808

Dolphin

23

Elisha Doane

Elisha Merritt

1810

Two Sisters

SO

Abraham lower

James Stoddard

*The fishing property of Captain John Lewis in the year 1796 was about ;,£"3,ooo ;
of Captain Abraham Tower, about ;^2,5oo; Levi Tower, about ;^2,20o; Samuel
Bates, about ;^i, 800; Elisha Doane, about ^Ti.ooo.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

323

belonging with its warehouse to Elisha Doane, worth
nearly as much as the first.

The amount of fish taken each year is not recorded
previous to the catch of 1804. The inspector general's
report* for the period beginning 1804 can be found in
the archives at the State House in Boston, and they furnish
a fair basis for an estimate of the industry preceding those
years. Probably there were caught and salted not much
more than a thousand barrels at any one year before 1800;
but after that year a steady increase was made up to the
War of 1 8 12, when in the year 181 1 the climax of four
thousand one hundred and fifty-nine barrels was reached
as one year's capture, and they sold at five to nine dollars
a barrel.

It was in the year 1809 that the Cohasset catch passed
beyond that of Hingham, whose capital in the fishing
business had formerly been too much for our rivalry. The
most of these fish were mackerel, but several hundred
barrels of alewives were packed during some years.

Different grades of mackerel were established, so that
instead of only one kind there came to be the first,
second, and third grades in the year 1806.

Barrels and half barrels both were used in packing, and
our coopers were kept busy during those years making

♦Report of Inspector General of Fish, Henry Purkitt.
Cohasset Inspector — JOHN Beals.

Mackerel.

Brls.

Brls.

Brls.

Hf. brls.

Hf.brls.Hf. brls. Total

No. I.

No. 2.

No. 3.

No. I.

No. 2. No. 3. Brls.

Apr. 1804-Jan. 1805 .... 367

696

21

1143

Alewives .

70

Jan. 1805-Jan. 1806

258

266

628

99

I

1320

Alewives

118

„ 1806-Jan. 1807

260

527

313

194

5

1200

„ 1807-Jan. 1808

325

395

769

150

13

I 1910

Alewives

339

„ 1808-Jan. 1809

128

374

756

23

15

1858

Alewives .

381

1809-N0V. 1810

628

304

492

142

34

1512

Nov. 1810-N0V. 1811

261

1273

2216

428

131

16 4159

Alewives

112

10

324

HISTORY OF con ASSET.

the barrels. The details of this fishing industry, with the
manufacture of barrels and of salt, will be reserved for
a later chapter, when over twenty thousand barrels a year
was the catch of our fleet, and when eighty to a hundred
schooners were crowded into our Cove during the season.

Besides these pickled fish, which the inspector was
required to report, there were cargoes of codfish which
were caught by our fishermen and not reported by the
inspector, because codfish were cured by drying and were
not packed in barrels that might conceal the quality of
the fish.

There is no way of ascertaining the amount of codfish
taken and cured annually previous to the War of 1812, nor
indeed for much of the subsequent period, for no records
were kept by either the State or the town.

We know, however, that from the beginning of New
England discoveries, before mackerel were thought worthy
of a hook, codfish by thousands were caught and dried
along the New England coast for the use of France and
England. The codfish which our fishermen brought
home to dry in the sun were spread out upon fish flakes
built upon Bassing Beach, — the beach of the famous
Threescore Acres. These " flakes " were small plat-
forms of woven twigs resting upon stakes driven into the
sand ; and there were acres of them upon Bassing Beach
at one time, within the memory of men,* holding the
salted codfish spread open to the sun.

The place where the flakes stood is now submerged,
but the remains of the old stakes have been seen in the
water.

But there was more than a fishing business done at our
Cove. It must not be supposed that the vessels built
here were wholly confined to fishing. Some of the

♦Captain Elijah Pratt, of Scituate, says that Levi Tower used to send the William
& Nancy and others as " bankers " for codfish. The schooner used to unload
upon the steep side of Bassing Beach when he was a small boy.

The William & Nancy was built 1816.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 325

larger ones struck out boldly for foreign shores, doing a
commerce between the West Indies and New England,
a few of them venturing across the Atlantic into the
ports of the Old World.*

The seamen, moreover, who took their first lessons upon
our fishing craft often developed into mariners able to
navigate in any waters of the globe. These became in-
trusted with foreign-going vessels that sailed from Boston,
and it would be difficult to mention any port of importance
in the commerce of the ocean that has not been entered
by some of the sons of Cohasset.

There are no available documents to furnish a list of
Cohasset shipmasters who sailed the vessels of other
owners during the years following the Revolution and
preceding the War of 181 2; but such vessels as were
built in Cohasset and registered in Boston for foreign
voyages can be known.

The following list begins with the year 1789, the regis-
ters of preceding years having been destroyed, as we
already have noted. These have been culled from the
books in the United States Custom House at Boston
under the care of George Osgood of Weymouth : —

LIST OF VESSELS CLEARLNG FROM CUSTOM HOUSE AT BOSTON
FOR THE FOLLOWING YP^ARS, BEFORE THE WAR OF 1812.

Date. Vessel. Owner. Master.

1789.

Susannah.

Samuel Bates.

David Hayden.

Betsey.

John Lewis.

Caleb Litchfield,

Neptune.

Elisha Doane.

Uriah Oakes.

Sally.

Joseph Bates.

Phineas Smith.

Mary.

Elisha Doane.

Abner Joy.

Eagle.

John Lewis.

John Collins.

Elizabeth.

Abraham Tower.

Wm. McNeil, Jr

1790.

* Captain Philip Fox, an English boy who became a Cohasseter, was one of the
ablest of our foreign-going masters. He commanded the packet ship Herald
sailing between Boston and Liverpool, and he beat the best record of his time
seventeen days for a trip in the year 1819. (See Joel Willcutt's diary.) He was
drowned in the Mediterranean.

326

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Date.

Vessel.

Owner.

Master.

I79I.

Diana.

John Lewis.

Elijah Stoddard.

>;

Susannah.

Samuel Bates.

Salisbury Blackmer.

1794.

Deborah.

Samuel Bates.

Asa Higgins.

)j

Betsey.

John Lewis.

Judah Bacon.

>5

Betsey.

Levi Tower.

John Jacob Lothrop,

1795-

Becca.

John Sutton.

John Grozer.

>>

Mason.

Elisha Doane.

Obediah Lincoln.

j>

Neptune.

Elisha Doane.

John Lincoln.

1796.

Clara.

Abraham Tower.

John J. Lothrop.

1797-

Priscilla.

Levi Tower.

Anselm Lothrop.

1798.

Bethiah.

Abraham Tower.

John J. Lothrop.

1800.

Mary.

Elisha Doane.

Abraham Crowley.

.J5

Elizabeth.

Levi Tower.

Cyrus Bryant.

-yi

Mary.

Luther Stephenson.

Luther Stephenson.

iSoi.

Harmony.

Levi Tower.

Abraham Tower.

ji

Arthur.

Levi Tower.

>}

Three Brothers

. Peter Lothrop.

Henry Southwick.

1802.

Patty.

Levi Tower.

George Mann.

1803.

Light Horse.

James Collier.

James Collier.

>)

Columbia.

Christopher Lincoln,

. Christopher Lincoln.

1804.

Success.

Samuel Stockbridge,

1805.

Two Marias.

Elisha Doane.

Elisha Bourne.

>»

Ruth.

Levi Tower.

Ephraim Snow.

;>

Sibae.

Samuel Stockbridge

. Thomas Pratt.

181I.

Triton.

Levi Tower.

Aaron Pratt.

)>

Sophia.

Luther Stephenson.

Benjamin Briggs.

1812.

Speedwell.

Levi Tower.

Henry Snow.

But fishing and seafaring were not the u^hole occupa-
tion, neither were vessels the whole wealth of the town
at this period. Our farmers also were plodding along the
highway of success.

The most extensive owner of farm land and stock was
Thomas Pratt, upon whom the assessed valuation of more
than five thousand pounds was made in the year 1796.

Next to him in farming estate was Aaron Pratt, his
brother, with about four thousand seven hundred and

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC.

327

sixty pounds, and John Pratt, the nephew, with almost as
much.

Samuel Bates' real estate valuation was over four thou-
sand pounds, so that besides his property on the sea he
was making produce from the land.

The flocks and herds belonging to farmers were able to
aggregate in value more than the fleets of our harbor;
but the part contributed by some was scarcely more than
the poor man's ewe lamb.

.--■'" !■ *

^

' «i

North Main Street.
Common on the right.

Photo, Harriet A. Nickerson.

The sawmill on Turtle Island and the gristmill at the
mouth of Bound Brook, besides the Gulf gristmill and
the Straits Pond gristmill were all making industry and
producing the means of life.

Christopher James kept his inn at the center of the
community, which is now the Norfolk House, and here he
received an income from occasional travelers and from
the sale of drink, thus adding to the living which his

328 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

farm produced, and furnishing an exchange for the gossip
of idle hours.

There was an industry then thriving in this town which
is now rarely seen in farming communities ; it was tan-
ning. The old John Wheelwright on Turtle Island whom
we remember as a soldier in the Louisburg expedition of
1745 was still living at the year 1800, carrying on a tan-
nery there in Beechwood at the age of eighty years. He
lived to be ninety-eight years old, and the hollows in his
tanyard where his vats were dug can still be seen.

But a more thriving business was the one carried on by
Francis Lincoln at his tannery at the mouth of Bound
Brook.* His father, Deacon Uriah Lincoln, had developed
a good business there at about the time of the Revolution-
ary War, and now Francis carried it on until he lost the
sight of one eye and was compelled to abandon the works
in the year 181 5.

His old account book from 1802 to the end gives us a
detail view of his work. In it we find, for example, a long
list of charges to the shoemaker Obediah Nichols for
various kinds of leather — calf, sheep, woodchuck, and
cow. From May, 1802, to May, 1803, the total bill is

In March, 1805, four bushels of hair were charged,
sixty-seven cents. The- hair was evidently a by-product
scraped from skins and sold for making plaster. One of
the scrapers from this old tannery and two samples f of
tanned sheepskin are in the town's historical collection.

Another shoemaker who bought leather here was Joel
Willcutt, whose little old shop is now standing in C. F.
Bennett's yard on the north side of Elm Street.

In April, 1805, Joel Willcutt was charged with 1^1.92
for "dressing one half a hide," and this hide probably was
the commodity given to the shoemaker in payment for

* See the sketch of that neighborhood on p. 216.
t Used to cover two books.

THE FIRST YEARS OE THE REPUBLIC.

29

work by some one else. Another charge more curious
was for " currying a pair of boot legs," eight cents ; and
another, "to a dogskin," thirty-three cents. The frag-
ment of skin from a calf's head was called a "pate," and
twenty of these pates were sold for a dollar and sixty-
seven cents.

Some idea of the magnitude of this little tannery may
be gained from its charges to Joshua Loring, the leather
and harness merchant of Hingham in 1805. Twenty-
seven sheepskins at forty cents each were charged that
year and ninety-three sheepskins the next. There was

Joel Willcutt's Cobbling Shop, Elm Street.
Built 1791. Used as post office 1806 to 1837.

tanned for the same man one hogskin for a dollar, and it
must have been used by Joshua Loring in making saddles.

Another tannery that some persons now remember was
near the site of the present Masonic building, just across
James River. Here stood in later years a shop for butch-
ering, and both industries were of use in the support of
the townspeople.

But leavmg the tanneries, all extinct long ago, an inter-
esting project at Little Harbor merits our attention.

It was the scheme of Elisha Doane and some others to

330 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

reclaim the marsh lands in Little Harbor, It will be
remembered that some seventy acres were granted to
the Hingham settlers in the year 1647 ^'^^ later. It
will be remembered also that we inferred from the very
small acreage at present to be found there that the
ocean had encroached slowly upon the lands of those
early days.

The plan was devised to shut out the ocean so that only
the channels of the harbor would be filled with water.
This was not the first attempt to shut out the ocean
from these fertile flats.

As early as the year 1727-28, March 4, there was pre-
sented at the town meeting in Hingham "A petition to
erect a Dam between Great Neck and Beach Islands and
the meadows adjoining near the middle falls." The peti-
tion was discussed and dismissed, but it was probably
revived several years later, for Cuba Dam was built
where now Cunningham Bridge stands, probably before
Cohasset became a town. The name Cuba may have been
given in honor of the capture of Havana by the British
in the year 1762 under Lord Albemarle.

Of the several efforts to drain off the water of Little
Harbor the remains of one abortive attempt are to be
seen to-day at Sandy Beach, Two rows of posts sticking
up through the sand have puzzled observing bathers and
passers-by for many years. These are the fragments of
an old canal or sluice, which was dug through Sandy
Beach to Little Harbor to let out the water, more than
one hundred years ago. The natural inlet at Cunningham
Bridge was shut up, as we saw, by Cuba Dam, and this
artificial waterway was made to let the salt water off from
the grass-bearing fiats.

The labor was immense, for after the wooden sluice
was built a ditch about ten feet wide was dug straight up
the harbor following the natural channel nearly as far as
the present lawn of Charles S. Bates ; but after all that

THE F/A'ST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 33 I

work, there was nothing to be gained. A violent storm
of the heartless northeast variety packed their sluice full
of sand, choking the whole scheme in the first winter.*

But another method was tried by Elisha Doane and his
colleagues. Long sluice boxes or canals were planned to
reach from the inside of the dam down to the sea, so that
all the water of the harbor might be let out so that nearly

Photo, M. II.I{e:iniy.

Cunningham Bridge (the old wooden one). Outlet ok Little

Harbor, formerly Cuba Dam.

Taken from the side of Mohawk Hill.

one hundred acres could be laid bare to the sun and thus

could be transformed from a salt marsh to fresh meadows.

The canal or flume or "trough," as it was variously

called, had to be made about two hundred feet long in

* The tradition of this event comes from Caleb Nichols, Sr. A few years ago,
after the new road had been built along this beach, it settled at a certain place
so much, that some digging was' done to see what was the matter ; they found the
soft place underneath was the old sluice.

332 HISTORY OF COM ASSET.

order to discharge the water. Strong gates at the upper
end had to be built and hinged so that the pressure of a
full tide moving up the flume would only close them the
tighter.

The great work was begun in the spring of 1804. Ten
thousand feet of lumber were brought down from Boston
by Naaman Nichols' schooner, for which transportation he
received thirty dollars. Laborers, some from Hingham
and some from Cohasset, dug and tugged at heavy tim-
bers and stones all that summer. Common laborers got
two shillings a day — thirty-three and a third cents — and
carpenters one dollar a day. What food they ate may
be inferred from the barrels of "mess beef" and of pork
which were bought in Boston. Our own storekeepers,
Levi Tower, Zealous Bates, and Christopher James, had
bills against the proprietors of " Cohasset Meadows &
Flats " for biscuit, hard bread, potatoes, sugar, rum,
chocolate, tumblers, and spikes.

The sugar cost twelve and fourteen cents a pound ; the
New England rum sixty-seven cents a gallon, and on a
warm day two quarts was about the least the gang would
drink.

The hauling of timbers was done by oxen, and Thomas
Fearing, of Hingham, used five cattle in carting timber
from the Cove.

Many other details of the work are to be seen in the
vouchers preserved by the grandson of Elisha Doane ; but
the outcome of it all was the completion of a water course
through the beach by December of that year, 1804, at a
cost of $2,107.69.

The committee in charge of this work was Jacob
Lewis, Caleb Nichols, James Stephenson, and Joel Will-
cutt, besides John Leavitt, of Hingham. Several of
the proprietors of these lands were Hingham people,
and one interesting bill was by that town. It reads as
follows : —

- THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 333

Dr

To the town of Hingham for French and Jay's labor

42 days at 4 shiHings I28.00

To 72 lbs of beef at 7c pr pound 5.04

To one shovel — broke — .92

53396

The result of this dam was more than to reclaim the old
marshes of seventy acres. At least twenty more acres
were gained, making a total of more than ninety-one acres.
The company, by taxing themselves about thirty dollars
an acre, met the expenses and then waited for the meadows
to bear for them enough grass to reimburse their funds.
Year by year this land yielded a steady increase, and the
bright green carpet was seen there gleaming in the sun
every spring. It was nearly a half-century before the
ocean was able to leap over the dam and to destroy the
meadows. This was done in the terrible storm of 185 i,
when the old iron lighthouse was carried away.

When the salt sea filled Little Harbor at that time, the
canal was choked up so that no water could get out. It
was a most furious flood that had leaped over the dam, and
it covered the flats so deeply that a rowboat could
pass over the fences by the side of Jerusalem Road
where that road crosses the flats north of Steep Rocks.
It was a bothersome situation, and the town voted an
appropriation of $500 to have the dam opened. Through
the cut in the dam the water flowed out with such a rush
as to clear away its former passage to the sea, and never
since that time has the ocean been forbidden its old course.*

* The following is a list of owners in Cuba Dam meadows for the year 1812 : —

Names. Acres. Names. Acres.

Fearing & Stephenson 1.50 John Burbanks 1.58

Jacob Leavitt 3.09 Captain Levi Tower 7.82

Gen'l Theoph. Gushing 1.61 Thomas Willcutt 1.37

Benjamin Barnes .80 Joel Willcutt .57

Heirs of Spencer Binney 3.50 Hezekiah I.^incoln 3.00

Elisha Doane 2.58 Captain Abraham Tower 8.75

334 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

The enterprise at Cuba Dam was one of the many
which were undertaken during the years of recuperation
after the Revolution.

But before Cuba Dam had reached its climax, and be-
fore the fishing industry had come to full growth, another
war with England was upon us. The exasperating events
of that ill-defined War of 1812, at the points where it
touched our community, will next be followed.

Names. Acres. Names. Acres.

Galen James 2.53

Hezekiah Beal .68

Anselm Lothrop .68

Zealous Bates 2.42

Thomas Lothrop, Esq. .83

Caleb Nichols 4.85

Aaron Nichols I.34

Ephraim Lincoln 3.cx>

Captain John Lothrop .82

Captain Nath'l Nichols 3.75

Levi Tower, Jr. 1.81

Widow Hannah Willcult

•38

John Willcutt

.38

Jonathan Bates

•44

Rev. Jacob Flint

2.73

Thomas Bourne

5-13

David Beal

1.68

Peter Nichols

3-38

Widow Hannah James

1. 00

Estate of Christopher James

2.01

Estate of Lot Nichols

13.00

Jerome Lincoln

1.16

Widow Sarah Lincoln

•58

Total, 91-15

THE FOLLOWING NOTES ABOUT TOWN PAUPERS MAY BE OF
INTEREST.

There were four inmates of the almshouse at Hingham who became the legacy
of Cohasset when first set off as a town in 1770.

1780, March 20. " Voted that the Poor should all be pool into one house to
be hiard for that purpose."

1784, April 15. " Voted that the Selectmen put out the poor Children that are
under the care of the Town untill they come of age, and give a sum of money with
them if they think it for the interests of the Town."

1784, May 17. " Voted that the Poor shall be moved to the Schoolhouse for the
present.

" Then reconsidered the above vote and voted to build or purchase a house to
put the Poor in, which shall be thought most convenient for the interest of the
Town."

1787. March 12. " Voted that the Poor of the Town be put out for a year by
the week to those persons that will keep them cheapest."

1788. Poor put out as last year.

1789. Poor put out as last year.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF l8l2.

AFTER the close of the Revolution many of the
officers and soldiers who returned to their homes,
kept some of the habits of military drill in companies of
militia organized under the State laws.

The citizen soldiers had been the only standing army
of our colonies previous to our independence. As early
as the year 1641 the Massachusetts Colony had re-
quired the " trainband " of every town to be exercised
eight days of the year, each man with a musket. Trees
had been left standing on the Common in Hingham for
the militiamen to dodge behind, in mock warfare with
Indians. The use of these semi-soldiers in the wars
against France in our colonies has been already noticed.

Their service in fighting the battles of the Revolution
was in some cases most illustrious. They were of course
much inferior to regular soldiers in the art of obedience,
for they had a tendency to treat military matters too
much in the spirit of a town meeting, where every one
was accustomed "to have his own say."

During the Revolution our State militia were at first
the only regular soldiers ; but as soon as Washington was
appointed general by the Congress at Philadelphia in
1775, he organized the Continental army.

The militia forces operated frequently in company with
the Continentals ; but they were subject to the authority
of the State and not of the Congress.

The highest rank obtained by any one from Cohasset
in our State militia during the Revolution was that of
a lieutenant colonel, Thomas Lothrop gaining that dis-
tinction. This man was not, however, an officer in the

336 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Continental army. The highest of rank from Cohasset
in the Continental army were James Hall, who became
captain lieutenant in the artillery, besides being an aid
to General Washington, and Noah Nichols, who was also
a captain of artillery, as we saw at the close of the
Revolutionary chapter.

At the end of the war our Cohasset man in the militia
next in rank to Thomas Lothrop was Job Cushing, com-
missioned major in 1781. who had been an active captain
throughout the war in our State forces. This major had
command in the Second Suffolk Regiment, to which
several of our neighboring towns belonged. Next to him
was Captain Nathaniel Nichols, who commanded the
company which drilled in our own town. His two lieu-
tenants were Jerome Lincoln and Samuel Bates, all of
them appointed in 1781.

The drill and firearms were very stale matters at the
end of the Revolution, but after several years' rest the
old condition of the militia in peaceful times returned.

James Stoddard became a major. First Brigade, First
Division, in 1789, and Levi Tower captain of our Cohas-
set company, with Caleb Nichols for his lieutenant.

The occasional drills* upon our Common or in some
level field were public events of considerable enjoyment.
Especially was it interesting when a regiment muster was
appointed to be held at Cohasset, when other companies
of the regiment gathered here for larger maneuvers and
sham battles.

One of the Revolutionary soldiers who became after-
wards advanced in militia rank was Jonathan Bates,
captain in 1796, but commissioned major the next year.

The affairs of the militia company went along serenely,
furnishing a social diversion for the men, as well as being
a perpetual preparation for local defense.

*In the selectmen's accounts for 1801 the following interesting items occur:
" Paid officers and soldiers of the Train Band, ;g58.5o. Paid i6}4 lbs Powder for
Soldiers Training, ^8.29."

THE MIUriA AND THE WAR OF 1813.

Ov)

37

One of the lists of the company for the year 1808 has
been preserved, and it may be of interest to the descend-
ants of these soldiers of peace : —

MUSTER ROLL OF CAPTAIN JOHN PRATT'S COMPANY OF FOOT,

Officers' Names.

Captain John Pratt.
Lieut. Peter Lothrop.
Lieut. John Bt-al.

Sergeants and Musicians.

Laban Worrick.
Laban Bates.
Samuel Bates.
Henry Prentice.
David I. Nichols.
Thaddeus Lawrence.

Privates.

John Bates.
Levi Tower, Jr.
Elijah Nicholson.
John B. Turner.
Luther Stephenson, Jr.
Henry Deane.
Lusitanus Vinal.
Theophilus Southworth.
Thomas Harris.
James Plarris.
Levi Oakes.
WilUam Payson.
William Howard.
James Collier.
William Whittington.
Thomas Briggs.
Festus Litchfield.
Alexander Stockbridge.
Ezekiel Pratt.

Samuel Dillano.
Lothrop Litchfield.
Abel Kent, Jr.
Paul L. Nichols.
Thomas Pratt, Jr.
David Pratt.
Henry Pratt.
Job Gushing, Jr.
Obadiah Bates.
Daniel Bates.
Lincoln Stoddard.
Job Pratt.
Phineas Bates.
Elisha Joy.
Isaiah Lincoln.
Jacob Pratt.
Southworth Pratt.
John Stephenson.
William Lincoln.
Micah Wheelwright.
Moses Pratt.
Seth Phiney.
Benjamin Battles.
Cummins Lincoln.
Samuel Lincoln.
Philip Wheelwright.
Gershom Wheelwright.
Jazamiah Bates.
Alpheus Packard.
David Whitcom.
Benjamin Pratt.
Abner Bates.
Noah Litchfield.

338

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Isaiah Litchfield.
Gershom Pratt.
Timothy Burbank.
Levit Burbank.
John Burbank, Jr.
Galen James, Jr.
Asa C. Tower.
David Cushnig.
Thomas White.
Elisha Lincoln.
Job Souther.
Clitus Vinal.
Collins Stephenson.
Joseph Lincoln.
George Lincoln.
John Willcutt, Jr.
Joseph Joy.

Caleb Joy.
John Nichols, Jr.
Asa Joy.
Aaron Nichols.
Levi Nichols.
Nathaniel Nichols, Jr.
Seth Beal.
Christopher Beal.
Caleb Beal.
David Stoddard.
Jonathan Humphry.
George Hall.
Obediah Nichols.
Huton Stockbridge.
Nichols Tower.
Elisha Doane, Jr.

Each of these men was furnished w^ith musket, bayo-
net, iron rod, scabbard and belt, cartridge box, wire and
brush, two flints, knapsack, and twenty-four cartridges.
These arms and ammunition were issued to the soldiers
for the use of drill in times of peace, but the day was not
far distant when a serious need of the militia was to be
felt. The War of 1812 was declared in the month of
June, and then began the long series of naval contests
when our coast towns felt the imminent peril of an un-
protected seaboard. There was coming in that war the
most serious danger that ever threatened the town.

The captain of the militia company in 18 12 was the
energetic John Pratt, but he was promoted to major the
month before the war began. In his place Peter Lothrop,
son of Col. Thomas Lothrop, was appointed captain.

In order to understand a little more clearly the situa-
tion at the outbreak of our second war with Great Britain,
it will be necessary to refer to several events which inter-
ested our town.

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1S12. 339

For many years Great Britain had been at war with
different countries in Europe, and she needed men to fight
her battles. Americans were many of them excellent
seamen, and it grew to be the practice of British naval
officers to board American vessels and to take American
seamen forcibly into the war service of Great Britain,
claiming them as British subjects. From 1803 to the
year 18 10 the list of such impressments reached the alarm-
ing number of four thousand.

Against the preposterous claim of the British that all
who spoke English were presumably subjects of Great
Britain there was only one defense, and that was a writ-
ten certificate from the collector of customs that the
bearer was an American citizen. All our sailors had to
procure these for their own safety before they ventured
upon the high seas.

To make matters still worse for our shipping interests,
Great Britain forbade our ships having any commerce
with her enemies. Such a demand enforced by England's
ubiquitous navy was a severe blow to our marine com-
merce, and the United States retaliated by prohibiting
ALL foreign commerce, England included. This E^nbargo
was a terrible blow to English merchants, who depended
upon our markets, and a severe restriction upon our own
sailing craft.

Vessels that had done foreign trading with the West
Indies and elsewhere were laid up in our harbor. A com-
plete stagnation of commerce followed.

Several small vessels laden with assorted cargoes es-
caped from Cohasset in the night in spite of the vigilant
eyes of the revenue officers, one of whom was stationed
with his sloop at our harbor. Larger vessels hovered
outside to receive and to give cargoes to the smaller ones
that might run into little harbors along the shore.

In 1809 this Embargo was changed so that American
vessels were prohibited from intercourse with England

;40

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Colle<5lor for the

piftria'cf Boftonand Charleftowii, jJo lietcby certify, fhaf

(^Zy^c'^t^'^'^^ '~^'C-a^ e ^ f r*.- — jin American Seaman,

aged C<.'/7 tiytde-yxy — -^ — Ycars, or thereabouts, of

//) /' , / ' /

the Height of y t^^ Feet J^y - — Inches, ft^fxXi-

Complexion, Cj-ds, — Hair, 'z:^'^ ^ ,Eyes,

- y

has this Day produced to me Proof, in the Manner dlreiHred
by the A(5l, intitled, " An Kdi for the Relief and Proteftion
of American Seamen," and purfuant to the faid AiSt, I do
hereby certify, thit the i^\^cs:y.^^t^.^c^Z '-^^t^^c.c^^^^
is a Citizen of the United States of America.

In Witncfs -whereof^ I have hereunto fet itty Hand
and Seal of Office, this '^^'^^/1&-
Day of e^-^ct^^y . in the Year of our

o^-

Lord i8eK^\

Uc

■/;a^'/^'^^^

■'^2 ,

CoUeBor.

A certificate of American citizenship signed by General Lincoln for a Cohas^et
sailor. American seamen without such a certificate were in danger of being kid-
napped by tlie British before the War of 1812.

This Isaiah Lincoln was captured during that war.

THE MILITIA AND THE ]VAR OF 1812. 34 1

and France only. Thus some of our Cohasset captain's
and sailors who sailed vessels from Boston to all the ports
of the world could again put to sea.

Our schooner Ruth, under Captain Ephraim Snow, sailed
September i, 1810, from Boston ; and Thomas Stoddard,
who went in her, tells an experience when they landed at
Bristol, England, which illustrates the experience of many
during those years : —

" While walking with three American mates in St,
James Square, we were suddenly surrounded by a press
gang (soldiers drafting men into the British navy). We
offered no resistance and they kept us till midnight,
when we had so plied them with Burton ale that they
were unable to see us as we walked quietly out, leav-
ing them to their cogitations. They never troubled us
more."

But the war came at last. It was declared on June 8,
1812, and every vessel of ours upon the sea was in danger
of being captured by British men-of-war. The British
were rather easy, however, upon our fishermen, for a cargo
of fish was but small game compared with the freight of
foreign voyagers. And yet our fishing industry was nearly
paralyzed. Our catch for the year 18 12 was only about
one quarter what it was in 181 1.

It was in the summer of the year 181 3 that the
famous duel of the Chesapeake and Shannon was fought
off our coast. Up to that time a series of brilliant naval
combats had brought a world-wide renown to our Ameri-
can men-of-war.

The British had whipped every fleet of the sea, but our
ambitious little navy had conquered them at every duel
for many months. First in August, 1812, our Con-
stitution captured the English frigate Guerriere ; the
next month the Essex captured the Alert ; then the
Wasp annihilated the Frolic with a carnage so terrible
that no one was left to pull down the British flag.

342 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

Decatur, who afterwards became our famous admiral,
sailed the United States into a victory over the Macedo-
nian before the year was out.

In February, 1813, Captain Bainbridge took the Java,
and in March the Peacock was taken by the Hornet.*

The seas had been swept from Newfoundland to South
America, from Sandy Hook to the British Channel, by
our dauntless and victorious little navy.

During three months they had captured five hundred
British merchant vessels, besides destroying three frigates
of war. And this was not all ; for nearly a hundred
American privateers, the fastest sailing craft of the sea,
had been swooping down upon British commerce with
exasperating success, for they captured at least eight hun-
dred vessels in two years of the war.

It was therefore confidently expected that when Captain
Lawrence of the Chesapeake accepted the challenge of
the British frigate Shannon the victory would be with us.

Crowds came down that June day of 18 13 to Cohasset
and to other points of view, hoping to see the fight as the
vessels sailed out of Boston Harbor for their bloody duel.
But all were disappointed, for the battle ships drew out of
sight before the struggle began, and only the boom of
their cannon reached our shores. Our gallant Captain
Lawrence fell, but his last words, " Don't give up the
ship," have never ceased to reverberate his brave spirit.
Our frigate was doomed, but almost three weeks passed
by before the people would believe that we had lost the
day. Lawrence was buried with the honors of war at
Halifax, whither the captive Chesapeake was taken ; but
the remains of the hero were afterwards brought to the
soil of the United States.f

*The Boston Patriot of August 3, 1813, gives an amusing caricature of this
naval duel.

fSee John Bach McMaster's History of the People of the United States from
the Revolution to the Civil War, Vol. IV, p. 93.

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1S12. 343

The war of the sea kept our fishermen more and more
from their work.

That year, 18 13, our total catch was only four hundred
and fifty-one barrels, about one tenth the amount pre-
ceding the war.

The occupations of our men thus driven from the sea
may be imagined from the diary of one of them, Thomas
Stoddard : —

I began to farm it ; went boat fishing in leisure time. Cut
wood for Capt. Levi Tower in Rice & Leavitt's lots in 3rd
Division. Had fifty cents a cord for cutting & piling — provisions
found. The wood was sent to Boston and sold for $13.00 a cord.
I cleared $3.00 per week — a good business for war times.

We had an evening Reading Club and a Singing School and
occasionally a fashionable Soiree called a Bingo.

During the winter season we felt perfectly safe from the visits
of John Bull ; but knowing our exposed and defenseless situation,
we prepared for more serious events, knowing that should the war
continue we could not expect to be exempt from its ravages.

These fears were soon to be realized. By June of 18 14
a British frigate was harrying the shores of Massachu-
setts Bay, frightening the fishermen and burning their
vessels. The selectmen were instructed by vote of the
town to petition the governor for "two pieces of cannon
for the defense of the Harbor." Lieutenant Governor
Cobb (in the absence of Governor Strong) refused the
request, and recommended the hoisting of a white flag.

The Massachusetts government was not in sympathy
with " Mr. Madison's War," as it was contemptuously
called ; but that seems to us nowadays, as it then seemed
to our endangered citizens, no excuse for such cowardly
counsels. By the middle of June a British man-of-war,
having sent a flotilla of barges to burn the shipping of
Scituate, sailed for Cohasset on the same errand of de-
struction.

344

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Captain Peter Lothrop, roused by a messenger from
Scituate, leaped from his bed, and without hat or coat,
mounting a horse without a saddle, rode through our
village and roused the slumbering inhabitants.*

The members of the Cohasset militia at that time were
as follows : —

Officers' Names.

Peter Lothrop, Captain.
John Beal, Lieutenant.
Newcomb Bates, Ensign.

Sergeants and Musicians.
Henry Prentice. Job Cashing, Jr.

William Whittington. Thaddeus Lawrence.

John Nichols, 2d. John Willcutt, Jr.

Isaac Tower.

Obediah Bates.
Laban Bates.
Phinehas Bates.
Jonathan B. Bates.
Levit Burbank.
John Burbank, Jr.
Ephraim Burbank.
Enos Bates.
Joshua Bates, Jr.
Mordicai Bates.
John Bates, 2d.
Caleb Beal.
Abel Beal.
John Beal, Jr.
Robert Beal.
David Battles.
Joseph Briggs.
John Creed.
James C. Doane.
Henry Doane.

* Hon. Thomas Russell

Privates.
George Hall.
Abraham Hall.
Isaac Hall.
Samuel Hayward.
Thomas Harris.
Thomas James.
John B. James.
Josiah James.
Eleazer James.
Ebenezer James.
Asa Joy.

William Lincoln.
Isaiah Lincoln.
Francis M. Lincoln.
Silas Lincoln.
George Lincoln.
Elisha Lincoln, Jr.
Obediah Lincoln.
Festus Litchfield.
Joseph Lincoln.

's Centennial Address.

Isaiah Litchfield.
Charles Litchfield.
Isaac Lambert.
John Marble.
Abner Marble.
Caleb Nichols, Jr.
David F. Nichols.
Warren Nichols.
Aaron Nichols, Jr.
Isaac Nichols.
Nath'l Nichols, 2d.
Levi Nichols.
Elias Nichols.
John Neal.
Hosea Orcutt.
Jacob Pratt.
Job Pratt.
Henry Pratt.
Southward Pratt.
Aaron Pratt, Jr.

THE MILITIA A. YD THE WAR OF iSii

;45

Peter Pratt.
Caleb Pratt, 2d.
Seth Phinney.
Nathan Souther.
Zenas Stoddard.
Thomas Stoddard.
WilHam Stutson.
David Stoddard.
Lewis Studley.

Dawes Studley.
Luther Stephenson.
Nichols Tower.
Levi Tower, Jr.
Asa C. Tower.
Philip Wheelwright.
Gershom Wheelwright.
Joseph P. Wheelwright.

David Whitcomb.
Thomas Willcutt.
Asa Hudson.
Zenas Lincoln, Jr.
Ezekiel Wallace.
Daniel Lothrop.
Clitus Vinal.
David Nichols.

From the diary of Thomas Stoddard* we may read the
effect of Captain Peter Lothrop's alarm and its sequel.
He was working upon a salt-making establishment at
Simons farm in Hull, just over the hill from Straits
Pond, with the following Cohasset companiojis : Paul
Bates, Joseph Lincoln, Francis Lincoln, Levi Oakes,
Samuel Hayward, and John Nichols, besides several from
Cape Cod.

His story reads : —

We all continued peaceably at our work without interruption
until the morning of the i6th of June. We had just gone to
our work after breakfast, when we heard the alarm bells ring at
Cohasset and Hingham. Soon after, saw a person coming full
speed on a horse, to us, saying, we must repair immediately, armed
and equipped, to the Cohas'set meeting-house to await further
orders. The British having landed at Scituate Harbor and burnt
the vessels, were only awaiting tide to come into Cohasset for the
like purpose. We secured our tools and were off: all but the
Cape Cod men ; they refused to go. At noon of that day, we all

* Thomas Stoddard was born in Cohasset, May 14, 1787. His father, Zenas Stod-
dard, was a Revolutionary soldier and later a seafaring man. Thomas began to
learn the carpenter's trade at the age of fifteen, but two years later entered on a
seafaring life. He was captain of several Cohasset vessels and made many suc-
cessful voyages to foreign ports. In 1831 he was appointed to the United States
revenue service and was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. In this position
he made many perilous voyages in winter along the coast of New England, giving
relief to disabled vessels. He remained in the revenue service until 1847, and
died in Cohasset, on North Main Street, in the house now occupied by Ziba C.
Small, March 2§, 1854.

346 IJISrORY OF C OH ASSET.

assembled at the meeting-house at one o'clock, all the enrolled
men composing one company of militia numbering about one hun-
dred and thirty: Peter Lothrop, captain; John Beal, ist lieut. ;
Henry Prentice, 2d lieut. ; every man well equipped with ball,
cartridge and provision. VVe were marched to Hominy Point,
where we found a trench dug about two feet deep, the dirt thrown
fronting the water. Into this we were marched and ordered to
remain ready for action : a miserable defense, truly. Here we all
remained until after sunset : we were then disposed of in the fol-
lowing order : Capt. Lothrop with fifty men stationed at the head
of the Cove, Lieut. Beal with forty men stationed as guard on the
seaboard from Hominy Point around White Head to Sandy Cove,
Lieut. Prentiss with forty men to relieve guard. A large building
on White Head erected for a lifeboat house was occupied for a
guardhouse.

I was in Lieut. Beal's guard and was stationed near where the
road merges from the woods on to the beach at White Head,
where was an iron six-pounder ready loaded, which I was directed
to tire in case of an alarm. About ten o'clock in the evening, a
boat from Plymouth came in ; they were from the Bulwark, 74
guns, and frigate Nymph at anchor off Scituate. These were the
enemy's ships, which had burnt the vessels at Scituate and were
now threatening the same to Cohasset. The men in the boat
came for a sloop, which the enemy had driven into Cohasset,
having obtained permission of the Commodore to take her to
Plymouth. They reported the force intended to attack Cohasset
at 400 men in eleven barges, with ten pieces of artillery.

During the afternoon and evening of this day, there arrived at
the head of the harbor, two companies from Hingham, two com-
panies from Weymouth, one company of artillery from Hanover,
one company of artillery from Randolph and the Hingham Rifle
Company ; which with the Cohasset company, would number
about six hundred effective men, all under the command of
Colonel Webb of Weymouth. The out-of-town companies were
quartered in the best possible manner as circumstances would
admit. At dawn of the following day, the cannon awakened
those who might be fortunate enough to get some sleep, however
few their number might be. The drums beat the reveille, a hasty
breakfast was prepared and at 6 a.m. the whole camp was in march-

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1812. 34.7

ing order for review and inspection. This day was the Sabbath :
no church bell rang. This day, companies of artillery, infantry
and riflemen were constantly coming in from the neighboring
towns. The hills and high rocks around were covered with anx-
ious spectators, both male and female. The inhabitants were
busily employed cooking for the soldiers and packing up their
valuables in readiness in case the enemy should land to destroy
the town, which he had threatened in case of resistance.

At 9 A.M., upwards of twelve hundred men were stationed at
different points of defense near the Cove. It was now high
water. The enemy in eleven barges and a sloop tender, hove in
sight off the Glades. When they had obtained a position so as
to look into the Cove, they lay on their oars for observation.
They dispatched the tender to the westward to reconnoiter the
shore j several officers landed at the Glades from a barge, also to
reconnoiter. All was now perfect stillness and anxiety. The
officers of each company were encouraging the men to fight man-
fully, and in case any should desert in time of action, they were
told they would be immediately shot down. The American flag
was displayed from various posts where the troops were stationed.
At 1 1 A.M. a signal was made from the Bulwark for the barges to
return to the ships. The attack was withdrawn in consequence
of their observing such a superior force to oppose them.

The troops remained at their respective posts through the day,
expecting the barges to return the next high water. A strong
guard was again posted at different points. A strong boom had
been placed across from Hominy Point to the Bassing Beach and
every preparation for defensfe was complete. The town presented
the appearance of a military camp. Several bands of music were
occasionally playing, relieved by the drum and fife. The plain
around the meeting-house was occupied as the grand parade.

On the morning of the 20th the ships weighed anchor and
stood to the eastward. All the troops, excepting one Hingham
and one Weymouth company, returned to their respective homes.
Capt. Lothrop was ordered to select from his company, twenty
seafaring men to be stationed at the Cove in charge of the six-
pounder ; to select their own ofificers and be subject to his orders.
The company paraded on the plain and the men were called from
the ranks, myself being of the number. We marched to the

148

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

Cove ; our quarters were in the store of Elisha Doane, Esq., on
his wharf. Our gun was stationed in Dea. Kent's orciiard in the
rear of a strong timber breastwork. We drew daily rations from
the commissary, Dea. Bourne. We chose Nichols Tower as cap-
tain, myself as second in command and John Bates as chief
gunner and such other officers as were necessary. We were exer-
cised twice each day and once a week were allowed music and
horses for marching with our gun and small-arms. We contin-
ued thus to enjoy ourselves for about six weeks, when we were

Home of Deacon Bourne.
The land is now the west corner of the Osgood School lot. The stone horse-
block has been moved to the other side of the tree.

released and I went again to work at Simons Farm Salt Works.
A draft was made from the regiment of our company under the
command of Capt. Cleverly of Weymouth ; they were stationed
at Hominy Point until winter set in.

I continued at the salt works until we had finished about 8,000
feet. In September we were all discharged from the work and I
prepared for the coming winter ; always ready at a moment's

THE MILITIA AXD THE ]VAR OF j8i2. 349

warning for a march. This fall there was a draft made from Capt.
Lothrop's company, of ten men. Col. Newcomb Bates was also
ordered with the men to Fort Independence at Hull, where was
stationed about one thousand militia, besides two companies of
U. S. troops; in all 1,200 men. Winter closed the campaign at
Cohasset ; the company of drafted men were disbanded. We
housed our gun in Eleuzer James' stables and our powder in
Town Magazine.

The fishing fieet that summer was unable to stir from
the harbor. It is said that twenty-seven of the vessels
were taken at the spread of alarm, up into the Gulf and
there scuttled and sunk to prevent being burned by the
enemy.

The owners felt fortunate with their escape from depre-
dations when they knew what other towns had lost.

Wellfleet had to pay $2,000 tribute to escape de-
struction of her property, Brewster $4,000, and Eastham
$1,200.

The loss, however, to our fishermen for that year was
total.

The inspector general, Henry Purkitt, in making his
report to the governor, Caleb Strong, for that year sent
this doleful letter : —

Boston, January 16, 1815.
I regret that the report bears the marks of decay and ruin as
do all things else in our once happy country. For in the towns of
Scituate, Cohasset, and Hingham that used to take from sixty to
eighty thousand dollars' worth of mackerel a year, the last year
took but three barrels which sold lor twenty-five dollars.

Of the loss of life by Cohasset seamen in the War of
181 2 not much is known. David Stoddard perished at
Sackett's Harbor, N. Y. Isaiah Lincoln, another un-
fortunate, died in the prison at Halifax, N. S. The
circumstances of his capture are related as follows : " Our
fishing schooner Nancy had started out on a risky voyage

350 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

in September of that year, 1814, but she was captured by
the British. Captain Ezekiel Wallace said to the British
officer who boarded her, 'You don't want us, we 're nothing
but poor fishermen,' but the officer said, ' I 've seen you
in Liverpool captain of a vessel ; I want you.' Wallace and
his companions, including Isaiah Lincoln, had to go as
prisoners of war to Halifax, after two of the crew. Brown and
Litchfield, had been set ashore at Plymouth, Mass. Wallace
returned the next April after the war was ended, bringing
poor Lincoln's pocketbook and telling how the unfortu-
nate fisherman had perished last November in the lousy
dungeon at Halifax."*

Another capture of a Cohasset vessel was the little
packet sailing between here and Boston. She had on
board a cargo of fish in barrels packed for the Boston
market. The skipper, John Wilson, had no defense
against the British man-of-war and was compelled to sur-
render; but the British had little use for such a cargo,
and they allowed the owner of it, Levi Tower, to redeem
the vessel by paying a sum of money. When she was
being unloaded at the wharf in Boston a marine's cut-
lass was found upon the deck between some of the barrels,
where the British owner had lost it when rummaging
through the cargo. The cutlass is now kept as a memento
by the grandson of Captain John Wilson.

But the end of that unseemly war was reached at last.
At Christmas of the year 18 14, in Ghent, Belgium, the
terms of peace were made ; but the news did not reach
us until the middle of January, 181 5. Thomas Stoddard
describes the event as follows: —

In Cohasset the first news of Peace was the roar of cannon.
Commencing at Boston and as fast as the fleetest horse could
run, the roar of guns spread East, West, North and South. The
day was still and clear ; the ground covered with snow, in some
places ten feet deep.

*See Lincoln's certificate, p. 340.

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1812.

3D

Myself in company with my friend, John Bates and several
others, had been to mill and were returning home about noon.
AVe heard the guns at Boston, Charlestown, Marblehead, Salem
and Beverly Roxbury, Dorchester, and as fast as the news could
be brought, at Hingham.

I had, in haste, taken my dinner and was going to Uncle
David Beal's shop (a place for news), when I saw a horse and
sleigh with Capt. Elijah Nickerson and Col. Newcomb Bates
driving full speed from Hingham, shouting — Peace ! Peace ! I
gave the joyful tidings at the shop window and started full run

Photo, OctaviuB H. Reamy.

Summer Street in Winter, looking East.

down town, hallooing : Peace ! When I arrived at James' stable,
I found the door blocked up with a snow bank. I went into the
house, got a shovel and commenced clearing the snow. The
people soon began to collect ; which alarmed many people in
the neighborhood. Many of them actually asked the passers-by
where the British had landed, thinking they were soon to be
burnt out. So Httle did they dream of Peace ! We got out our
gun and soon told them the news.

352 HTS rOR Y OF COHA SSE T.

The rigors of winter prevented that activity and stir of business
which would have otherwise occurred on the reception of the
joyful news.

On the 2 2d of February the celebration of the return of peace
and the anniversary of the birthday of the immortal Washington,
combined by previous arrangement, the inhabitants through our
land observed as a day of public rejoicing.

In Cohasset, the morning was ushered in by the discharge of
cannon and ringing of bells. At eleven o'clock the inhabitants
assembled at the meeting-house, where prayers were offered and
a very appropriate and highly interesting address was delivered
by the Rev. Jacob Flint, our beloved pastor. Several pieces of
music prepared for the occasion, were sung by the choir. A
procession was then formed of the male inhabitants (except
boys) and marched around the Town Common to the Academy
Hall, where two tables the entire length of the hall were loaded
with every good thing which could possibly be procured. The
hall was tastefully decorated with evergreens and flags ; the por-
traits of Washington, Hancock and Adams hung in conspicuous
places and the hall was filled to overflowing.

Our Reverend Pastor asked a blessing on the occasion; per-
fect harmony prevailed throughout. Thirteen most excellent
toasts had been prepared by a committee appointed for the pur-
pose and when the first toast was announced, a salute of thirteen
guns from our gun commenced and ended with the thirteenth
toast. Many volunteers [toasts] were then offered and the com-
pany dispersed highly pleased and finished the day in mutual
congratulations.

In the evening a splendid ball at the hall closed the scene.
Thus closed the greatest festival this town has ever witnessed.

Now commenced a new era. The implements of war were
laid aside and Peace, joyful Peace now animated all class of
citizens.

That spring our dismantled vessels were again fitted out
for their voyages, as many as possible, and their industry
commenced the steady increase which lasted for many
years.

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1812. 353

Cohasset was never so dangerously near to the furies of
war as it was on June 17, 18 14, when the British frigates
lay off our harbor and eleven barges of British soldiers
attempted to destroy our town. The resistance which met
the enemy was not too severely taxed, but it shewed
itself in such a degree as to warrant a fair confidence in
our spirit of self-defense.

The militia training was still continued with about two
regular drills each year, one in May before the fishing
vessels sailed, and the other in October when the men
were home again. Musters for the brigade or the divisiorL
to which the Cohasset company belonged were held in
Hingham, Quincy, Dedham, and elsewhere. Our officers
were much interested in these events, for promotion and
efficiency could be gained upon these larger military fields.
The guns were kept by the soldiers each for himself, who
reported for inspection with their ammunition every
May. The town's stock of powder was kept in a little
red house upon a ledge* in a field upon Eleazer James'
lane about six hundred feet southwest of the present rail-
way station.

The place for drilling was naturally the Common ; but
the marchings used to take them all over the town, and it
is said that they usually got very thirsty in the neighbor-
hood of "grog shops."

One red-letter day for the militia was when a general
muster was held at Cohasset about seventy-five years ago.
The " Rifle Greens " from Hingham were one of the visit-
ing companies, and the different companies vied with each
other in the skill of military movements. It took place in
what was called Barker's Field, on the south side of Sohier
Street, where Ripley Road has since been cut through.
The fences and road and fields were crowded with the
townspeople, who came miles to see it. It is doubtful
whether a single boy of the town, big enough to toddle,

* Behind the present home of Patrick Downs.

354 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

could be kept away on that day. One of the boys* of
that time who recently died, remembers the occasion when
he wore his little nankeen frock and was horrified by the
accident of a man's hand being blown off.

Tftat was probably the last general muster ever held in
Cohasset, for on April 24, 1840, the State militia was all
reorganized, and at the present day there are but a half-
dozen Cohasset young men in the militia.

A LIST OF COHASSET MEN WHO WERE COMMISSIONED IN THE

STATE MILITIA SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION

UP TO THE REORGANIZATION IN 1840.

COLONEL.
Newcomb Bates. April 21, 1823 — April 26, 1825. Discharged.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL.
Newcomb Bates. June 2, 1820 — April 21, 1823. Promoted.

MAJORS.
Jonathan Bates. May 18, 1797 —
James Stoddard. May 27, 1789—
John Pratt, May 28, 1812— April 30, 1814. Discharged.
Job Cushing. July i, 1781 —
Newcomb Bates. May 11, 1819— June 2, 1820. Promoted.

CAPTAINS.

Levi Tower. October 7, 1789 —

Jonathan Bates. May i6, 1796 — May 18, 1797. Promoted.

Bela Bates. August 26, 1797 —

John Pratt. April 9, 1806— May 28, 1812. Promoted.

Nathaniel Nichols. July i, 1781 —

Mar'J'in Lincoln. June 17, 1828— March 18, 1830. Discharged.

David Tower. April 14, 1830 — May 4, 1832. Discharged.

Levi Nichols. July 12, 1819— March 12, 1822. Discharged.

Nichols Tower. March 25, 1822— April 24, 1823. Discharged.

Abraham H. Tower. May 31, 1823— February 27, 1828. Discharged.

Newcomb Bates. May 16, 1815— May ii, 1819. Promoted.

Peter Lothrop. August 31, 1812— April 17, 1815. Discharged.

LIEUTENANTS.
Bela Bates. May 16, 1796— August 26, 1797. Promoted.
Caleb Nichols. October 7, 1789—
John Pratt. August 26, 1797— April 9, 1806. Projnoted.
Jeorum Lincoln. July 1,1781 —
Samuel Bates. July i, 1781—

•George Bates, born 1815.

THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1812. 355

David Tower. June 17, 1828 — April 14, 1S30. Promoted.
WlLLAKD Flint. May 4, 1830 — April 2, 1835. Discharged.
Abraham H. Tower. March 20, 1823— May 31, 1823. Promoted.
Martin Lincoln. May 31, 1823 — June 17, 1828. Promoted.
James C. Doane. March 25, 1822— February 5, 1823. Discharged.
Nichols Tower, July 12, 1819— March 25, 1822. Promoted.
Henry Prentice. May 16, 1815— May 10, 1816. Discharged.
Levi Nichols. June4, 1816— July 12, 1819. Promoted.
Peter Loth ROP, April 9, 1806 — August 31, 1812. Promoted.
John Beal. August 31, 1812— May 3, 1815. Discharged.

ENSIGNS.
Thomas Bourne. May 24, 1790 —

Noah C. Bailey. June 17, 1828— September 17, 1833. Discharged.
Abraham H. Tower. March 25, 1822— March 20, 1823. Promoted.
Martin Lincoln. March 20, 1823— May 31, 1823. Promoted.
James C. Doane. July 12, 1819— March 25, 1822. Promoted.
John Barnes. May 31, 1823— August 29, 1826. Discharged.
David Tower. October 18, 1826— June 17, 1828. Promoted.
Levi Nichols. May 16, 1815— June 4, 1816. Promoted.
Newcomb Bates. August 31, 1812— May 16, 1815. Protnoted.
John Beal. April 9, 1806— August 31, 1812. Promoted.
John Pratt. May 16, 1796— April 9, 1806. Promoted.
Peter Lothrop, Jr. August 26, 1797—

SURGEON'S MATE.
EZEKIEL Pratt. November i, 1809 — February 2, 1816. Discharged-

PAYMASTER.
Job Tower. October i, 1824— September 23, 1830.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE town's church AND ITS DIVORCE.

IN dealing with the two wars and the daily industries
of the town we have neglected two important sources
of civic power, the church and the school.

Some reference to them was made in the establishment
of precinct autonomy in the year 1717, but a whole cen-
tury has intervened between that year and the years fol-
lowing the War of 1812.

During that century the church continued to nourish
the spiritual powers of the people, with a slow advance
in the methods of supplying religious wants. The town
itself in the beginning undertook the task of providing for
this element in human nature. It secured by a general
contribution of property holders a meeting-house, placed
upon public land. In its precinct meetings committees
were appointed to secure preachers, and the expenses were
paid out of the public treasury by votes of the precinct.
These expenses were more than all other expenses com-
bined, and yet the question seems never to have been
raised whether this religious function really belonged to
the precinct business.

For four years, until December 13, 1721, the precinct
carried on worship without the existence of any church,
and at that date there were only seven men besides the
pastor who took the vows of a Christian covenant. These
men were not elected by the precinct to take charge
of its religious interests, for that responsibility was
supposed to belong to the whole community whether
members of the church or not.

For fifty-three years the main business of the precinct

356

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 357

meetings was to care for the public worship. School
matters were much smaller — perhaps one quarter as
much money being expended on them.

Because of the large proportion of church business
done by the precinct, it was frequently called a " parish "
or "society"; but the precinct was always a political and
not a religious organization. In the exercise of its two
most important affairs — the church and the school — it
may be well to note first the management of the church,
and afterwards that of the school.

The first pastor, Nehemiah Hobart, was ordained, as we
saw, December 13, 172 1, in a meeting-house upon the pub-
lic land, the occasion being a public festival paid for by
the precinct taxes.

The house had no pews, no carpet, no lamps, no organ,
no tapestry ; the seats were only benches and the pulpit
a plain box high enough to make the hearers look up.
The galleries reached across three sides, and their floors
were slanted towards the middle of the house. Indians
and negroes, whether slaves or free, could occupy these
upper places with any others who might stray into them,
while the more dignified men and women sat upon benches
on the main floor, the women on one side, the men on the
other side of the middle aisle.

Small windows of diamond-shaped panes held together
by strips of lead — these brought from England — were
placed in the outside walls. They were opened for air in
the summer during the service, but in the winter they
were nailed fast.

A janitor was first chosen in the year 1720 to care for
this edifice at a salary of fifteen shillings, not quite four
dollars; but for this sum he had "to get the casements
hung, and glass mended, besides fastening the doors,"
sweeping once every two weeks.

There was no bell to be rung, but people had plenty of
time, and upon Sunday morning, when they saw their

358 HIS TOR Y OF COHA SSE T.

neighbors walking along the middle of the road or across
pastures towards the meeting-house, they all came to-
gether at some time between ten and eleven o'clock to
their leisurely service. The pastor came to the church
from his house across the street after the people had
gathered, and mounted the stairs into his pulpit, while the
worshipers settled upon their accustomed seats.

There were no responsive readings, no anthems by a
choir, and for several years little if any singing by the
congregation. The pastor read sufficiently long passages
of Scripture with comments or illustrations, and then
while all stood up, a prayer was offered for all the needs of
the parish as the pastor might conceive their importance.
The sermon then followed, timed by an hourglass that
the minister set up on the pulpit ; and while the sand was
trickling through from top to bottom the minister was
reading with more or less vehemence the product of his
pen and heart during the week just ended. The people
were able to find many suggestions in the sermon to
quicken their moral purpose, to enlarge their faith, and to
open their windows of hope. Their demands were not
severe, and the minister's training, however meager it
might seem to people nowadays, was quite sufficient for
the congregation, very few of whom had received as much
schooling as our present grammar school affords.

After the morning service an hour or more of intermis-
sion gave time for the people living near, to get to their
homes for a luncheon, but the people from Lincoln's Mill,
from Beechwood, and from Jerusalem, as they called the
neighborhood of Hull Street, had to take their luncheons
in the meeting-house if they remained until the afternoon
service.

The salary of the first pastor was nearly one hundred
and thirty pounds in the year 1722, and it grew to be
only one hundred and eighty pounds in the nineteen years
of his ministry. He was a faithful pastor and gathered

THE TOIVN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 359

into the membership of the church seventy-seven persons,
besides performing all the general ministrations of the
parish. He died in the forty-third year of his age, 1740,
and was buried in the Central Cemetery. He never saw
the meeting-house now upon the Common, for it was not
built until 1747.

Neither did the second pastor see more than the little
old meeting-house, for only five years were allowed to him
in his unfortunate * pastorate. Rev. John Fowle was
ordained December 31, 1741, and dismissed in 1746, the
year before the new meeting-house was built. The trouble
during his last year of service was submitted to five
referees outside of the parish, and a committee of three
were appointed to present to them the case for the pre-
cinct against Mr. Fowle.

When this trouble was ended by the dismission of Rev.
John Fowle, the precinct began to build the larger meet-
ing-house which we see at present upon the Common, a
few rods north of the old one.

It was a plain house forty-five feet by sixty feet, with
no steeple and no porch, the pulpit being built where it
now is against the long wall on the east side. A belfry
was built upon the roof at the north end, but no bell was
put into it for several years.

Pews were put in at first by a number of persons who
paid in all, one half of the costf of the building for their
pew privileges.

They were to build their own pews upon the space
deeded to them, which is called "ground" in the old
documents, but means only floor space, for the same sort
of "ground" was deeded by the precinct for pews in the
gallery. The ownership of these pews by private parties
was a long step taken by religious matters out of the hands
of the precinct.

* He is supposed to have become mentally deranged.

tThe total cost of the building was ^^3,975 I4-!'. 3^. of their depreciated currency.
(See Precinct Records, p. 77.)

36o

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

The precinct thus became only half owner of the
house ; at least it assumed only half the expense of
building it. The pew owners thus voluntarily invested
their means in a religious enterprise which some others of
the precinct were voluntarily abandoning. It is true that
ministerial taxes still had to be paid by all of the precinct,
whether they participated in the worship or not, but there
were many who felt that the conducting of religious ser-
vices was not so necessary a part of the precinct business
as it formerly had seemed. The owners of these square
pews or pens were manifestly more interested in the
affairs of public worship than were those who had invested
no money.

The pew holders thus constituted a ring or com-
pany which began to grow into what was called an
"ecclesiastical society." Some of them were also mem-
bers of the covenant church, which was concerned more
deeply with the spiritual factors involved in public wor-
ship.

At about this time, 1748, the people in Rocky Nook,
that is, the region of Hull Street, petitioned* both the
precinct and the General Court to be allowed to withdraw
from the precinct. Perhaps the new building seemed too
big a burden for them since it was too far away for them
to attend service easily.

At any account, the petition indicates a growing un-
willingness upon the part of some to support the precinct
in its religious affairs. The pastor, John Brown, ordained
September 2, 1747, was a strong man with large ideas of
citizenship ; he was well fitted, therefore, to restrain the
precinct from its tendency to drop off its religious func-
tions. But this tendency was inevitable ; and before the
pastorate was ended Rev. John Brown was subjected to a
tax (1782) just as any other citizen, — a thing never done
before with the precinct's minister, and proving that the

*See p. 269, in chapter on " Separation from Hinghani."

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 36 I

precinct business was to be quite separate from the parish
business.

During the forty-five years of Rev. John Brown's pas-
torate one hundred and thirty-six persons were admitted
to church communion, and several changes in the service
as well as in the building were made.

The janitor's work in the year 1749 included the duty
" to clear y*^ dogs out of y^ House every Sabbath."

The plastering was finished in the year 1750, and new
pews were then put in.

Benches, or " seatets " as they were called, were built in
the spaces left around the pews, until the "ground"
might be sold for another pew, when the benches were
taken out. Half the proceeds of these sales were given
to the original pew proprietors who bore half the expense
of the house. The new pews were required, furthermore,
to be like the ones already built.

Six new pew "grounds" were marked out in the front
gallery and were sold as follows : " Prince Joy bid off the
pew next to y*^ women's stairs at 13 pounds old tenor;*
Samuel Gushing 3rd from the women's stairs 16 pounds ;
Nehemiah Leavitt 4th 17 pounds ; Francis Lincoln 5th
15 pounds; Micah Jepson y*^ 6th next to y" stairs in y"
men's gallery 13 pounds."

Seventeen years later, in the year 1767, when a two-
story porch was added at the front of the house, there
was more pew "ground " made in the church ; for the old
stairs leading to the gallery on both sides were taken
away, and two entrances to the gallery were provided in
the upper part of the porch. The pew "ground" thus
gained below and above was given to the builders of the
porch in payment. Whether the building was painted at
first is doubtful ; at least they voted not to paint it in the
year 1762.

A small bell to call the worshipers was long desired by

*One pound old tenor in 1752 was equal to .135 pound.

362 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

some, and finally, in the year 1761, several persons by a
subscription purchased a bell, which was hung in the little
tower at the north end of the roof. The precinct thus
adopted the novelty, and six years later, 1767, they ordered
it to be enlarged by remelting and adding enough to bring
the weight to six hundred pounds.

Even 'in regulating the order of service the voice of
the precinct ruled, as shown by the vote in 1767: "The
question was put whether the reading Line by Line in our
Singing in Divine Worship should be omitted for the
future: Passed in the Negative." Thus they held a little
longer to that old method ; the deacon would read a line
from a psalm and then the congregation would sing it
according to some tune before the next line was given.

A few of the people had books in which the psalms
were printed in the form of rhymes, and in the back
leaves of the book there were thirty-seven different tunes
to which the psalms or other verses could be sung.

Some of the tunes are still used in our churches ; for
example, Penitential Hymn, Veni Creator, Cambridge,
Sabbath, York, etc.

The effect of rendering the psalms in rhyme may be
seen from the twenty-third psalm, which appears in the
following disguise : — *

The Lord to me a shepherd is,

Want therefore shall not L
He in the folds of tender grass,

Doth make me down to lie.

He leads me to the waters still ;

Restore my soul doth he.
In paths of righteousness he will.

For his name's sake lead me.

*Tlie book used is now owned by A. H. Tower, and was formerly owned
(1742) by Rebecca AUyn, daughter of James Allyn. The book was printed in
London in 1725.

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 363

In valley of death's shade although

I walk, I '11 fear none ill :
For thou me with thy rod also

Thy staff me comfort will.

Thou hast 'fore me a Table spread,

In presence of my foes
Thou dost anoint with oyle mine head.

My cup it overflows.

Goodness and mercy my days all

Shall surely follow me :
And in the Lord's house dwell I shall

So long as days shall be.

Harmony in singing was much desired by the more
ambitious ones, and it was partially procured by getting
the singers to sit nearer together.

In the year 1771, when we had become a town, it was
ordered that " the Singers should sett in those two hind
seats in the body of the Meeting-house, the Women's
side."

This move was so popular that another seat was added
the next month by putting them closer together.

Three years later, 1774, the town again regulated its
worship by a vote " not to omit the portion of Psalms
read by the Deacons in time of Divine Service." Thus
both in externals and internals the town provided public
worship.

The next year, 1775, the noon intermission was regu-
lated by vote to be two hours long in the summer from
the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in October.
The rest of the year the intermission was to be but one
hour long.

In 1 78 1 the singers asked to be allowed to sit in the
front gallery, but they were not permitted to do so.
They gained their purpose, however, at last, for seven
years later, in 1788, they had evidently moved into the

364

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

gallery ; and " it was voted to sell the ground in the
meeting-house formerly occupied by singers."

It was probably in this period of musical progress that
the violin and bass viol were introduced into the worship.

In 1 77 1 Isaac Lincoln and others who came from a
distance were allowed " to set up a horse house near the
meeting-house." Horse-blocks to aid the horseback
riders in mounting were for many years standing at both
corners of the east side of the meeting-house.

The salary of the pastor always included a gift " for
settlement " of several hundred pounds to be paid in the
first three or four years. Rev. John Brown's was ^400
for settlement, paid in four years, besides an annual
salary of ;£350. Both of these were old tenor terms,
which meant at this time about one sixth of what was
stated.*

Half of the pay was to be "by Indian Corn and Rye
at fifteen shiUings per bushel ; the other half by beef at
tenpence per pound."

The precinct assessors had to state for each year the
amount they could raise, and it varied in the course of Mr.
Brown's forty-five years from ^^56 3^-. 9^. in the year
1754 to £,\o\ 6s. 8d. in the year 1786.

The stove wood for the pastor was provided annually
by the assessors, and it was no small chore, judging by the
amount used ; for Mr. Brown demanded for his first three
years "twenty cords of merchantable wood annually."

The tithingman, now made familiar to us by the oddity
of the notion, was a town officer to preserve order in the
town's pubHc worship. John Orcutt was an appointee from
the Hingham town meeting in 1750 and other years, and

•This depreciation of the old issue of bills made long contracts unfortunate.

In 1753 the town refused "to grant a further allowance to Isaac Lincoln for
maintaining the bridge over Bound Brook for twenty years past — in consideration
of the depreciation of the money."

Also John Joy, for keeping an Indian woman (pauper) in her last illness, was
not allowed extra pay on account of the depreciation.

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 365

after we became a town we appointed one ourselves,
the incumbent for the year 1775 being John Burbank.

Of many other details of church life we have not room
to speak.* The general progress in the quality of worship
has been intimated. Also we have noted the tendency of
the town to allow its public worship to become a smaller
proportion of its concerns. Those who were unwilling to
support heartily the religious functions made the taxes so
hard to collect that in the year 1792 the assessors were
allowed to make a separate bill of the ministerial tax, and
a separate collector was appointed to collect it. The first
was Jerome Lincoln, and his pay was fourpence on every
pound collected. The Beechwood people and those at
Jerusalem were unwilling, some of them, to pay for services
so far away from their homes, and many of them were
absent from the worship.

Nevertheless, the meeting-house being town property
and the place for holding town meetings, they were all
concerned in the repairs and improvements of the build-
ing, whether they supported the worship or not. A steeple
was desired by some to hold a new bell f in 1791 ; but the
bell was hung in the old tower, and its first use was to
toll the death of Rev. John Brown, October 25, 1791.$
But the steeple came to be built in eight years more, says
an old account book of Caleb Nichols, carpenter, at a cost
of "four hundred dollars."

*The following incident of church life a century ago is worth noting : —

Mrs. Elisha Doane, who had aristocratic tastes, indulged in a beaver poke bon-
net with white nodding plumes. Three young ladies with some social ambitions
determined to imitate the style, hoping to make a stunning impression some Sab-
bath mornmg. But there were several young men in the town who discovered their
plans and conspired to humiliate the young ladies. They raised a subscription
and purchased one of the monstrous bonnets and easily persuaded a negro serv-
ant named Zylph, a public character, to wear it to church. The buxom negress
took a conspicuous place in the gallery, and her plumes nodded before the eyes of
all, to her manifest delight. But the poor young ladies who saw their own efforts so
cheapened never recovered their pride enough to wear their bonnets a second time.

t Perhaps made by Paul Revere.

J See Joel Willcutt's diary.

366

HISTORY OF coil AS SET.

The next minister, Josiah C. Shaw, was called in 1792
by a method that showed still further the separation of the
town from the church.

First Parish Pulpit, Sounding Board, Draperies, etc.
Rev. Joseph Osgood, D.d., in his familiar place.

We read in the town records that a m.eeting of the

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 367

" church " was held which decided to call " Mr. Josiah C.
Shaw" to its ministry, seventeen members being present.
Immediately afterwards on the same day the town "voted
to concur with the church in giving Mr. Shaw a call " at
one hundred pounds a year salary, with a bonus of one
hundred pounds more for settlement. When the new
minister was ordained, October, 1792, the town paid for
the ordination dinner, though the church called the council.
Thus a distinct cooperation was expressed between the
ecclesiastical body and the political.

After the unpleasant termination of Mr. Shaw's pastorate
four years later (June 3, 1796), the church and the town
again united in calling a minister, Rev. Jacob Flint,
December 18, 1797.

This was the last pastorate under the old reghne of the
town's authority in religious matters. Before his thirty-
seven years of ministry were finished two other churches
had been planted within the town, without the need of any
concurrence by the votes of a town meeting — simply by
the rights of citizens to unite in the form of a church accord-
ing to their own preference.

The first of these two churches was formed in the com-
munity called Jerusalem, at the northern part of the town.
The gradual alienation of that section from the old
church on account of its three miles distance has been
already noted. The large number who did not attend
church at all, impressed the more devout people of that
community, and they attempted to improve matters by
holding gospel services in private houses.

Some Methodist itinerant preachers, coming at inter-
vals of a fortnight or a month, succeeded in organizing a
church, December 17, 1818.* The Methodist church of
Hingham mothered this new one; indeed, all the inhab-
itants on the west side of the street — Hull Street — were
as now citizens of Hingham. Their first little meeting-

* In the History of Norfolk County, Rev. Joseph Osgood sets the date 1817.

368

HISTORY OF con ASSET.

house was built in the spring of 1823. Another which
yet stands was dedicated September 3, 1845.

This Methodist church did not encounter the severe
trials that might have been predicted for a church that
should endeavor to divide the one parish of the town.
Those trials were reserved for the center of the town,
where the people who must form a new parish must seri-
ously cut into the prerogatives of the old parish.

To relate the circumstances of that painful division of

Photo, Harriet A. Niclterson.

Methodist Church, Hull SiREiir. Built 1845.

This building has been called the Huckleberry Church because the devoted
women raised so much money to build it by picl^ing huckleberries.

the year 1824 in a way satisfactory to all prejudices would
be impossible, but it was an event of so great significance
and excitement to the town as to merit rehearsal.

At the closing period of the eighteenth century the
religious life of New England was at a low ebb. We have
seen that in our own community the amount of money
spent upon religious services in 1797 was considerably

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE. 369

less than was spent eighty years before, when we first
became a precinct, in 1717. Furthermore, in that eighty
years our population had been quadrupled and our other
expenditures multiplied several times. The steady de-
crease of religious support in its proportion to other work
was marked, and the preaching became more perfunctory
as the town grew more unwilling to support it.

At the opening of the new century there were many
persons throughout New England as well as in Cohasset
who began to exert themselves in a more strenuous reli-
gious effort. The result of the effort was to bring to light
a profound difference of view in regard to the Christian
religion. Many churches in Boston and its neighbor-
hood repudiated the orthodox doctrines of the nature
of Christ, of the nature of men, and of the meaning of
salvation.

These became known after some time as Unitarians for
their most distinguishing opposition, that against the doc-
trine of the Trinity.

The more strenuous adherents to the Calvinistic theol-
ogy found it necessary in many communities to build new
churches for themselves, because the majority of the
parish kept for their minister a man who repudiated
orthodoxy.

In Cohasset the pastor during those years of contro-
versy was Rev. Jacob Flint. His affiliation was obviously
with the Unitarians, as may be seen by several passages
in his "Century Discourses."*

There were several persons in the town who were so
much dissatisfied with the pastor of the town's church
that they used their influence to procure preaching serv-
ices of their own. They established a Bible Reading

* Page 8 in a note he says of Rev. Nehemiah Hobart : " It would seem from his
words that he did not consider Jesus Christ equal with the Father, nor the Holy
Spirit anything distinct from God's influence."

Again on p. 15, where Mr. Flint makes some aspersion against the doctrine of
natural depravity.

3/0 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

Circle in the year 1819 for the study of the Scriptures.
This became a Sabbath-school in 1822, held in a private
home, adjoining the present Engine House, Number One.

Students from Andover Theological Seminary, an insti-
tution organized to oppose the Unitarian movement,
came here frequently to preach. Some of the towns-
people attended these services, and the disaffection grew
until the old parish became divided by an irreconcilable
breach.

There were personal resentments as well as religious
differences which enlarged the number of disaffected par-
ishioners, until there were twenty who signed "articles of
agreement to build another meeting-house for the worship
of Almighty God."

They were : —

John C. Proctor. Thomas Stoddard.

Jairus Pratt. Bethiah Lothrop.

Nichols Tower. Anna Stoddard.

Paul Bates. Abner Briggs.

Thaddeus Lawrence. Elizabeth Briggs.

Daniel Bates. Maria Bates.

Henry Homes. David Beal.

Zenas Stoddard. Mary Lincoln.

Leavit Burbank. Priscilla Lincoln.

Thomas Farrar. Jacob Whitcomb.

Their house of worship was undertaken that fall and
was dedicated January 27, 1825, upon the land where it
now stands, given by Captain Nichols Tower.

Meanwhile a church had been organized with twenty
members by the help of several other churches, includ-
ing the Old South of Boston and the First Church of
Braintree.

The animosities which grew out of that division in the
old parish were hard to suppress. Families were divided
so that husband and wife going together to public worship
upon a Sabbath morning would separate at the Common,

THE TOWN'S CHURCH AND ITS DIVORCE.

71

one going into the old meeting-house and the other into
its new rival.

The old pastor and certain prominent citizens, meeting
upon the street, ignored each other. For many years the
town had in it feelings of bitterness and of sadness over
the breach, but the second parish grew until its building
was twice enlarged. From that year, 1825, the town
never again undertook to be responsible for the public
worship of its citizens. By common consent the manage-
ment of the first parish was left to that parish instead of

Photo, Harriet A. Nickerson.
CO.NGRF.GATIONAI. CHURCH. BUILT 1824.

being done by the town. The town's ownership of the
building seemed to melt away into the hands of its pew
owners, who became incorporated as an ecclesiastical so-
ciety as the State law provided. Several other parishes
have been organized in the town since then, including the
Beechwood Congregational, the Roman Catholic, and the
Episcopal churches, which will be spoken of in a later
chapter.

372 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

The support of churches has become purely voluntary,
without any supervision by the town government. Thus
there are many citizens who bear none of the burden of
public worship. It may seem unjust to distribute the bur-
den so unequally ; but we Americans who divorce the
church from the state feel that the ones most benefited
by the church are the supporters of it, and the ones most
injured by neglecting it are those themselves who neg-
lect it.

There is only one point at which the town still holds a
public and universal allegiance to the churches, and that is
in exempting them all from taxes. The town's approval
of public worship, indeed the town's effort to furnish pub-
Jic worship, is shown by this exemption.

This period of one hundred and eight years, from 17 17
to the year 1825, thus witnessed the gradual relinquishment
of town responsibility for public worship, from the beginning
when the precinct did everything for the parish, to the end
when nothing was done by the town except the abatement
of the taxes on church property.

NOTES CONCERNING THE CHURCH.

1773. Selectmen's account :

Paid to Ezekiel Lincoln for Ringing the Bell and takeing Care Meeting-
house and toiling the Bell i;^ 15J. 8a?.

June 1799 Agreed with Zealous Bates, John Pratt and Zenas Lincoln, a com-
mittee, for building tower and steeple on the meeting house for four
hundred dollars. — Caleb Nichols' account book, p. 46.

1816 Nov 17. This evening the Singers went to Mr Flints to sing. — J. W. diary.

1818 Mch 15, Sunday. Capt Levi Tower published Intentions of marriage from
the pulpit. — J. W. diary.

1822 Feb. 3. This day had a stove in the meeting house for the first time. —
Joel Willcutt's diary.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY.

WHILE the town government was gradually relin-
quishing its responsibility for public worship, it
was taking on an increasing care of public schools.

The precinct at its beginning in 1717 had no schools.
As we saw in a previous chapter, the first money for
schools which they received from the town of Hingham
was not obtained until four years after they became a pre-
cinct, and this was spent for a " dame school " and for
"reading and syphering."

They tried to get a schoolmaster for a few months of
schooling each year, but failed. The first committee to
engage, a schoolmaster was appointed October 14, 1728,
but there was no schoolhouse except what little building
might be rented by the committee.

The next year, 1729, the school term began as late as
December 20 and the amount of money expended was
;^I9 ly. yd., so that we may imagine the school to have
closed by the month of March.

The dame schools were no more mentioned in the pre-
cinct records, but they were probably kept and paid for
by the parents of children who attended them in various
parts of the town. Nowadays the majority of our teach-
ing is done by women in the public schools, but it was
not for many years that any woman teacher in this
community could venture to control the public school.
It would have seemed absurd to have for a teacher any
one whose muscle was inferior to that of the brawniest
boy in the room. The discipline was necessarily of a
brutal sort ; and if the boys could "whip" a teacher in a

374

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

go-as-you-please encounter, that pedagogue was no good
for that school.

Learning was quite a secondary accomplishment in
teachers' fitness. For this reason the annual school com-
mittees had always to furnish a master, and not merely a
teacher.

For a community so poor as this, where the annual
appropriation for schools did not exceed twenty pounds
but once in the first twenty years of the precinct life, no
man of experience could afford to be the master. The one
procured for the three months of each winter was a young
man who needed this bit of hard-earned money to help
him through his college course.

At Hingham, in the first precinct, Cornelius Nye dur-
ing several years taught the public school for eight or nine
months ; but here, in the second precinct, only about one
third of that time was supplied. The first master for
Cohasset mentioned by name in the treasurer's book was
Samuel Holbrook, who taught for one hundred and three
days in 1734-35 and received ^19 15^-. \d., or less than
one hundred dollars.

The place where this young man, one hundred and
sixty-four years ago, gathered his pupils, was in a little
building near by the church. At least a part of the one
hundred and three days were spent there. Possibly the
Beechwood inhabitants and those at Jerusalem had the
school in private houses of their own neighborhoods for
a part of the time ; but upon the plain at the center of
the precinct there was a little building for the school,
erected in the year 1734. The town government had
granted to this precinct a little .money for a schoolhouse,
and some school advocates had already started the little
building referred to ; for on October 7, 1734, this precinct
"voted that the frame now raised shall be here continued
and finished."

They also voted "that the two arms of the precinct,

SCJ/OOL /'A'OGA'ESS .LVD THE ACADEMY. 375

namely, all the inhabitants above Samuel Orcutt's in
Beechwood street," and those "of Rocky Nook, at
Straits Pond, and the Nicholses excepting Jaazaniah
Nichols and Jeremiah Mansfield," "may draw their pro-
portion of the money granted by the Town of Hingham
towards the building a school-house — provided they use
the same in building a school-house or school-houses."

The people on King Street were voted the "liberty to
join with the two arms abovesaid if they see cause so
to so."

There is no further evidence that either of these
"arms" attempted to erect a building with their small
shares,

Samuel Holbrook, the first-named schoolmaster of the
precinct, was employed for two seasons ; and then, in 1737,
a Mr. Dommings assumed the ferule.

The next young man to teach in our community was a
Cohasset boy, who was born, probably, at the famous Lin-
coln homestead, in the south end of the precinct, during
the year 171 7 — the very year the precinct was born —
and who became afterwards so influential in gaining town
rights that we have called him the father of the town.
Deacon Isaac Lincoln, when about twenty years of age,
had the courage to assume control over the boys of his
own community ; and it may be that this school experience
gave him some prestige in the community which enabled
him in later years to secure for his fellow citizens the
charter of the town.

A few years later than Isaac Lincoln's teaching days
a son of Deacon Lazarus Beal kept school during the
summer of 1748, from May i to August 25, at a salary
of ;^5 per month. A summer school was considerably
easier to keep than a winter one, for the big boys were
off on the fishing schooners or busy upon the farms, so
that only the smaller boys and the girls had to be cared for.

But the summer school was an evidence of a larefer

0/

76

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

respect for education, because from that time onward the
school was worthy of some attention, even when farm
work and fishing were going on.

It must not be supposed that the studies of Cohasset

•n>

'.'/' /y,=*

'" <^z- * ' ^''

./^- ',-^ /,'

#v

y A /

.,/-j.>;.

■ -■ '.A

A Problem in Navigation.
From the book of Nathaniel Nichols, Jr.. 1745.

young people were confined to subjects taught in our ordi-
nary grammar schools, for there were always a few young
men whose ambition led them into such studies as geome-
try and navigation. In this advanced work they were

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY. 377

guided by some private tutoring, either in school as spe-
cial students, companions of the teacher, or out of school
by some experienced mariner who passed along what he
had learned. Young navigators were always to be found
in Cohasset during the last century, studying distances
and courses upon the ocean, from shore to shore, such
as the practical sailing of a ship might require. The ac-
companying example taken from the book of Nathaniel
Nichols, Jr., 1745, is a fair illustration of what many
young men, brought up in this seacoast village, might have
done at that early date.

Soon after the year 1750 schooling for seven months
of the year instead of three was in vogue, lasting from
November i to June i. During the years 1754 and 1755
Samuel Gushing, Esq., of Beechwood, taught for these
seven months, receiving annually p^i8 135'. A^d. He was a
justice of the peace, a man fifty-five years of age, and he
may have been needed to quell the school at a time when
it suffered a critical disturbance. The amount paid him was
a very small wage, but his legal business could be carried
on at the same time. In the year 1761 the town of
Hingham gave this precinct over ;^26 for the schoolmaster,
but it was not a satisfactory proportion of the ;£i^0 or
more devoted to the school purposes of the whole town.
The grammar school, which the province laws required
to be held in every town, was kept in the first precinct,
while the other two precincts had to help pay for it.
There is no evidence that Cohasset ever had a grammar
school while she was a precinct ; it was only " Reading,
Riting and Rithmetic," the " three R's," that the Co-
hasset schools could provide.

Some eighteen years after the first little schoolhouse on
the plain, the precinct voted in 1752 to build two more
schoolhouses. It voted "also that three men who shall
be appointed by y"^ Parish shall order where each of
y"" shall be placed;" the design being probably thus to

378

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

supply the needs of the two "arms," Beechwood and
Jerusalem.

We know but little of these houses ; the chimney of one
of them was built by William Bates, for which he was paid
in 1762, ^i 6s. 8d. Daniel Lincoln was paid for " Labor
and stuff" ;^i 2s. 6d., and Joseph Thaxter for nails 6s. gd.
One quaint charge was that of Nehemiah Leavitt, black-

Be

ick ^of uounoer f^cliolars

Closet

TeacK<

fl

]^Jickj|nrnUer ftcUol arS

^

Fire
?lace

Pg-n«-k Ipy older Scht <lo. rs

c

3encfi ]-ori/o(/nge>r Scholars

hob^etc.

utttri

Interior Plan of the First Beechwood School.
Drawn as described bv one of the oldest residents.

smith in Hingham, " for a pair of tongues for y^ school
house in 2nd parish." This was a pair of tongs to manip-
ulate the logs in the open fireplace. These tongs suggest
many more rude implements of that primitive culture.
An hourglass was used for keeping the time, and the
seats used were wooden benches without backs and with-

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY. 379

out any desks. At the noon hour in winter the scholars
from a distance ate their cold luncheons of " rye 'n'
Injun" bread while gathered about the fireplace, perhaps
warming mince pie and bottles of milk upon the hearth.

Ungraded as the school was, in whatever part of the
precinct it was being held, the scholars were of all ages
from six to twenty years. The method of teaching had
to be for the most part personal coaching rather than
class work. In arithmetic, for example, each would work
away upon his own "sums" while the teacher went
from scholar to scholar approving or correcting and ex-
plaining.

The best example of class work was in spelling, when
a long line of boys and girls stood up to spell all kinds of
words, many of them never used in the community except
for " spelling matches." When a big boy blundered out a
wrong order of letters, a little girl by his side might catch
up the word and spelling it correctly, would pass above him
towards the "head of the class." This spelling custom
was a famous occupation in those early days, for it gave
room for much practice in memorizing, which seemed to
constitute the most important factor in the idea of an edu-
cation.

Nothing was taught of natural science in the animal or
vegetable or mechanical realms. Whatever drawing was
done was of the kind that must be punished ; for the im-
pulse to pictorial art, being never encouraged, was forced
to break out in some caricatures of teacher or pupils that
could not be allowed. The instruction in reading was de-
signed to give fluency and moral training. The aims of a
modern teacher of literature were scarcely suggested by
the way reading was taught. For many years there were
probably no reading books such as came into use after the
Revolutionary War, and a teacher must have had to use
any kind of books that might be owned by the scholars,
the Bible beinc: the most available one.

380 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

The art of writing has changed but little, and there were
many who reached a wonderful proficiency a century and
a half ago in Cohasset.

The one peculiarity was in the use of goose quills for
pens. The teacher had a sharp " pen " knife with which he
kept making and sharpening pens a large part of the time
when the writing period was on. A bunch of quills such
as were used for more than a century by the writers in
this community are preserved in the town's historical
collection, and specimens of quill penmanship are there
displayed.*

The imperfect implements of that early intellectual train-
ing were sufficient, however, to accommodate the unfold-
ing of strong mmds and to encourage the good judgment
necessary to the life of the community.

The school of the precinct was a roving one for many
years, but after a while the Jerusalem and the Beechwood
people demanded schools of their own, not kept in turn by
the one master of the town, but by separate masters.
According to the old vote of December 30, 1731, the two
arms of the precinct had the school with them their pro-
portion of the time, according to what they paid of the
school tax. Twenty-six years later, 1757, it was voted that
the inhabitants of the Beechwoods from Gushing Kilby's
upwards should draw their proportion of the money that is
allowed to the parish, provided they lay out the same in
hiring a schoolmaster. Thus there were two schoolmas-
ters ordered for the precinct, and one committee of three
was to supply both.

Nothing is said in the records about the school for Jeru-
salem until seven years later, 1764, when they were allowed
to draw their proportion of the money for schools just as
the Beechwood people had been doing.

From that year there were three schools provided in the

*At least one of our town writers, Aaron Pratt, Esq., of Beechwood, still uses
quill pens.

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY. 38 I

precinct, and a cummittee of five was appointed to attend
to them. The school at the Center was ordered to be kept
until June 17 in the year 1765, and then after two months
and a half vacation was to be reopened September i.

Thus for three years more the three schools sufficed ;
but in 1768 it was voted that four pounds of the school
money belonging to the " Center" should be "laid out in
three women s schools at such places as the school com-
mittee shall appoint." These "women schools " were sub-
stantially the same as the "dame schools" of earlier
days, in which smaller children were taught by a woman
somewhat as in primary schools and kindergartens nowa-
days. Little fingers were taught to sew, and especially
each little girl had to make a "sampler." This "sampler"
was a piece of coarse cloth into which the letters of the
alphabet and other designs were worked with silk or soft
woolen thread. Many of them can be seen nowadays
framed and hanging upon the walls in dwellings through-
out our town.

The women schools were a popular move that year, so
the grant was doubled in 1769, and four of them were sup-
ported at the Center where children were plentiful. The
adoption of these dame schools by the town, instead of
leaving them to private enterprise, was a distinct step in
progress towards public responsibility for schools.

The next year began our career as a town government,
and we started off with an appropriation of thirty pounds for
schools. This hundred and fifty dollars seems very small
compared with our thirteen thousand five hundred dollars
appropriated for schools the present year (1898) ; but the
beginning was right in principle, however meager.

One peculiar custom of school support at the period
here reached was in the matter of supplying stove wood to
keep the schoolroom warm. The town voted, December 2C,
1770, not to take any money from the school appropriation
to spend for wood. Instead of that extravagance, they

382 HIS TON V OF con A SSE T.

voted that ".every Child that cometh to the Reading and
Writing School till wood is wanted, shall bring to s'^
School a foot of Wood or one shilling & sixpence in
money to the School-master to purchase Wood ; and that
the School-master take a list of the names of those children
that come to School as aforesd and return their names
and to whom they belong to the Assessors that shall be
chosen the next March meeting, and the Assessors when
they make the District rate, add to the s"^ rate what those
persons are behind towards wood, and for want of wood
the Commity draw money out of the treasury to pur-
chase it."

The next year, 1771, one more school district was set
off with its proportion of money according to taxes paid.
This additional district was the community along South
Main Street from Lincoln's Mill at Scituate down as far
as our Cove, excepting Thomas Stephenson and Abel
Kent.

But this arrangement was not satisfactory ; so the next
year, 1772, they were rejoined to the Center, and the
school was kept for one half of the time at the school-
house, one quarter of the time "at or near Joseph Will-
cutt's," and the remaining quarter " at or near John
Stephenson's."

At the year 1773-74 the point of ^35 appropriation
for schools was reached, while the pastor's was about
^88 ; and it was not until many years passed that the
town support of schools equaled her support of the church.

In 1774 the first reference to a school bell is made,
when the town consented to have one put upon the Center
schoolhouse "provided it be done without charge."

The roving school was not yet obsolete, for the people
in King Street now demanded their share of the time for
the Center school to be kept among them. In the year
1776 while some of the men were away to war this was
granted — the first public school in King Street.

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY. 383

All this time there was one committee of three or five
appointed each year to attend to the conducting of
schools.

In 1779, of the committee of three, one was stated
definitely to represent the Center, one for Beechwood,
and the third for Jerusalem.- Three years later, 1782,
there were four appointed, the additional one being for
the "Mill Street " people, that is, for the neighborhood of
Lincoln's Mill, South Main Street. But the Center school
business seemed so much more important that three were
appointed to represent it in 1784, thus enlarging the com-
mittee to six.

By this time the need of new schoolhouses was felt,
but the motion to build three or one was voted down in
1785. Beechwood had been already denied a new school-
house. A "Grammer" school was ordered kept at the
Center about three weeks longer, and it was also voted at
that time to divide the town into three divisions for con-
venience in schooling. The new scheme of division made
the Center to include Jerusalem and King Street in one,
Beechwood Street was the second, and South Main Street
from the meadow was the third.

Each division was to draw money according as it paid
taxes.

This was a clumsy device, and in 1788 King Street and
Jerusalem each had to draw its own share from the town.
That year fifty pounds were appropriated, and the follow-
ing five were chosen to provide "School marsters " : —

Thomas Pratt for the Center. Abel Beal for Jerusalem.

Joseph Whitcomb for Beechwood. Galen James for King Street.
Jerome Lincoln for Mill Street.

But two years afterwards, in 1790, a vote was passed in
regard to the apportionment of school money that regis-
tered a huge leap in the principle of school support.
Hitherto each division was empowered to draw money in

384 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

proportion to its taxes, but that year it was voted to divide
the town according to the number of children.

The basis, not of property, but of children, was then
for the first time inaugurated. The next year some
attempt was made to get the system back again to a
property basis ; but the vote was reconsidered, and
again the money was "proportioned by the number of
children."

The divisions were now four : North End and South
End, meeting at the bridge near Christopher James' hotel
(Norfolk House), Beechwood and Jerusalem. The total
number of school children in the year 1796 was 472, of
whom 36 were at Jerusalem, 63 in Beechwood, 165 at the
South End, and 208 at the North End. The two hundred
dollars appropriated that year went, therefore, to these
in the order just named, $15.27, $26.69, ^69.91, and
$88.13.* The spirit of democracy was fairly begun by that
reform in proportioning school expenses, and the name of
the man who inaugurated it would be perpetuated if we
only knew him.

At about this time, 1796, a private or at least semi-
public enterprise to educate the young was inaugurated;
it was the establishment of an academy. Two hundred
dollars for the schooling of four hundred and seventy-two
children was ridiculously small when compared with our
present-day appropriation of thirteen thousand dollars for
less than four hundred scholars. One century ago the
average amount paid by the town for each scholar for a
whole year was less than fifty cents, whereas now it is
nearly thirty-two dollars — sixty-four times as much.
Some of the citizens of those early times felt the town's
blunder in spending so little upon its children, and there-
fore they began to institute an academy upon the plan
of a joint stock company.

*See Short Valuation by Elisha Doane for 1796. This census inchided children
younger than five years and older than fifteen years, our present limits.

SCHOOr. PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY.

385

A meeting of the men most interested in the project
was held Saturday evening, November 19, 1796, at the
"tavern " of Christopher James (now the Norfolk House).
Captain Levi Tower was moderator, and Samuel Brown
clerk. The others most prominent were "Squire" Elisha
Doane and Captain John Lewis. Their plan was to build
a schoolhouse such as other academies of which they
knew — -Derby, for example, in Hingham. The land
chosen was opposite the old meeting-house, where the
Town Hall now stands, part of Captain Levi Tower's
field, having fifty-five feet frontage.

Photo, Airs. v.. v.. EI

ACADKMY I)i:SK, 1830.

The building was erected the next year, two stories
high, with a porch in front for the stairway. The upper
room had an arched ceiling to be used as a hall, while
the lower part was divided into two schoolrooms.

The fall of 1797 saw the enterprise well started. There
were two teachers engaged, a preceptor, whose salary was
voted not to exceed four hundred dollars a year, and a
preceptress at one hundred and fifty dollars.

The first incumbents mentioned were a Mr. Tilton and
a Mrs. Chatelaine.

The price of tuition was placed at forty-four cents a

386 HIS TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

week besides firewood, to be paid quarterly. No scholar
was to be adrnitted to the academy for a period less than
three months. The owners of shares were entitled to send
one scholar for each share, and then other parties could
fill up the rest of the full number of scholars. There were
four vacations each year.

There was no financial income from the enterprise, and
some of the shareholders failed to keep up their assess-
ments ; accordingly, for the sake of better management,
the "Academy and Hall " were rented in 1801 to Sam-
uel Brown, Christopher James, and Elisha Doane, free
of charge for two years, provided they should keep the
school.

The total cost of the building was $1,924.90; and of
teaching services, $1,340.81. This total of more than
three thousand dollars was none too large a burden for the
nineteen proprietors, but more men were now anxious to
have a part in these educational privileges. The old
proprietors voted to have the stock divided into thirty
shares instead of twenty-four, and no proprietor was
allowed to own more than one share.

The old and new proprietors together were as follows : —

LIST OF THE THIRTY PROPRIETORS OF THE COHASSET
ACADEMY, MARCH 27, 1804.

Joseph Bates. Elisha Lincoln.

Jonathan Bates. John J. Lothrop.

Bela Bates. Peter Lothrop.

Daniel Bates. Israel Nichols.

David Beal. Caleb Nichols.

John Beal. Captain Nathaniel Nichols.

Thomas Bourne. Naaman Nichols.

Samuel Browne. John Nichols.

Elisha Doane. Samuel Pratt.

Elisha Doane, Jr. John Pratt.

Christopher James. Gershom Pratt.

Susannah Lewis. Captain Lutlier Stephenson.

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY.

387

James Stodder.
Samuel Stockbridge.
Levi Tower.

Job Turner.
Abraham Tower.
William VVhittington.

It may be of interest to know who were some of the
children fortunate enough to have this semi-private in-
struction. The following list shows that many of the
boys were not in attendance during the summer term : —

LIST OF PUPILS OF
QUARTER,

Hepzibah C. Brown.
Thomas Stephenson.
Maria Doane.
Clara LothroiD.
Abagail Bates.
Patty Tower.
Sophia Turner.
Sukey Bates.

THE COHASSET ACADEMY FOR FIRST
MAY 21 TO AUGUST 13, 1804.

Abagail Beal.

Polly Kent.
Polly Beal.
Lydia Little.
Mercy Bates.
Eliza Bourne.

William

Bailey.

Mary Hall.
Polly Nichols.
Sally Kent.
Polly Bailey.
Hannah Nichols.
Patience Tilden.
Mary Collier.

These all received twelve weeks' instruction at twelve
cents per week.

The total quarter's tuition was ^30.24. After a vacation
of one week the academy opened again with the following
additions : —

ADDITIONS TO LIST IN SECOND QUARTER, MONDAY,
AUGUST 20, 1804, TO NOVEMBER 12, 1804.

Betsey Pratt. Betsey Jenkins. Clarke Cutler.

Sally Beal. Susannah Nichols. William Bordman.

Caleb Lothrop. Deborah Hayden. Abraham Tower.

One week vacation, November 12 to November 19.

ADDITIONS FOR THIRD QUARTER. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19,
1804, TO FEBRUARY 11, 1805.

Sally Torrey.
Nancy Turner.
Penelope Stockbridge.
Sally Jenkins,
Abigail Woodworth.
Susannah Lewis.

Sophia Vinal.
Merriel Lincoln.
James Doane.
Samuel Doane.
Job Turner.
Elijah Jarnes.

Southward Pratt.
Lois Nichols.
Adam Stowell.
James Little.
Daniel Tower.
Alexander Stockbridge.

388

HISTORY OF COM ASSET,

Festus Litchfield.
Enos Bates.
Joseph Hayden.

Allen Hall.
Phineas Bates.
Peter Pratt.

Lot Stodder.
Thomas Lothrop.
Hannah James.

ADDITIONS FOR THE FOURTH QUARTER, MONDAY, FEBRUARY
25, 1805, TO MAY 20, 1805.

Amasy Bayley. Bela Bates. Abigail Otis.

Caleb Bayley. Nabby Woodward. Betsey Lewis.

John Beal. Maria Doane. Susannah Lewis.

In the third quarter tuition increased to thirty cents and
forty cents per week ; thirty cents per week if taught by
preceptress, 40 cents per week if taught by preceptor.

Photo, Octavius n. Reamy.

Winter Scene from Sunset Rock.

But the Cohasset academy was unable to get firmly
established. There were not enough people who would
afford to pay the necessary cost of this private or semi-
public tuition. Those who had put money into the enter-
prise had grown tired of it at about the time of the War of
1812. They were not willing to add to the outlay by
hiring teachers to carry on the school. An attempt was
made to sell the building, but it could not be sold.

Then began its career as a sort of town hall. The
upper room had been already the place for many public

SCHOOL PKOGHESS AND THE ACADEMY. 389

meetings, one of which we have noted — the celebration
of peace after the War of 1812.

For thirty years and more the hall was rented for vari-
ous purposes — singing school, theater, debating society,
March meeting ball, phrenological lecture, temperance
meetings, and other gatherings. It was used as a sail loft
at one time, where the broad canvases of our fishing craft
might be cut and sewed.

One of the later uses for which the academy was rented
was a high school, paid for by the town. Now a high
school paid for by the town was precisely what ought to
have been established before ; and in fact the academy
project would never have been started but for the town's
slowness in assuming responsibility for higher education.

The public school progress during the academy period
until the beginning of the high school must now be re-
ferred to briefly. At the year 1796, the date where we
branched off to consider the academy, we found the school
children numbering four hundred and seventy-two. That
number is greater than we have to-day of school age, and it
may be readily seen that the tiny schoolhouses of a century
ago were much overcrowded. The Beechwood people had
been clamoring for a school building at every town meeting
for years, and so also had the Jerusalem people, but both
of them in vain. They were offered only partly enough to
build, or they were granted money to hire additional room.
To reduce the number of scholars, none were admitted in
1798 under six years of age; and besides this means of
preventing an excess of scholars, at this time the establish-
ment of the academy relieved the pressure upon the school
at the center of the town and probably drew somewhat
from the other "arms" of the town. In 1792 the little
Center schoolhouse had been ordered repaired and moved
and a new schoolhouse was built, both together costing
;i^54 9^-. \\d. By this change the writer understands
that a schoolhouse was provided for the South End

190

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

and the other for the North End. But the two " arms,"
Beechwood and Jerusalem, begged in vain for new school-
houses.

In the last year of that century, 1799, it was thought
best to disintegrate the school management still further
by appointing separate committees of three for each of
the four "districts." There had been hitherto one com-
mittee with representatives from the four parts of the
town, but now the committee was broken into four sepa-
rate committees. Whatever wisdom or authority a single
committee for the whole town might have had was now
broken into bits. The following were the several district
committees in 1799: —

r Aaron Nichols. i Ambrose Bates.

North. \ Zenas Lincoln. Beechwood. X Joseph Whitconib.

(_ Captain Levi Tower. ( John Wheelwright, Jr.

5 Caleb Nichols. i Joseph Nichols.

Samuel Pratt. Jerusalem. \ Ephraim Lincoln.
Christopher James. ( Frost Hudson.

They had only three hundred dollars to divide between
them according to their number of scholars, so that there
seems little need to have appointed so many to spend it.
But school politics are queer affairs, and it used to seem
necessary for every little faction of public sentiment to
have a representative on the committee. The next year
the unity of the school system was still more broken up
by appropriating one quarter of the school money to
dame schools, which were already in existence scat-
tered in every neighborhood of the town. They may have
been valuable adjuncts of the public schools, but the latter
were already too meagerly supported to admit of one
quarter of the funds being scattered in these little
dame schools.

Two years later, 1803, the three hundred dollars appro-
priation seems to have remained intact for the public
schools, because no mention is made of the dame schools.

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND riFE ACADEMY. 39 I

These committees chosen from different parts of the
town, with the mistaken idea that the people of each dis-
trict were the best judges of the school interests of that
district, were appointed year after year for more than a
quarter of a century. In 1822 there was indeed an attempt
to divide school management still further by making King
Street into a district, but that failed. That same year
there was made an effort in the opposite direction by ap-
pointing a town committee of three to visit these district
committee schools in the interest of the whole town. The
district committees were to notify the visiting committee
when they were all ready to be visited and to go with the
visitors to their school. What a red-letter day it must
have been when these six men, or as many as would go,
crowded into the little schoolhouse to hear the children
"speak pieces" and "spell " and go through various per-
formances for show !

But there was yet another movement towards unity in
the year 1828. Before that time the district committees
had cared for their own schools, even to the extent of
building new ones, but in that year it was voted " to pay
the several school districts in the town for their school-
houses and in the future to build and support all the
schoolhouses in their corporate capacity." A new dis-
trict was separated out of the North and South Ends
by taking one third of the children from each to form
the Center district. But the five districts never became
so separate again as they had been. The State law
now required every town to choose a superintending
committee, and by the year 1830 we had settled to a com-
mittee of three to hold our school system in order.
Indeed, there was not much that could be called system
until within the last fifty years, when " grades " have been
established. It was one of the unremitting labors of the
late Rev. Joseph Osgood, in his long service for the town,
to bring about this uniform teaching and systematic pro-
motion in our schools.

392

HISTORY OF CO 11 ASSET.

The dame schools gradually gave way to public pri-
mary schools as early as 1840. The public high school
was introduced in 1826 and had a few warm advocates.
In that year the town "voted to establish such a school in
the center of the town for the sole use of such boys and
girls as have arrived at the age of fourteen years." Seven
hundred dollars for schools were appropriated that year,
two hundred and twenty-five dollars being set aside for
the high school. This school was to be held in the
academy building, but nothing further has been found in
the records to prove the establishing of it at that date.

Twelve years later, in 1838, a committee appointed to
consider the project of a permanent high school reported
in its favor, as the note at the bottom of this page will
show.*

The method of introducing this higher department of
public instruction was by making it an appendage to the
academy. The teacher of a private school in that build-
ing during the spring and summer months was thus en-
abled to eke out his salary by taking the high school into
his care during the winter months. Some who live now

*i838. The Committee, chosen at a meeting of members of the Three Middle
Districts in this Town to take into consideration the project of establishing a High
School, ask leave to report, that, after mature deliberation, they have come to the
conclusion that some change in the school arrangements of the three Centre Dis-
tricts is imperatively called for by the interests of Education in those districts^
What that change is, has been a question they have found it difficult satisfactorily
to determine. However, after getting what light on the subject they could, they
have agreed to recommend the following plan. i. Let there be established at
some central point a Public High School to be kept by a competent male Teacher
six months in the year, and let this school embrace all those scholars in the three
districts who are over the age of 13. 2. Let there be a public male school kept for
3 months in the year in each of the Districts. 3. Let there be a public school kept
by a female instructor in each of the districts for 7 months in' the year — these last
schools to include all the pupils between the ages of 4 and 13. Should this
arrangement be adopted there would be liable to be in e^ch of the schools a num-
ber of scholars as follows. In the High School 100. In the North 60. In the
Centre 90. In the South 75. (This estimate is based upon returns made by each
of the Teachers in the Districts of all the scholars who have attended the schools
this winter. Owing to peculiar circumstances, a few more would need to be added
to the estimate of the North school to make it correct.) The expense of this

SCHOOL PROGRESS AND THE ACADEMY.

193

and who read these Hnes remember Mr. Tuck, who per-
formed this double function, as early as the year 1841,
with a remarkable degree of skill.

In the course of nine years it became possible to
lengthen the term of the high school and to increase its
appropriation so that a Mr. Hervey, the next teacher,
was employed to hold the school for a full year.

From that time fqrward the high school has been a
permanent and growing institution of the town. With
the establishment of primary schools and a high school
and intermediate schools, the development of the town's
work in educating its young was well under way, and
the use of private schools taught by the minister or
by spinsters or by academy preceptors gradually melted
away.

The democratic idea of free public schools began in
our precinct by paying some "dames" a few pounds to
teach children in various places ; and it has grown, as we
shall see in another chapter, to become the largest enter-
prise of our corporate community.

arrangement has been calculated as follows. Salary of the Teacher of the High
School $2.^0. Salaries of the District male Teachers ^225. Salaries of the
female Teachers ^168. Fuel for all the schools ^100. Rent of a room for a High
School ^25. Making in all the sum of ^768. ( In this estimate, ^25 per month has
been allowed to each of the male Teachers in the district schools, and 2 dollars
per week to each of the female Teachers.)

The practicability of this plan must depend somewhat as is evident, upon the
disposition of the town to raise more money than it does at present. Allowing to
each of the extreme districts its proportional share of the increase, an additional
appropriation of $230 would be required, and this, as it seems to your Committee,
is a very small sum compared with the great good which they anticipate from the
change proposed, should it be carried into successful operation. At any rate they
think it very desirable to make the experiment for one year, and should it fail, the
loss of $200 would not, they trust, be the ruin of the Town. Still they would sub-
mit their plan with all deference to the consideration of the several districts, trusting
that they will decide upon it, in such a manner as best to promote the intellectual
and moral interests of the rising generation.

Respectfully submitted by

H, G. O. PHIPPS,
PAUL PRATT,
L, N. BATES,

Committee.

394

HISTORY OF con ASSET.

LIST OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

1841-1850,
1850-185 1.
1850-1853.

1853-1854.

1854-1855-
1855-1856.

1856-1858.
1858-1859.
1859-1861.

Jacob Tuck.
James Hervey.
George H. Fillmore.
Robert Metcalf.
Mr. Crocker.
Mr. Perkins.
Frank Willard.
John F. Browne.
Mr. Gunnison.
Mr. Billiard.
Mr. Billiard.
William F. Bacon.
Robert F. Leighton.

1861-1862. Henry Leonard.

1862-1865. Robert F. Leighton.

1865-1866. Nathan Harrington.

1866-1868. Col. Samuel Harrington.

1868-1869. William E. Buck.

187G-1871. E. J. Caswell.

1871-1872. William B. French.

1873. F. W. Knowlton.

1873-1875. W. H. Knight.

1875-1884. Drusilla Lothrop.

1885-1890. Arthur Stanley.

1890-1891. E. J. Cox.

1891- Charles F. Jacobs.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

OUR narrative of the industries of the town was
interrupted by the story of the War of 1812, and
by the two subsequent chapters upon the church and the
school.

It is necessary now to go back some years and to follow
along- the events of shipbuilding and fishing which accom-
panied the progress of the church and the school.

It will be remembered that in the previous century,
1737, there were eight vessels, averaging twenty-two tons
each, assessed in this town. It would be a great satisfac-
tion to know the exact employment of these vessels,
whether carrying commerce between the seaports of the
different colonies and the West Indies, or fishing for cod
in the waters of northern New England, or being dashed
in helpless wrecks upon some rocky coast.

In any case, we may be sure that codfishing was an im-
portant part of their business in summer.

All along the Atlantic shore from Newfoundland to
Maine codfishing had been carried on for a century or
more by French and English from across the ocean and
by settlers in America. Clumsy sailing craft with high
sterns, like the accompanying illustration, sailed from
Cohasset with some of our ancestors each season for the
codfishing grounds.

No early records of this industry are known to exist,
but the annual catch for the hundred years intervening
between 1737 and 1837 may have been worth more than
a thousand dollars. At any rate, in the year 1837,* when
mackerel fishing had come to usurp almost the exclusive

* Barber's Historical Collections, p. 455.

396

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

attention of our fishermen, there were, nevertheless,
seven hundred and fifty quintals of cod taken, which
were valued at two thousand two hundred and fifty
dollars.

When we remember that the codfishing at Cohasset
had dwindled to nearly nothing by the year 1840, so that
very few people remember its existence, while the enor-
mous sum of four thousand four hundred quintals was the
catch of one season upon record, we may feel sure that

Codfishing off the Banks, 1780 and later.

the years between 1737 and 1837 could tell some pretty
big fish stories for so small a town.

Elisha Doane, who came here in 1786, had much
money invested in codfishing, and his old account books
tell some transactions that prove the magnitude of this
extinct enterprise of the town.

The larger schooners went to the Grand Banks of New-
foundland, the Bay of Chaleur, and Prince Edward Island

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 397

in April or May and stayed there fishing until September,
catching and salting the fish.

The method of these northern fisheries was at first to
fish from the sides of the schooner ; but later, an eighty-
ton schooner, with her crew of twelve or fourteen, would
anchor in some harbor while small boats with two men
in each would sail and row to the fishing grounds. They
used hand lines. The fish were taken to the shore,
cleaned and washed, and then salted down. Afterwards
many of them were laid upon the hot rocks in the sun
to dry.

Towards the close of the season vessels bound to
Europe would sometimes buy from the fishermen the
stock already dried, but those which were brought home
to dry were spread upon the fish flakes at Bassing Beach
until cured enough to be tied up in bundles for the Boston
market.

The food of the fishermen was much increased by the
countless birds' eggs to be found upon the islands in their
fishing waters, and the men always took guns and ammu-
nition to supply the larder with fowl. The earnings of a
common fisherman upon these trips were about sixteen
or eighteen dollars a month.

The State government provided no public records for
the codfish business as it did for pickled fish, and the
statistics of it are therefore meager ; but enough has been
said to intimate the scope of the dried fish industry before
the smaller and more beautiful mackerel fascinated our
fishermen. The mackerel business is vividly in the minds
of one half our adult inhabitants, who recall with pride
the days when the port of Cohasset had but few superiors
in that industry.

The vessels used in the enterprise were nearly all built
at home, as we have already shown in a former chapter.
During the year 181 3 the dangers of war seemed to be so
far distant from our harbor that our energetic townsman,

398 HIS TOR Y ' OF COHA SSE T.

Levi Tower, built and launched three more small schoon-
ers, the Shark, the Dolphin, and the Porpoise. Vessels
grew old and some of them would get wrecked occasion-
ally, so that new ones had to be made to replace them.
Others were sold to fish merchants in other ports, who
fancied them, thus making more work for our shipbuild-
ers. Moreover, our fishing fleet kept slowly increasing as
more men pressed into the business needing more vessels.

During the six years following the great day of peril
in 18 14 our shipyards turned out twenty-two schooners,
ranging from forty-two tons to ninety-two tons in size.
One year there were as many as six of these launched into
our Cove.

The most prominent shipbuilder of that period was
Captain Levi Tower, who kept building continuously, either
for himself or for other- owners. Besides him the other
master builders were James Stoddard, Bela Bates, Abel
Kent, Luther Stephenson, Caleb Nichols, Abraham
Tower, Nichols Tower, Jonathan B. Bates, and others.

The model of these fishing schooners was a square-
sterned craft, somewhat broad and clumsy, but safe and
strong. A new style of schooner, called a " pinky " or
"pink" or "picky," was coming into vogue during this
period. Its distinguishing feature was a very high and
pointed stern. This new departure in the shipbuilding art
was first indulged here in the year 181 7 by Levi Tower,
when he built the Lady Washington, of fifty-two tons.

The high, pointed stern is said to have been devised as
a cheap way of securing a bit of deck room high enough
to keep dry. The old square-sterned schooners, after
the fashion of building the high poop deck went out,
were very wet in case of a rough sea, for the waves break-
ing upon the bow could sweep the whole length of the
deck. The pinky furnished a little triangular place abaft
the rudderpost, high enough to keep things dry when the
waves tumbled in upon the deck. By pointing the stern

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

399

above the rudder it was also possible to avoid the expense
of making the broad, flat stern plank, allowing the side
planks to run out a little farther until the ends came
together. At the very peak of the stern there was a notch
made at the meeting of the quarter rails, into which the main
boom could be dropped when the vessel was at rest. A
respectable and roomy quarter-deck in a square sterner
was much to be preferred, and the pinkies were not long
the ruling style.

In that year, 1817, there were two more built with the

Hull of a Pinky. 1820.

pink stern, the Fawn, by James Stoddard, for Peter
Lothrop, and the Lizard, by Abraham Tower, for himself.
The shipyards where the building was done during the
years 1811-19 were principally the one upon what is
now the Lawrence Barrett estate * and the one near the
present Guild Hall. Another small shipyard is said to
have been at the inlet on the northwest side of the Bar-
rett estate.

A list of the vessels built at this period has been
gleaned out of the Enrollment books, and it may present
some interesting facts as to ship owners and ship builders

* The summer residenee of C. W. Barron.

400

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

and skippers of those days. Not many vessels kept the
same skipper for a long time, and in the following list the
date by the skipper's name indicates the year when he
commanded the vessel and had her enrolled: —

LIST OF VESSELS BUILT IN COHASSET FROM 1811 TO 1819, AS

OBTAINED FROM THE BOOKS OF ENROLLMENT AT

BOSTON, UNITED STATES CUSTOM HOUSE.

Year

Name. Tons.

Owner.

Builder.

Master.

181I

Speedwell .

98

Levi Tower

Levi Tower

Henry Snow

1811

Juno . . .

96

....

. . . .

1813

Sliark . .

37

Levi Tower

Levi Tower

1813

Peter Pratt

1813

Dolphin. .

21

II II

II II

„

Noah Whitcomb

1813

Porpoise .

32

11 II

II 11

,,

Peter Pratt

1814

Zylph . .

43

Abraham Tower

Bela Bates

1815

Elisha Merritt

1814

Little Sarah

74

James Collier

1814

Ann . . .

91

L. Tower & N.
Tower & Wm.

Whitington

Levi Tower

1816

Henry Snow

1814

Little Susan

74

James Collier

....

1823

Howland Otis

1814

Only Son .

66

.Abraham Tower

. . • .

18 16

William &

Nancy .

71

Levi Tower

Levi Tower

1816

Wm. Kilburn

1816

Porpoise .

46

. . . .

. . . .

„

.Abraham Hall

1816

Franklin

75

Luther Stephen-
son

Luther Stephen-
son

"

Sam'l Eldredge

1816

Independence

44

Caleb Nichols

Caleb Nichols

1816

Sam'l Snow

1816

Three Sisters

92

Jno. J. Lothrop

Levi Tower

„

Anselm Lothrop

1816

Polly . . .

42

Nichols Tower

11 II

„

Geo. Collier

1817

Lady Washing

ton (pinky)

52

Levi Tower

II 11

1817

Hosea Orcutt

1817

Fawn . .
(pinky)

50

Peter Lothrop

James Stoddard

"

Ezekiel Wallace

1817

Seloma . .

54

Nichols Tower

Levi Tower

„

David Nash

1817

Lizard . .
(pinky)

53

Abraham Tower

Abraham Tower

"

Aaron Piatt

iBiB

America

61

Jas. C. Doane

Bela Bates

1818

Noah Whitcoml)

1818

Nancy . .

50

Abel Kent

Abel Kent

,,

Thomas Lincoln

1818

Henry Knox

42

Nichols Tower

Levi Tower

,,

Sam'l Hall

1819

William . .
(pinky)

• SO

Peter Lothrop

Jas. Stoddard

1819

Wm. Morris

1819

Young James

. 67

James Collier

Thos. Rogers

„

Abraham Hall

1819

Almira . .

. 80

Nichols Tower

Nichols Tower

„

Sam'l Hall

1819

Albicore .

• 55

Jas. C. Doane

Jonathan B.Bates

■'

David Nash

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 4OI

These were not all fishing vessels merely, but some, like
the Speedwell, the Juno, the Three Sisters, and the Ann,
measured nearly one hundred tons each, and were able to
make ocean voyages to the West Indies, and even across
the Atlantic. It is not known how many of these were
actually engaged in an ocean commerce, but even those
which were used a part of the time to catch codfish or
mackerel were put into the freighting business along the
Atlantic seaboard or across the ocean when freights were
lucrative.

The fishing business was a sort of primary school
for Cohasset mariners, for many of them, after gaining
here their first lessons in practical navigation, applied
for positions in Boston upon larger foreign-going craft.
Some of them became mates or captains, as we have
already noted, and were thenceforth seen in Cohasset
only occasionally, when their voyages about the world
might permit.*

The money which these captains earned upon their for-
tunate foreign cruises they laid aside to be a support for
them when they retired from their perilous careers. Many
families of our community are living to-day upon the income
of these earnings, inherited from fathers and grandfathers,
and invested in Boston real estate, or in railroad bonds,
or in some other financial repository. Many are the Co-
hasset mariners who never came back from their last cruise,
for their watery graves were found far from their native
land.

Some of the vessels of our town that were ambitious
enough to embark in this larger marine enterprise, the
owners of them being encouraged to let them go by the
persuasion of the Cohasset mariners who had learned the
tricks of the great sea, may be seen by the following
list : —

♦Captain Ephraim Snow is said to have crossed the Atlantic fifty times.

402

HISTORY OF coil ASSET.

VESSELS REGISTERED AT THE PORT OF BOSTON DURING THE

PERIOD NOW UNDER CONSIDERATION, FREIGHTING

TO COAST AND TO FOREIGN PORTS.

Date.

Name.

Owner.

Captain.

1815

Little Sarah.

James Collier.

James Collier.

1816

New Orleans

(packet).

Three Sisters.

Levi Tower.
Levi Tower.

Josiah Bacon.

1817

Franklin.

Luther Stephenson.

Luther Lincoln,

J)

Ann.

Levi Tower.

Thomas Pratt.

5>

Lizard.

Abraham Tower,

David Elwell.

I818

Three Sisters.

Henry Snow.

Henry Snow.

55

Little Sarah.

James Collier.

George Hall.

1820

Almina.

Nichols Tower.

Bani Eldridge.

55

Henry Knox.

Nichols Tower.

Josiah Bacon.

But to return to the fishing industry. It will be remem-
bered that we followed the shipbuilding up to the year
1819, after the War of 18 12 ; but the reason for stopping
at that date is only an accidental one. It happens that
for the year 18 19 there was made out a list of the vessels
engaged in the mackerel business which has been preserved
among the Doane papers. This list enables us to see just
how many vessels of all we saw building were actually en-
gaged in fishing for that one season. There were thirty-
nine of them.

Of the seventy-five vessels that had been built from
1789 to 1819, thirty years, there were thirty-six that had
been lost or sold or engaged in other business than fishing.

THIS OLD LIST WAS MADE OUT BY JAMES C. DOANE IN THE

YEAR 1819.

Vessel.

Four Brothers.
Four Sisters.
Little Martha.
Cyrene.
Mary Jones.
Friendship.

Captain.

Leonard Litchfield.
Norton Litchfield.
E. Merritt.
Howard Vinal.
Caleb Bayley.
Martin Merritt.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

40-

Vessel.

Miriam.

Ruth.

Hero.

Lively.

Independence.

Charles Austin.

Franklin.

Mary.

Sophia.

Union.

Treasure.

William.

Mary Ann.

Betsey.

Little James.

Little Sarah.

Jonah.

America.

Albacor.

Dave.

Almira.

Three Sisters.

Lydia.

Salome.

Priscilla.

Lady Washington.

Porpoise.

Henry Knox.

Dolphin.

Only Joe.

Two Sisters.

Lizard.

Zilpha.

(Not named.)

Captain.

- Pinchion.

Harvey Litchfield.
Cotton Bayley.
Hosea Orcutt.
Paul Clapp.
Isaiah Litchfield.
Enos Bates.

Witherby.

E. Stoddard.
And. Willcutt.
John Creed.
Wm. Morris.
George Briggs.

Hall, from the Cape.

Abner Hall.
George Hall.

> Turner's fleet.

Stephenson's
fleet.

Peter Lothrop's
fleet.

James Collier's
fleet.

A. Lothrop.

Nash.

Job Bayley.

Sam'l Hall, L. A. Tower.

Henry Snow.

John Wilson.

Daniel Bates.

Ezra Wallace.

Leavit Barnes.

Isaac Hall.

John Neal.

V

ames C. Doane's
fleet.

Levi Tower's
fleet.

John Bates.
Joshua Bates.
Samuel Litchfield.

from the Cape.

John Lincoln.

Abraham Tower's
I fleet.

J

The total number of barrels of mackerel for that year
was nearly two thousand. This was a small number, but

404

HISTORY OF COfTASSET.

the price that year was a high one, the first grade of
mackerel bringing ^11.50 a barrel at wholesale.* The
next year came an increase of the catch, as may be seen
by the list at the end of this chapter; but the price that
year utterly collapsed. From ^11.50 down to $6.75 a
barrel the market dropped, and it never came up so high
again for twenty years.

Fishermen's luck kept having its ups and downs, but
during the six years beginning with 1820 the total catch
of Cohasset steadily gained, until in 1825 the whole annual
amount was 17,520 barrels. These fish, at the moderate
price of five dollars a barrel for all grades, brought nearly
ninety thousand dollars.

One can easily see that our population of about twelve
hundred must have been very much concerned in the fish
business, and must have felt very widely the profit of a
successful year. At least three hundred out of the twelve
hundred were actual fishermen, while a score of boys in
addition were employed to pack the fish, and many more
laborers in cooper shops and salt works and shipyards
were attached to the business indirectly. The homes of
Beechwood in particular furnished a very large force of
fishermen ; and so completely was that community bereft
of men and boys during the fishing season that not a

*The following is a list containing the prices of mackerel for fifty years com-
mencing in 1795 and ending 1844. The price is the highest wholesale quoted
for the best quality. Copied by Ira B. Pratt from an old gazetteer.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 405

dozen able-bodied men could be gathered by an emergency
like a house on fire.

The actual experiences of these fishermen in a business
now extinct in our town are worthy of a careful review.

At least one skipper * living to-day remembers a fishing
voyage as early as the year 1828. But the methods of
fishing and of living were substantially the same until the
middle of the century.

We will imagine ourselves at one of those early years,f
say 1836, making a first cruise on a mackerel schooner.

On some spring day at the close of April we get per-
mission of Abraham Hobart Tower or of James Cutler
Doane or of John Bates or of some other vessel owner to
join the crew of ten fishermen in one of their schooners.
That means a chance to fish from the deck of the schooner
alongside of the others, upon the understanding that we
are to get our share of the profits according to the number
of fish that each of us may catch.

The share of the profit going to the owner of the
schooner is to be about one third. The first day's work
is to heave aboard ballast and butts and salt. Twenty or
thirty hogsheads or butts are rolled into the hold and
placed at convenient positions under the hatches. These
are to hold the fish we catch.

Into the spaces between these butts we next throw
about twenty tons of ballast, consisting of field stones
that the old glacier left in our drumlins, and which
"Uncle Job Gushing" or some other farmer hauls down
to the wharf at one dollar per ton. These stones hold
down the keel and keep the hogsheads in place, besides
leaving room in the fields for better farming.

Salt is next put in, perhaps twenty hogsheads of it.
The salt room in a pinky was aft against the cabin, while
in a "square stern " it was abreast the "coal hole," which

* Captain Wm. V. Creed.

+ In the year 1836 as described by Isaiah Lincohi.

4o6 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

hole had two bunks and a locker for clothes. Some of the
salt used was made upon our own beaches, as we shall see,
but it had to be supplemented by Liverpool salt bought in
Boston.

With aching backs, and hands well roughed by our steve-
doring, we crowd into the owner's store to get a new tar-
paulin hat and leather boots, charged to our accounts as
prospective partners in the fishing cruise. The men who
have families get, in addition to hat and boots, a long strip
of salt pork weighing ten or fifteen pounds, with which to
feed their families while the men are off at sea. As we
make our way homeward the neighbors are sure to see the
big yellow tarpaulin upon our heads and to talk about our
fishing venture.

Thus the vessel having been fitted out, the next day
the men get their outfit. A little firkin of tea, a box of
"hard bread," two gallons of vinegar, a keg of rum hold-
ing three or four gallons, and three or four bushels of
potatoes at thirty-five cents per bushel, are dealt out and
put aboard for the crew to own in common. These items
are charged as "small general " account to be paid by the
crew, while the ballast and hogsheads and salt, etc., were
"great general" charges to be paid for by owners and
crew together.

Besides these items there are private supplies according
to the taste and poverty of each man. Two pounds of
butter in a box, three to five pounds of pork, one gallon
of molasses (no sugar), perhaps three or four pounds of
rice, seven to fourteen pounds of Ohio flour (not very
white, but costing $'j or ^8 a barrel), a little box of corn
meal (three or four pounds), and possibly some raisins, —
these constitute the commissary outfit for a trip. The
total bill for the whole summer in the case of an eco-
nomical lad will be only about fourteen dollars. Some
men are so mean as to steal from another's pittance, so
that each keeps guard of his own. Besides food, each

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 407

must buy two dozen hooks of various sizes and a lialf-
dozen skeins of fish line.

At about the first of May, having attended to the affairs
at home and having outfitted for a two or three months'
cruise, we all get aboard the schooner at about the full
tide and hoist the sails ; off we float past Bassing Beach
and White Head and through the ledges. Minot's Light-
house is not yet built, not even the old iron one ; but our
skipper knows every rock as well as a person knows his,
own fingers by feeling.

This is the first fare of the summer, and we are bound
for a more southerly coast ; say, off Cape May, N. J.
If the wind is a raw one from the east, we shall beat
out slowly past Provincetown, but from there down on
the outside of the Cape we can make a good run to the
fishing ground in three days. During that time we are
busy getting the bait and the jigs ready for fish. We have
jig molds for running a little melted lead about the shaft
of each hook, so that hook and sinker are one. Each jig
is tied to the end of a line and sometimes another hook
is fastened a few inches above the jig.

Bait boxes holding two buckets each are made with a
fixture to hang them upon the outside of the schooner's
rail, three on one side. The bait consists of three or
four barrels of pogies, menhaden (something like herring),
and the same amount of clams. The fish for bait are
ground up in a mill somewhat like a huge coffee mill
standing upon the deck. A half bushel may be ground in
five or ten minutes, and a few clams are mixed into them.
This makes good provender for mackerel, and is put into
the bait boxes to be strewn upon the water where schools
of the fish may be enticed.

Having arrived off Cape May, according to the cap-
tain's reckoning or his guess, the vessel sets herself to
fish from the broadside. The captain shouts : " Hook on
the main boom tackle on the port side ! " " Haul down

408 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

the jib!" " Ease off the main sheet ! " " Haul the tackle
forward ! " " Haul taut and make fast ! " " Let off the
fore sheet ! "

Then the captain — we ought to say "skipper" —
goes to the bait box in the middle of the windward
side of the schooner, and throws a paddleful of ground
bait into the water towards the bow, and another
paddleful towards the stern, scattering it as broadly as
possible. Then he watches with his mackerel line baited
in the water. After drifting thirty or fifty feet he
throws more bait, feeling again at his line to get the first
bite.

Meanwhile the crew are idling in any way they choose,
until suddenly they hear a "bang" into the bottom of a
tub, and then the quick flipping of a shiny mackerel
which the skipper has " landed." This is the signal for
all hands to get their fish lines into the water. They fix
little bits of tough pork rind upon the barbed hooks and
cast out two lines apiece thirty feet long off the side of the
schooner. They are all fishing from one side, the skipper
in the best place, just abaft the mainmast, and all ten
arranged upon either side of him.

The hooks hang about four or six feet under water,
and if the school of mackerel is a vigorous one, they bite
as soon as the baited hook strikes the water. The bite is
a strong grab and then a shoot to one side ; but you pull
the shiny victim hand over hand to the side of the vessel,
and, reaching down your right hand, you catch the line
about one foot above the mackerel's mouth, lifting him
over the rail. One sharp slat and he is thrown into your
fish tub or barrel by a jerk that tears the hook out of his
jaw and hurls the hook out again with its tough bait into
the water for its next victim.

Meantime perhaps your other line has caught a fish,
and you must pull him in at once or he will swim across
the other lines and bring some indelicate remarks upon

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 409

you from your angry fishermates. If the fishing is good,
every man is pulling first one of his lines and then the
other as fast as his hands can fly.

When ten fishermen are all thus busy snapping up the
fish over the sides of the vessel, it is a spectacle never
to be forgotten. A constant stream of mackerel, with
their silver sides gleaming like so many snowflakes, fall
over the ship's rail into the fish tubs of dying companions.
Such biting lasts for two hours sometimes, when perhaps
a shark comes along, tearing hooks and lines which have
caught in his skin, and terrorizing the school of mackerel
so that not one is left near the vessel.

Perhaps we have caught thirty " wash " barrels full,
some of the fish measuring fifteen inches in length.
These have to be dressed while the vessel is sailing back
again to her fishing ground, for she has drifted broadside
about three miles an hour.

The skipper orders his men : " Haul aft the fore
sheet!" "Hoist the jib!" "Slack the boom tackle!"
" Haul aft the main sheet ! " " Right the helm ! " " Un-
hook the boom tackle ! "

The vessel gets under way and then is brought around
upon another tack towards the place where the fish began
to bite. The skipper gets the schooner well balanced on
her course, gauging the helm so that she will keep straight
ahead ; then he leaves the helm lashed while he joins the
crew in dressing up their thirty barrels of fish.

Two men work at each barrel, the splitter and the
gibber. The splitter has a board across the top of his
barrel, and, reaching down into the barrel with his left
hand, he places a fish upon the board. With one stroke
of the knife the back of the fish is laid open from nose to
tail along one side of the backbone, and the fish is pushed
off into the gibber's tub. This gibber, with a deft move-
ment of thumb and fingers, tears out the entrails. and
grills ; then he throws the fish into another barrel havine;

4 I O HIS TOR Y OF con A SSE T.

two pailfuls of water to soak out the blood preparatory to
the salting-down process.

When the vessel is back again the fish are not found
very plentiful ; but the skipper throws out bait now and
then or the men throw it out, while a few fish are hauled
in at intervals. When it gets dusk no more fishing for
that day is possible. The sails are furled and the boom
is crotched and a lantern is hung in the main peak hal-
yards; thus she floats for the night. All hands go down
into the cabin to drink a cup of strong cold tea and to
munch some hard bread or to eat the hard bread crumbed
into water sweetened with molasses. No cooking is done
to-night, for the fishing has been so good that no one
would "knock off" to build a fire. In a few minutes all
are on deck again to finish dressing their fish.

Then comes the salting. Each splitter takes a candle
and an old two-tined table fork down into the hold. He
makes a candlestick of the fork by jabbing it into the
inside of the hogshead halfway up the staves, holding
the candle between the tines of the fork. This gives
light upon the fish as they are packed into the bottom of
the hogshead. Getting his salt tub ready, the splitter
shouts to his gibber above at the hatch, " Fish ho ! " The
gibber empties a wash barrel of split fish upon the deck
beside the hatch, and begins to drop the fish two at a time
lying skin against flesh into a tub of salt in the hold.
The splitter, now become Salter, takes one fish in each '>
hand, rubbing them flesh downward into the salt ; and then
placing them together again as they were, skin against
flesh, he packs them into the bottom of the big hogshead
in the light of the candle, skin up in plenty of salt.

After the salting down the decks are washed, the oil
trousers are taken off, and faces and hands are bathed in
salt water. The scratched hands sting with the salt, but
fres-h water is too scarce for such use.

The watch is set and the rest of the crew so below to

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 4 I I

sleep. The two boys of the crew take the first watch,
one at the bow, the other at the stern. It is about eleven
o'clock and all are tired out. The five hours until four
o'clock in the morning are divided into eight watches, so
that no one has to keep awake very long.

The second hand or mate takes the morning watch, and
at four o'clock, just as the first gray streak of day is
breaking the night off from the eastern rim of the ocean,
he steps to the companion way and stamps upon the deck
three times, saying, " All hands ahoy ! Up mainsail ! "

The crew turns out, all stiff, and the chilly air strikes
to the bones and marrow. Now, if ever, a good warm
breakfast would be welcome ; but think what an apology
we must have. There is no stove, only an old-fashioned
fireplace in the little cabin. If the fire is lost it must
be made in the clumsy tinder-box fashion, for friction
matches were not introduced here till 1838.

The tinder is some black burnt linen kept dry in a
horn. A piece of flint is struck with an old steel file
until a spark falls into the tinder. This spark lights the
tinder and burns until a sliver of wood with a sulphur tip
is ignited by it, when the tinder spark is crushed out and
the burning sulphur match lights a fire of charcoal in the
fireplace.

Every one has to cook for himself, and the one who
makes the fire is rewarded by having the first chance to
cook his breakfast. If there are any fish biting, the crew
attends first to the business of catching them.

A pot of tea for all hangs over the fire. The first cook
stirs some flour into molasses with a pinch of saleratus and
salt, and this batter is cooked in a frying pan greased with
a bit of salt pork. The name of this fried batter is " flap-
jacks " or "flippers," and they constitute the fisherman's
luxury. In about five minutes these are cooked, and the
men above hear the welcome shout from the cabin, " Clear
fire ! " Then the skipper comes with a handful of spawns

412

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

saved from the mackerel, and fries them while the fire
builder is eating his two flippers with his mug of tea.
Each has his own yellow earthenware mug, his knife,
spoon, and fork.

When the skipper has cooked his spawn he shouts,
" Clear fire ! " Perhaps two fishermen jump at once for the
gangway, one with potatoes and the other with a mackerel.
The man who first places his uncooked food upon a chest
at the foot of the stairs and shouts "chested " has his turn
at the fire. These two struggle to get down first, but the
potatoes and mackerel are badly mashed or even hurled
upon the floor, and the men themselves perhaps are
bruised a good deal before one may shout "chested"!
The same frying pan does for all. The same rough fare
is endured by all. The fishing business is no soft sine-
cure; it is rough and tough, and the men are earning what
they get.

After several weeks of good and bad luck the vessel
works along towards the north and east to the neighbor-
hood of Block Island towards home. If the catch has
amounted to one hundred and fifty or two hundred
barrels of fish and the biting seems poor, and a good
strong southwest wind springs up urging the vessel home-
ward, the skipper orders the men to stop the fishing.
"Hoist the jib!" "Set the colors!" "Give her the
whole of the mainsheet, boys!" "Away with her about
northeast and we '11 see how nigh we can hit Gay Head ! "

We are off for home, where families and friends await
us and where the owners of the vessel are anxious to
know whether we have brought back enough fish to pay
for their investment. A couple of days' sailing gets us
into Massachusetts Bay, and perhaps we come creeping
back into old Cohasset Harbor before daylight some June
morning. With the return of the fishing vessels from
this first trip there is bound up the good fortune of many
Cohasset small boys.

THE FISfinVG IND USTRY. 4 1 3

One of them now living, who remembers as far back as
1834,* recalls the busy experience of packing mackerel
into the barrels and half barrels at the wharves of our Cove.
Boys from ten to fifteen years of age could earn about
twenty-five cents by a hard day's work, packing about a
dozen barrels of mackerel containing two hundred fish in
each at two cents a barrel. The winter's school was ended
by the time of the June return of fishing vessels, so that
a score of industrious boys over ten years of age flocked
upon our little wharves at the " chance to pack."

The barrels used had been made in our cooper shops, of
which there were several at the Cove. Zealous Bates,
Thaddeus Lawrence, John Parker, George Stetson, Henry
Hall, and others had cooper shops of large output. The
staves of these barrels were made of pine wood. A
sufficient number to make a barrel were held together
by an iron hoop at the top, while a fire of shavings inside
upon the ground heated and softened them so that the
lower ends were drawn together by a rope and windlass.
They were hooped by strips of white oak or birch or
maple and headed by boards of pine ; then they were
tumbled upon the wharves by the hundred, costing in the
neighborhood of seventy-five cents apiece. All winter
long these barrels and half barrels, and in later years
firkins, were being made by our bygone coopers.

The salt industry was another enterprise connected with
our fisheries. As early as the year 1836,! which we are
now recalling, there were many acres of salt works in the
vicinity of Sandy Cove and of Beach Island.

The accompanying map, which is taken from a govern-
ment coast survey of that period, indicates the positions
and proportions of these salt vats. The process % was

* S. T. Snow.

t Captain Wm. V. Creed says : " When we first went fishing, 1828, salt was not
made here, but was brought from Cape Cod."

X Details as told by Nathaniel Treat, who made and tended salt works for many
years.

Part of a Map, 1852.
Showing location of salt works at Sandy Cove, Quarry Point, and Sandy Beach.

THE Ff SUING INDUSTRY. 415

the simple one of evaporating our sea water under the
heat of the sun, leaving a coarse, crude salt.

The water was pumped out of the sea by windmills *
carrying about twenty-six yards of canvas upon four
arms. The water pipes were pine logs bored through the
center by long four-inch augers, and these logs fitted end
in end along down the beach to the low-water line. Some
can still be seen at Sandy Cove beach weighted down by
stones. The pumps at the foot of the windmills sucked
up the salt water through the logs and emptied it into
level wooden vats about twenty feet wide and two or
three times as long, built upon the level marshes at the
top of the beach.

The water, about six inches deep, remained in these
vats from one to six days, when it had become so much
evaporated as to taste quite salty. This was then allowed
to run out into another vat about one third as long called
the " weak pickle vat."

The next vat into which the water was run was called
the "strong pickle vat." When the salt began to form
like very thin ice upon the strong pickle it was flowed off
into the salt vat, making about four or five inches deep of
the strongest possible brine. A little more evaporating
was necessary to precipitate a bed of salt about three
inches deep in the salt vat, ready for use if it had not
turned bitter.

About one quarter of a pound of salt could be pro-
cured out of every gallon of sea water. If at any time
the rain threatened, there were little roofs to be slid over
the vats so that the brine would not be delayed too much
in precipitating its burden of salt.

When the schooners came in from the fishing cruises
and the orders were sent for twenty hogsheads or more of
salt, it was shoveled out of the little salt houses and

* Windmill Point is so nainud from one of these mills which used to stand
upon it.

4 1 6 HIS TOR Y OF con A SSE T.

loaded upon ox carts to be hauled to the Cove, and thus to
furnish one more product of a self-sufficient community.

The boys packed the fish with this salt according to
three grades of the mackerel, the smallest and leanest ones
being the third quality. The deputy fish inspectors ap-
proved of the barrels and marked them, when they were
headed up and turned upon their bilge and enough water
poured into the bunghole to saturate the fish. Then they
were ready to be shipped to Boston or elsewhere to market,
wherever commerce might bear them as our own Cohasset
fish.

After the first cruise to the south in the spring, our
schooners fished during the summer months on shorter
voyages in northern waters, going sometimes as far north
as the Bay of Chaleur. The fish grew fatter and larger
during the summer, and they bit the hook more readily.
Many persons who stayed at home during the first fishing
trip to finish their planting would go upon the later ones
when fishing was more profitable. Some of the largest
and fattest fish caught in the month of August were
called "bloaters " ; they were only slightly salted and then
dried, making as toothsome a tidbit as ever came out of
the sea. Many a friend rejoiced to be remembered by a
fisherman's gift of "bloaters'"' upon the return of a suc-
cessful voyage.

The luck of some years was to catch only small fish or
"tinkers," about ten inches long, and the whole commu-
nity felt the disappointent. When the season was favor-
able and large cargoes of number-one mackerel were cap-
tured, the wives could indulge in new gowns, the children
could be sent longer to school, and the debts for living
expenses when the voyages had been failures could all be
paid off. The business furnished a living for about six
hundred men and boys with their families, and for a
hundred years it was the main source of income for the
town.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

417

The busy scene of forty or more vessels at our Cove
all through the summer in those early days has long passed
away, but the memory of it is still cherished by many
citizens whose annual income was based upon the moods
of shiny mackerel.

LIST OF VESSELS AT COHASSET IN THE YEAR 1S36 LICENSED

FOR COASTING OR FOR MACKERELING BY LABAN

SOUTHER, DEPUTY COLLECTOR.

Triton.

Stewart.

William Tell.

Albicore.

Friendship.

Ino.

Lizard.

Eunice.

Lion.

Morgiana.

Myra.

Beaver.

Two Friends.

King.

Susan.

Caroline.

Eagle.

Essex.

Sun.

Ellen.

Industry.

Rebecca.

Lady Washington.

Sarah Young.

General Marion.

Magnet.

Seloma.

Mary.

Ursula.

William.

Leonidas.

Elizabeth.

Profit.

Byron.

Bela Bates.

Two Sisters.

Sarah.

Rubicon.

The sloops Phenix and Glance were packets between Cohasset and Boston.

MACKEREL PACKED AT COHASSET FROM 1815 TO 1840.

Brls.

Brls.

Brls.

Hf. brls.

Hf. brls.

Hf. brls.

No. I.

No. 2.

No. 3.

No. I.

No. 2.

No. 3.

Total.

I 8 15-18 16

81

267

80

49

12

459

1816-1817

418

331

563

83

52

6

1.383

Herring, 35 brls.

No. I.

1817-1818

368

258

1,025

241

62

12

1,809

Herring, 59 brls.

Cod, 21 1

brls., 17 hf. brls. Hake

, 21 brls.

, 5 hf. brls.

1818-1819

657

508

1,263

159

33

9

2,529

Herring, 187 brls

. Cod, 52

brls.

1819-1820

408

65B

S51

54

35

9

1,966

1820-1821

241

361

1,532

33

4

2.153

1821-1822

120

1,659

2,129

116

85

4,009

I 822-1823

501

2,437

4,076

320

389

46

7,362

1823-1824

308

3-461

4.755

312

1,301

66

9,364

1824-1825

1,601

5.339

8,039

1,374

2.157

29

16,760

1825-1826

1,114

5.090

9,691

792

2,386

72

17,520

1826-1827

1,625

4.517

2,070

743

793

II

8,986

I 827-1828

3.302

3,211

2,64s

1,004

747

4

10,036

1828-1829

2,102

5.3"

5.157

1.705

2,339

14,592

1829-1830

1,629

3.373

8,463

1.438

1,551

4

14,942

1830-1831

1,605

4,254

10,879

1,666

2.355

946

19,222

1831-1832

1.959

5.737

9,180

1,246

2,803

884

19,343

1832-1833

298

2,539

6,142

814

2,207

363

10,672

1833-1834

727

2,811

5.027

2,181

3.107

123

11,271

1834-1835

1.034

2,266

5,774

2,262

2,918

51

11,790

4 1 8 HIS TOR V OF COHASSE T.

MACKEREL PACKED AT COH ASSET FROM 1815 TO 1840 {continued).

Brls. Brls. Bris. Hf. brls. Hf. brls. Hf. brls.

No. I. No. 2. No. 3. No. I. No. 2. No. 3. Total.

1835-1836 722 1,543 S.948 990 1,475 60 9,503

1836-1837 658 2,662 6,525 1,351 2,133 195 11,689

1837-1838 80 2,708 8,247 1,054 2,563 108 13,001

1838-1839 803 971 6,610 2,118 1,326 110 10,410

1839-1840 504 741 4,768 1,035 1.561 iio 8,072

From 1834 there were ^ and y^ barrels packed, which are added into the totals.

CHAPTER XX.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY (CONTINUED).

BEFORE continuing the account of our fishing in-
dustry it might be well to refer to the shipbuilding
which was steadily carried on at the Cove,

After the year 1819, the date last mentioned in our
previous list of vessels built at our Cove, the Enrollment
books in the Custom House at Boston do not have a full
record of the vessels turned out by our ship carpenters ;
but the following list for the fifteen years preceding 1837
has been gleaned from various sources : — *

LIST OF VESSELS BUILT AT COH ASSET FROM 1822 TO 1837.

Q

Name. Ton

nage.

Owner.

Builder.

Master.

1822

Joseph . .

. 60

Joshua Hatch.

Abel Story.

1822 John Thomas.

1825

Neptune

• 83

Jas. C. Doane.

1825 Job Bailey.

,,

Gen. Warren

• 71

Caleb Lothrop.

Bela Bates.

„ Geo. Lawrence.

1827

Profit . .

. 66

Jas. Collier and
Samuel Hall.

1827 Saml. Hall.

1828

W^m. Tell .

. 62

John Bales & Co.

Bela Bates.

1828 Jas. H. Merritt.

1829

Magnet . .

. 58

Peter Lothrop.

Peter Lothrop.

1829 Joseph Briggs.

'■

Morgiana .

. 60

Caleb Lothrop &
Co.

Jona. B. Bates.

Henry Damon.

,j

Elizabeth .

. 58

Jas. Collier.

Elisha Merritt.

„ Luth. Jenkins.

1830

Sarah . .

• 6s

John Bates & Co.

Bela Bates.

1830 B. Litchfield.

„

Myra . .

. 56

Abrm. H. Tower.

Jona. B. Bates.

„ Caleb Souther.

1831

Susan . .

. 64

John Bates.

II II

Freeman Gannett.

1832

Caroline

• 70

» >•

11 II

Nichols Pratt.

,,

Bela Bates .

• 55

Abrm. H. Tower.

Bela Bates.

Isaiah Hyland.

„

Neptune .

• 85

James C. Doane.

II II

Job Bailey.

,,

Oneco . .

88

Nichols Tower.

Jona. B. Bates.

Warren Orcutt.

1833

Tower . .
(brig)

. 121

Nichols Tower &
Co.

" "

Wm. Litchfield.

* Barber's Historical Collections, p. 455, says : " In five years preceding 1837
there were 17 vessels built in Cohasset, the tonnage of which was 2,765, valued at
^110,600."

420

HISTORY OF coil ASSET.

LIST OF VESSELS BUILT AT COHASSET FROM 1822 TO 1837
(^continued).

Q

Name. Tonnage.

Owner.

Builder.

Master.

^Sml. N. Gushing.

Jona. B. Bates.

iBela Bates.

W. H. Stoddard.

1834

Sarah Abigail,
(brig)

211

;Jas. Stoddard.
'SI. Stockbridge.

Lewis Willcutt.
/Paul Bates, Jr.

Thos. Bourne.
vWm. Bates.

Jona. B. Bates.

Elisha Barker.

1835

Russell . .

183

Yarmouth and

Jona. B. Bates.

(brig)
Odeon . .

HO

Philadelphia
people.
For Boston and

Jona. B. Bates.

Eunice . ,

50

Cape people.
A. H. Tower.

„

Eagle . .

40

Nichols Tower.

1836

Sarah Young

54

Josiah 0. Law-
rence & Co.

„

Eolus . .

117

Jas. C. Doane.

1837

Sulla . . .

146

For Yarmouth &

Jona. B. Bates.

(brig)
Talisman . .

146

Philadelphia
people.
A. H. Tower &

Jona. B. Bates.

(brig)

Co.

It will be noticed that in the year 1833 Jonathan B.
Bates commenced to build a series of larger vessels than
ever had been built in our harbor. Besides the larger
schooners, he set up each year a frame for a square-rigged
two-master called a "brig." These were not very large,
it must be confessed, when compared with a modern thou-
sand-ton brig, but they measured up to two hundred tons
and made a deal of employment for our ship carpenters.

Contracts were taken for men living in Boston and in
Yarmouth and as far away as Philadelphia. It would not
be a wild guess to imagine that some of these brigs be-
came whalers in the Pacific Ocean and freighters in foreign
seas. Occasionally another little fishing schooner was

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

421

built ; but from the time these larger craft began to be
reared in our shipyards there were very few of the small
ones undertaken. In fact, there were only a few more fish-
ing craft needed in our Cove after this time, because the
harbor and wharfage could not accommodate more than
sixty or seventy of them. Furthermore, several of our
vessel owners purchased their schooners from shipbuilders
of other towns, so that our own carpenters were not needed

Mackerel Schooner of 1850.

in many cases. And finally, the reason for the failure to
build more fishing vessels was that the fish industry of
our town soon began to wane. The climax was reached
at about 1850, as we shall see a few pages further on.

When our ship carpenters found insufficient employ-
ment at building for the fish business, they began to
undertake, as we saw, the construction of merchantmen of

42 2 HIS TOR Y OF COHA SSE T.

the two-masted, square-rigged type called brigs. They
even had to venture beyond the local demand and they
topk contracts for Boston owners and for others. Besides
Jonathan B. Bates there were several other master car-
penters of that period, including James Stoddard and Isaac
Hall.

In the year 1841, the largest undertaking up to that
time, the bark Lewis was launched. This was the first
one to sport three masts, and being a 218-ton merchant
vessel, it was not a small enterprise for the owners. But
the largest of all vessels launched into our harbor by
Cohasset carpenters is said to have been the Greenwich
in the year 1850.

She was over three times the size of the bark Lewis,
measuring 788 tons and having two decks instead of one,
as the schooners had. She was one hundred and sixty
feet long, so that when she slid off the ways from the
Barrett place she stretched nearly the whole distance
across our little Cove. Her three masts were rigged with
square sails, so she was called a "ship." Many who are
living to-day remember the Greenwich, and her prestige
is the more clear because so few vessels have been built
since then.

Two other ships, the Tagus and the Hellespont, both
of smaller size, are said to have come from the same yard ;
but the time of building ocean carriers, of making sails,
of twisting ropes,* and of rigging the spars of these ves-
sels is wholly and forever past.

One of the last of the shipbuilding efforts was in 1872,
when the trim little pleasure schooner Gracie (fifty-four
tons) was built at an expense of some twenty thousand dol-
lars for Edward E. Tower. She has floated a dozen years
or more at our harbor stripped of her rigging, and is slowly
rotting away, to become as all the others — vanished.

* There is said to have been a long ropewalk on Bassing Beach for the manu-
facture of ropes used in rigging our vessels.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

423

The last of all vessels built here was the Henrietta
Frances, a seventy-four-tonner, built by William Eddy
for a Cohasset syndicate of nine owners in the year
1883.

The following list of vessels built in Cohasset from 1838
to the last one in 1883 is by no means a complete list;
but for some unknown reason the records kept by the
deputy collector of the port of Cohasset are not all pre-
served in the Custom House. These have been culled
from some of the books in the Boston office by many
hours of hard searching, but the author feels a keen dis-
appointment in not being able to find records of the Kono-
hassett of Captain Daniel T. Lothrop, the Grand Turk,
the China, and several other vessels which were built here
and which may be still remembered by some of the older
readers of this narrative.

LIST OF VESSELS BUILT IN COHASSET -FROM lE
ONE IN 1883.

TO THE LAST

Q

Name. Tons.

Owner.

Carpenter.

Master.

1838

1841
1843

Rienzi . . .

Deborah At-
wood . . .

Lewis . . .

(three-masted
bark)

Casket . , .
(brig)

Speedwell . .

(brig)
Talisman . .

Anne & Julia .

(brig)
Almatia . . .

(brig)
Naiad Queen .
Oriola . . .

52

53
218

155

los
74

131
99

51

85

Caleb Lothrop &
Co.

Geo. Hall & Bro.
Nichols Tower
and three others.

David Wilson &
Josiah 0. Law-
rence.

A. H. Tower &
Caleb Lothrop.
Laban Souther &
Wm. Pratt, Jr.
A. H. Tower &
Caleb Lothrop.
Laban Souther &
Joseph Smith.
A. H. Tower.
Caleb Lothrop.

Jona.

B. Bates.

Jeremiah Long.
David Wilson.

Jona.

B. Bates.

William Pratt.

1844

1845
1848

Jona. B. Bates.
Jas. Stoddard.

1866 Elkanah Rogers.

1849

Isaac

Hall.

1863 Jos. McCloud.

424

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

LIST OF VESSELS BUILT IN COHASSET FROM 1838 TO THE LAST

ONE IN 1883 {continued).

0

Name. Tons.

Owner.

Carpenter.

Master.

1850

Camilla ... 80

Greenwich . . 788
(ship)

Isaac Hall &

Geo. Hall, Jr.
Built for Thacher
Magoun & Co.

Isaac Hall.

1853 Zebina Godfrey.

1 85 1

McCloud . . 80

A. H. Tower.

Isaac Hall.

Jos. McCloud.

1852

Marv Hall . . 66

Hall Bros.

i860

Forest Oak . 112

A. H. Tower.
f Caleb Lothrop

Isaac Hall.

1861

Peerless ... 85

\ Isaac Hall.
{. John Ainslee.

Isaac Hall.

1865

Katie Hall . . 71

Abr'm H. Tower.

Isaac Hall,

1866

Morning Star . 81

John Bates.

Isaac Hall.

1872

Gracie ... 54

Edw. E. Tower.

Jona. B. Bates.

1883

Henrietta Fran-

ces. ... 74

William Eddy

Wm. Eddv.

and eight others.

But let us leave the shipbuilding and return to the fish-
ing business In the last chapter the manner of taking-
mackerel in the year 1836 was reviewed, and some sta-
tistics were given of the vessels employed and of the
amount of fish that were packed.

There was an increase in the amount of fishing carried
on during all the first half of this century after the War
of 1812, so that the port of Cohasset became of no small
importance among the New England sea towns.

In the year 1845 we had the honor of being the fourth
fishing port of Massachusetts in the amount marketed.

Gloucester packed
Boston „

Wellfleet
Cohasset

48,711^8 barrels.

But this was not our banner vear, because it was not
until the year 1848, memorable for the California gold

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

425

discoveries, that we reached the climax of 22,967 barrels.*
The next year we dropped off seven thousand barrels.
The third year after, in 185 1, we rose again to 22,71 2 J^ ;
but from that time forward the catch dwindled with vary-
ing fortunes until the close of our fisheries in the year
1885.

In the year 1851 there were forty-four vessels and five
hundred and sixty-one men and boys employed in the
mackerel business, and it will be of interest to read the
names of those vessels, for they were the ones also of the
banner year 1848.

LIST FOR YE.'\R
RECORDED BY

1851, SCHOONERS
LABAN SOUTHER,

LICENSED OR OTHERWISE
DEPUTY COLLECTOR.

Belle.

Rienzi.

Henry Knox.

Sarah Young.

Oriole.

Charles Augusta

Sarah Ann.

Clara.

Georgiana.

Stuart.

Naiad Queen.

Antelope.

Essex.

Harmony.

McCloud.

Conanchet.

Star of Hope.

Morgiana.

Paragon.

Stromboli.

Bela Bates.

Clio.

Joshua Bates.

Catherine.

Profit.

John & George.

Albicore.

Sarah.

Nerissa.

Rebecca.

Deborah Atvvood.

Sun.

Matilda.

James Henry.

Camilla.

Eliza Ann.

Ophelia.

Brutus.

Triton.

* The annual catch of pickled fish from ihe year ]

[840, which we recorded

in the

last chapter, to the banner year 1848, is as follows : -

-

Brls.

Brls. Brls. Hlf. Brl

s. Hlf. Brls. Hlf. Brls.

Year.

No. I.

No. 2. No. 3. No. I

No. 2. No. 3.

Total.

1840

329

613 3.055 959

990 96

5.020

I84I

1,312

723 2,326 S\

ivordfish, 35 brls.

4.361

1842

1,469

1,717 2,868

6.054

1843

2.304

1,116 3,039

Swordfish, 44.

6.459

1844

1.775

1,817 4,266 Halibut, 5. Swordfish, 6.

7.858

184s

1,684

6,290 9.609

Cod, 2.

17.583

1846

857

2,863 5,057 1,424

2.277 1.55 1

2,

354 eighth brls.

11,885

1847

5.747

4.567 7.053

17.367

1848

9,211

4,710 9,045

22,967

426

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Susan.

Director.

Industry.

Eagle.

Charles Carroll.

Pocahontas.

Myra.

Ursula.

Lake.

Sarah Jane.

Anaconda.

General Marion.

Stranger.
Mozart.
Leader.
Sloop Glance.
Talisman.
Clara Jane.

Total

57-

It was during this period that a new nation of people
became introduced into this New England community.

It was the Portuguese from the Azores or Western
Islands.

Living upon those Atlantic islands, two thousand miles
across the waves, were many hardy sailors and fishermen,
who held a national allegiance to Portugal. There was em-
ployment here in the fishing business for those who were
enterprising enough to venture to this Western continent.

It is said that the first of this nation to venture among
us was a boy named Antoine Martin, who was brought by
Captain Nickerson in a whaler from the island of Pico,
one of the group of Azores. This was as early as the
year 1840, perhaps earlier; but the fame of the New
England fisheries soon brought many more Portuguese
fishermen, l^y the year 1844 many of these hardy young
men used to man our Cohasset fishing schooners during
the summer, and when winter came with its slack work
they would sail off, a large crew of them, down South to
New Orleans, where they labored at loading cotton upon
vessels for Europe.

Thus between fishing and stevedoring these industrious
men soon gained a footing in their new country.

The first family to be established here was that of
Manuel Antoine; and after his others, including those of
Joseph F. Martin, Joseph Y. Enos, and Joseph Jason,
came to set up their hearthstones among the New Eng-
landers who had been here for two centuries. ^

To these earliest ones must be added John Morgan,

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

427

Joseph F. Ennice, Frank Thomas, Frank Silvia, and George
M. Ennice. It did not take many years for the more
capable of these Portuguese to become skippers of fishing
schooners.

The following are some who came to bear the title of
captain in the later years of our fisheries : —

Manuel P. Valine. John F. Smith (Ferara). Manuel F. Antoine.
Manuel S. Enos. Antoine Joseph. Joseph E. Fratus.

Joseph S. Enc;. Frank F. Martin.

Drawn by Daniel Tower.

Map showing Wharves Used at the Close of our Fishing Days.

1. Alfred Whittington.

2. Abram Hall.

3. Harry Doane. (Stone Wharf.)

4. Ephraim Snow, formerly N. Tower,

5. C. H. Willard. (Coal.)

6. James Collier.

7. Caleb Nichols.

8. Caleb Lothrop.

9. J. Oakes Lawrence. (Doane Wharf.)

10. John Bates.

11. A. H. Tower.

12. Laban Souther.

13 and 14. Tower Brothers.
15. Government, since 1856.

The increase of Portuguese families has continued from
the beginning with more rapidity than that of the New
England descendants, so that now the number of them is
estimated at about four hundred persons.

428 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Intermarriages have taken place with the descendants
of the original English pioneers and with the descendants
of Irish newcomers, so that in many cases the dark eyes
and skin of the Southern race have become part of the
common stock.

At about the time when these people from the Azores
were coming here to join our fishing force, there occurred
a tragedy which illustrates some of the dangers of a life
at the mackerel line. It was the wreck of our schooner
Maine, off Cape Cod, in the year 1846.

At nine o'clock in the evening of August 16 the Maine,
with Captain Joshua Litchfield and his crew * of ten, was
pitching and heaving upon the sea at the entrance of
Massachusetts Bay. They were "hove to" for the night
and the watch was set ; but who could see anything ?
The murky air that blew hard from the southwest brought
with it a heavy burden of vapor from the land, which was
condensed into a black fog by the cool water. There was
coming towards the helpless little craft a huge ocean
packet, the Hibernia, just started on her way from Boston
to England (one of the early Cunarders). The wind was
just what the packet wanted, for she was one of those
old-fashioned side-wheel steamboats that were fitted with
masts and sails to help out their steam power. She swept
forward driven by the paddle wheels and the gale through
the thick fog.

Suddenly there was a crash and a heavy thud near the
bow, and then one of the paddle wheels began to crunch
the masts and the shattered frame of the little fishing
schooner. The crew of fishermen were swept under the
great wheel like bits of rubbish in a mill race. In a mo-
ment the scraping and crashing was done and nothing
could be heard in the blackness but the shrieking of the
gale through the rigging.

*Meshech Litchfield, Benjamin Litchfield, Martin Wheelwright, Isaiah Lincoln,
Francis M. Lincoln, Alfred F. Wood, Joseph Bowker, Luther Litchfield, Henry
Richardson (boy), Ezekiel Lincoln (boy).

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 429

The captain of the packet with his startled officers and
men rushed to the rail and looked into the sea, but there
was nothing to be found but angry waves. The engine
was stopped and the sailors were ordered to take in sail,
while the black smoke was blowing in their faces.

But the captain said, " It 's no use to stop and search
for them poor jacks ! I once run over a sailing vessel in
the English Channel and in five minutes I had a lifeboat
on the spot, but not a man could be found. That was in
the daytime and here it is a black night, and it will be an
hour before we can get a boat to where we struck her."

But the mate said to the captain, " It is our duty, we
must go! " There is no word so strong to the heart of
an Englishman as duty. A lifeboat was let down ; but it
swamped in the rough water before a crew could get into
it. One end of it was hooked up to let the water out, and
the mate called for volunteers to go with him.

They swung themselves into the boat and started off in
the blackness ; but who could tell whether they might
ever find the packet again, to say nothing of finding the
crew of the shattered fishing schooner .-* But the steamer
reversed her engine and backed up slowly over the course
she had been running.

Meanwhile, what of our Cohasset fishermen in the
water.'' When the bits of wreckage came up from under
the paddle wheel, the men who were not killed caught
hold of spars or planks or whatever floated near. They
called out for each other and found that six out of the
eleven were floating in the water, holding on for dear life.

It was a miracle that any escaped being crushed in the
debris. The skipper, Joshua Litchfield, of Beechwood,
was probably wounded seriously, for after holding on for
some twenty minutes he loosed his grip and was heard no
more to speak.

The other five began to plan for what fate might await
them. They dared not get too close to each other for

43 O HISTORY OF COHASSET.

fear that in the spasm of drowning, one man might catch
another and both would perish ; so they floated in the cold
water, cheering up one another with what scanty hope
they had. They began to shout, thinking that possibly
a boat might have been lowered from the packet. Their
voices were weak in such a gale ; but when the wind would
lull they all would shout together the shout of the despair-
ing man. A half hour had gone by, another half hour ten
times as long as the first dragged on, and the hope of seeing
a boat from the packet was about given up ; and yet occa-
sionally they would raise their voices again to bear their
anguish across the black waters.

Meanwhile the brave mate with his crew in the lifeboat
was rowing anxiously and then stopping betimes to shout
and to listen. The wind was their compass, and they
knew that if any shouting was done by the crew of fisher-
men, that shouting would come to them easier than theirs
to the fishermen. And it was so ; for presently a voice
was heard off in the darkness, and they bent to their oars
might and main for many minutes, then they shouted and
waited. No voice ! Would they miss it .'' Had they
gone in the wrong direction .''

After a while another voice came plainer than the first ;
and soon they were pulling into their boat the exhausted,
half-drowned crew of Cohasset fishermen. They searched
for others besides the five, but found none.

They searched for the crushed schooner, but no sign of
it save the few bits of wreckage was ever seen.

Back towards the steamer they rowed. One poor water-
soaked fisherman lay in the bottom of the boat chilled to
the very bones and too weak to recover circulation ; but
one of the men at the oars who saw the need of the
sufferer worked off his own shirt from his back while still
keeping stroke, and wrapped it around the poor man wbo
lay under his thwart.

The brave men got their burdens aboard the big packet,

THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 431

and the captain turned her bow towards Halifax, Nova
Scotia. There the recovered fishermen were given to the
care of our American consul, who' secured them passage
to Boston after some days' delay.

Before they reached home their people had been con-
vinced that all were lost. A Provincetown fishing boat
had picked up the body of a man near the Cape, and
bringing it home with them placed it upon the wharf for
some one to identify. It happened that a young man from
Beechwood was there in Provincetown, and he recognized
his familiar townsman Joshua Litchfield, the skipper of
the ill-fated Maine. The body was sent to Cohasset and
the funeral was held. Many sad hearts were gathered at
that funeral who feared that the rest of the crew had like-
wise perished, and that not even the dead bodies might
ever return to their native town.

But that very day the rescued five * returned. The
dead skipper had reached home first, and the living came
to tell the sad story of the sea.f

There are many other tragedies of which this is a
sample that befell the men engaged in business upon the
sea. In one storm the following three losses of Cohasset
vessels were reported in the Advertiser of Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island, October 8, 1851 : —

Schooner Henry Knox, of Cohasset ; Peris Turner, master.
Ashore about four miles to the east of Tracadie Harbor.

Schooner Charles Augusta, of Cohasset ; Joseph Edwards,
master. Went on shore at St. Peter's Harbor.

Schooner Naiad Queen ; S. Hunt, master. Drove on shore at
Tracadie Harbor.

The crews were saved in these cases, but not every
storm was so considerate. In the annals of marine dis-

* Isaiah Lincoln, Francis M. Lincoln, Alfred F. Wood, Joseph Bowker, Luther
Litchfield.

t Through the efforts of Rev. Joseph Osgood and others, the widow of the skip-
per was given $600 by the Cunard Company; ^100 more were secured for Mrs.
Richardson.

432 HIS TOR y OF COHA SSE T.

aster many entries of Cohasseters have been made ; and
when the sea gives up her dead, who will count those that
were drowned from among the dwellers in this humble
village?* But what more of the business for which so
many sacrifices were made ?

The hard fare of the early fishermen became outgrown
in time, so that each crew went furnished with a cook
and with provisions of a much more palatable sort.

In fact, it was complained by some of the sterner skip-
pers that the fishermen were not satisfied with less than
a hotel bill of fare.

The expense of the business was yet further increased
by the improved models of sailing craft that were used.
It became very important to be the first vessel to return
to market with a load of mackerel, so that fast sailers with
extra topsails and flying jibs had to be used.

More than this, the manner of taking the fish required
a larger investment. Sweep nets came into use, which
cost several hundred dollars each ; and when a shark or a
school of bluefish would come ripping through one of
them after the mackerel, both the fish and the net were lost.

* Another tragedy of the sea which occurred in the year 1862 is told as follows : —

The schooner Georgiana, Levi Creed, master, was on a fishing cruise along the
coast between Cape Cod and Montauk Point, Long Island. While she was lying
to under jib and foresail at about one o'clock in the night of May 14, the bark
William Lord, bound for Boston from Baltimore, struck her amidships, staving in
her bulwarks. The crew of sixteen, roused from sleep, rushed upon deck, and,
thinking their own craft about to sink, they climbed upon the bark.

The vessels soon freed themselves, and it was discovered that a boy of twelve
years, Andrew H. Prouty, was left on board the schooner.

The captain of the bark supposed the schooner must be sunk, for she had dis-
appeared, and he took the unfortunate crew to Holmes' Hole near New Bedford.

But the schooner was not sunk. She was manned and mastered by one fright-
ened boy of twelve years of age alone upon the black ocean. For two days and
two nights he was alone, steering his craft towards what he thought must be the
shore.

A whaleship returning to New Bedford overtook the strange-looking craft and
boarded her to see what was the matter. When they found what had happened,
the captain offered the boy one hundred dollars to abandon the schooner. But
the plucky boy would not thus let the captain get possession of a good schooner.
He said, " No, sir! this vessel belongs to John Bates, and I 'm going to take her
ashore." He did so, and found at New Bedford the rest of the crew.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY.

433

From the period just preceding the Civil War the busi-
ness began to dwindle, because of the scarcity of the fish
and the increased expense of taking them. One by one
the firms engaged in the business withdrew to invest
their money in some more lucrative employments. At
last the only two left were John Bates and the Tower
Brothers.

These firms tried to adapt themselves to the diminish-
ing profits, but the small success of a number of years

mmg^^mgggggs^m

Mackerel Schooner of 1875.

soon convinced them that the business was only a species
of benevolence to their employees. They closed the fish-
packing career of Cohasset in the year 1885, with a total
catch that year of only two hundred and sixty barrels.

The last fishing schooner, the Charlotte, was seized by
the British authorities upon the coast of Nova Scotia for
some offense, and thus ingloriously the Cohasset mackerel
industry died.

434

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

It was a fitting coincidence that the last merchants in
the business were of the same two families which for
more than a hundred and fifty years had pursued this
fishing industry with success and with unmeasured profit
to the whole town — the Tower and the Bates families.

Year.

No. I.

No. 2.

No. 3.

No. 4.

Total Brls.

1849

3,227

5,207

6,859

15,293

1850

3,806

2,290

7.495

1,755

15,346

1851

3.193%

5.822%

13.69572

22,71214

1852

3.479%

3.33534

4.701%

100

ii,6i6'%

1853

1,195%

95374

3,959%

1,495

7,603%

1854

807%

1,761%

4,848%

174%

7,592%

185s

378

2,560

5.777

58

8,773

1856

2,053%

1.863%

4.036%

7,954

1858

1.271%

479

1.375%

2%

3.1283/8

1859

1,127%

185%

921%

9

2,244%

i860

i,27iy2

6,03of

4.534

144%

11,98014

1861

2,148

3,975%

3.135%

13%

9,272%

1862

1,86578

2,508%

7.071%

9

11.454%

1863

5183/4

4.335%

10,971%

26

15.85278

1864

2,27054

3.632}^

2,81814

I

8.722i5g-

1865

3.434%

1.86378

3,726%

4

9,028 3/8

1866

2,854%

1,068%

3.505%

5%

7.434%

1867

3,093%

2,360%

4.26578

38% »

9.757%

1868

1.553%

1,27478

2,16214

4.990%

1869

2,11578

4.003%

3,371%

141

9,631%

1870

1.421%

5.774%

3,569%

10,765%

187 1

2,183%

1,36678

1.968%

5,518%

1872

1,2181/2

1,404%

2,39272

5.015%

1873

1,000 14

1,333%

1,810%

4.144%

1874

2,26714

1.539%

2.651

6,457%

1875

361 yl

256

3,648%

2

4,268

1876

520%

2,14214

4.147%

177%

6,98854

1877

230%

783%

1,83272

49

2,89578

1878

26614

94872

2,461

153

3,828%

1879

124

3.28972

1,56772

4,981

1880

431%

3.20I78

2,877%

127

6,637%

1881

163%

3.683

4.161%

3

8,010%

1882

625/0-

1.175^

622I/4

2,422^^

1883

i42i&

4241%

892-2%

850%

2,309fif

1884

S9A

319%

1,327%

i.7o6-i\

1885

40

20IA

18%

aeo-jV

F

CHAPTER XXI.

STAGECOACH, PACKET, AND RAILWAY.

OR a hundred and thirty years the people who settled
in Cohasset had no regular public conveyance con-
necting them with other towns. There was no stage-
coach, so far as can be ascertained, before 1815.

There were two reasons for this lateness in the means
of travel.

First, we were a small community lying off the line of
public travel, because the road from Boston to Plymouth
was cut through by way of the old Indian trail a mile or
more west of us.

Second, our location being upon the sea, we had an
abundance of sailing craft as a means of transportation to
the metropolis.

Furthermore, there was little need of travel previous to
the year 1800, for this community was able to produce at
home almost the entire supply of its needs. What occa-
sional travel was indulged was principally on foot to
Hingham, through which town the King's Highway ran
from Plymouth to Boston. From Hingham a public convey-
ance could occasionally be had over the road to Boston
previous to the Revolutionary War.

The young ministers who came to Cohasset when we
were a precinct, 171 7, traveled, as we remember, upon
horseback from Cambridge. How much hire they had to
pay for their horses we do not know ; but as late as the
year 1805 our townsman, Caleb Nichols, charged a dollar
and seventy-five cents for a " Hors to Boston." The same
old account book under date of August 6, 1800, charges
John Nichols "Hors to Hingham $0.42."

436

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Our public houses, the James House,* by the brook
bearing that name, and the Tavern f owned by the Beals
at North Cohasset, probably kept horses for public use
besides feeding the occasional foot passengers.

When our first post office was established in the year
1803, April I, the small bag of mail, brought probably
not more than twice a week, was borne upon horseback.
Samuel Brown, the first postmaster, had a little workshop

From a painting hy F. II. Shaplr

James House.
As it was fifty years ago.

built upon the southeast side of his house, the present
home of the late Rev. Joseph Osgood, and there he de-
livered the few letters received in the town. He probably
furnished his own horse to get the mails from Hingham.

It ,was not until the second postmaster's term that a
public stage carried the mail and also afforded passenger
accommodations. The second postmaster was Joel Will-

*The present Norfolk House.

tNow burned down, but standing originally at the head of Hull Street on East
Street.

STA GECOA CH, PA CKE T, AND RAIL IVA V. 43 7

cutt, who kept the office for thirty-one years, 1806-37,
in his little cobbler shop on the north side of Elm Street,
now the C. F. Bennett estate.

This postmaster records in his diary, December 30,
1820: " Came from Boston in the Hingham stage." As
early as the year 1815 the Hingham stage from Boston
had been advertised to leave Dock Square Monday,
Thursday, and Saturday at four p.m. If this stage
brought the postmaster through to Cohasset instead of
leaving him to walk from Hingham, our earliest date of
a stagecoach was perhaps 1815. Two months later than
that return trip from Boston, his diary says: "Feb 18*
1 82 1 Sunday; The mail, due yesterday arrived this day
at I P.M."

In 1828, seven years after this, the " Scituate & Boston
Accommodation Stage " was instituted. It was owned
by Jedidiah Little & Co., of Scituate, and made three
trips a week with the Marshfield, Scituate, Cohasset, and
Hingham mails. The growth of this enterprise may be
more clearly understood from the following reminiscence
spoken by Loring Lothrop at the town's centennial cele-
bration in 1870: —

Some of you recollect when old Father Little carried the mail
and two passengers beside himself in a square-top chaise to Bos-
ton, and when he came to a decent sort of a hill he used to push
behind and help his jaded animals all he could. One morning
the town was surprised at the appearance of a stagecoach, drawn
by two horses, one very large and one very small. It took some
weeks of observation and reflection to settle in my mind why he
selected horses so differing in size, one so large and one so small ;
and the conclusion at last was, that he did it on true philosophical
principles — in perfect harmony with the operation of the laws
of the mind. The large horse was an indication of strength and
power and of high aspirations ; the small one, of weakness and
humility ; so that, as he looked upon them. Father Little was sure
to preserve the medium of thought and feeling, and keep on in

438 Ifl^ TOR } ' OF CO HA SSE T.

the even tenor of his way, neither elated by success nor depressed
by difficulties and doubts. I have no doubt his horses knew just
how many steps they took from Cohasset to Boston. But who
shall describe the scene when a coach drawn by four horses left
the tavern, then kept by our fellow-citizen, Thomas Smith !

This line of stagecoaches was continued under different
owners for about twenty years, until the railway was built.

One of the famous drivers was " Bill Ferguson," who
used to be popular with the children, for he sometimes
would let them climb up on the coach for a short ride.

One of the outfits is said to have been a red coach with
four gray horses. The capital stock of the company is
reported at one time to have been $1,500 at $15 per share,
a few shares being owned in our town by Samuel Brown,
Christopher James, and others.

This mail coach, with its little leather bags of mail and
its occasional passengers, became a daily event of the
town, as it bowled along on its way to and from Boston.

The Hingham steamboat Eagle was put into service
between that town and Boston as early as 1819-20, so
that even before Jedidiah Little's stage was operated our
citizens had a daily transportation line to Boston after a
walk or a drive to Hingham.

From 1 82 1 to 1829, however, there seemed to have been
a break in the steamboat service. Then began the short
career of the Lafayette, a single-decked side-wheeler,
whose low-pressure engines kept up a wheezy puffing for
two hours on each trip between Hingham and Boston.
The fare was thirty-seven and a half cents, as advertised
in the Hingham Gazette, May 21, 1830.

One of our Cohasset boys, George Beal, became captain
of this craft in 1830, but he soon was promoted to a
better boat in the same service. It was the General Lin.
coin,* built for the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Com-

* For completer accounts of the Hingham boats, see Francis H. Lincoln's article
on " Public Conveyances" in The History of Hingham.

STAGECOACH, PACKET, AND RAILWAY.

439

pany in Philadelphia. She had two boilers and two en-
gines, burnt wood as her predecessors did, and made the
trip to Boston in an hour and a half. For thirteen years,
from June i6, 1832, until the year 1845, the General Lin-
coln was run, and it was a popular route for Cohasset
travelers to ride in the stage to Hingham and there to
board Captain George Beal's boat for Boston.

Of course in the winter, when Hingham Harbor was
frequently iced over, the General Lincoln was laid off and
people did but little traveling. The stagecoach for the
carrying of mail was the only regular winter connection
with our metropolis.

^

>fe -^

The Old Black Rock House, 1850.

A branch line of the stagecoach going by way of Jeru-
salem Road was established about the year 1840, as nearly
as can be remembered, in charge of the late Warren Bates.
That stage was the first carriage on Jerusalem Road.
It was owned by Jones & Sprague, of Duxbury, and made
connections between the Hingham steamboat landing and
the through stage at Cohasset. This Jerusalem stage was
a three-seated wagon drawn at first by one horse, then by
two, then by three, and finally by four.

It was about that time when summer visitors were get-
ting into the habit of coming to Cohasset, and both the

440 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

Black Rock House and the Cold Spring House * were
growing resorts. The above-mentioned stage driver re-
members seeing Ex-President John Ouincy Adams stopping
at the Cold Spring House and fishing off the rocks.

The roughness of that rocky stage road was terrible.
The horses would sometimes tumble over the bowlders in
the road when the evening was a dark one, overturning
the coach, so that the passengers had to climb out and
get things righted.

But the day of stagecoaches came to an end when the
iron horse rolled puffing in at the year 1849, as we soon
shall see. The vehicles used in our town for private con-
veyance were few and clumsy until fifty years ago.

The only "vehicles" taxed in the whole town of Hing-
ham in the year 1757 were three chaises and six sedan
chairs. That was before we were set off as a town, and
it is doubtful if even one of these was owned in Cohas-
set ; for the inventory of our wealthiest man, John Jacob,
1759, does not include any.

But chaises were afterwards owned, for these cheaply
built two-wheeled things with wooden axles could be made
by our own smiths.

One of the old wheels shown to the writerf has a hub
seven inches thick and fourteen inches long. There were
fourteen spokes held in by seven bits of felly, with the
rough iron tire in seven pieces holding together the sec-
tions of the felly. This chaise had a top made of leather
with a window in the back eighteen inches long, and with
sides that unbuttoned to let in the driver or passenger.
Thus was constructed a vehicle somewhat more convenient
than an ox cart.

The appearance of the first four-wheeled carriage in our

*This house no longer exists. It was a cheap building, a sort of club house,
where people might find a summer shelter and cook their own chowders. It stood
in front of the present Kendall estate near where the cold spring still flows to
quench the thirst of travelers.

t Shown by Robert T. Burbank.

STAG ECO A CII, PA CKE 7 ', AND KA ILWAY. 44 1

town was an event long cherished in memory. It was
made for Major John Pratt, of Beechwood, by Andros
Wood, the local wheelwright. The box was about sixteen
inches deep with a seat * resting upon two long strips of
ash or oak for springs. The body had no springs, but
rested upon the axles.

Major Pratt drove down Beechwood Street through the
central village with his white horse between the shafts of
his monstrous vehicle, making a stunning impression as
well as a deafening noise, for it rattled furiously. " It
was an occasion equal to a Fourth of July," says one who
saw it when a boy. One of the neighbors who heard the
thing coming down the street said she "hoped never to
live to see such another, for the noise was awful."

But the reign of two-wheeled chaises was doomed at
that time ; the four-wheeled vehicles had come to stay, and
so great has been the improvement within our borders
that Cohasset has few equals in the possession of elegant
turn-outs.

Before passing to the account of our railway there is
one more method of public conveyance to be spoken of,
namely, the packet. It has been intimated already that
much of our travel to Boston was done upon the water in
our fishing boats. P'or many years there were no regular
trips made for the purpose of carrying freights, but people
got accommodated as boats might happen to be going.
The two sloops, Mary, of twenty-nine tons, built in 1797,
and Sally, of forty-two tons, built the next year, both for
Samuel Bates, might have been used for a time as packets,
but not until some time after 1800 was there a steady
service.

The Hingham packets were running at this time and as
early as 1754. Cohasset people who chose to go by the
Hingham sloop used to walk the four or five miles neces-

*The seat is still in existence, owned by Aaron Pratt, the son of Major John
Pratt.

442 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

sary to reach her. One of our citizens,* eighty-two years
of age, says : " My grandmother used to knit sailors' stock-
ings and mittens to sell in Boston, and she had to walk
over to Hingham to take the packet there." The packets
in these early times charged no fare for passengers, for
their business was with freight only.

The earliest packet of which we have a certain record
is the little sloop New Orleans, owned by Levi Tower
and registered at Boston as a "packet " in the year 1815.
This may be the same one spoken of in the "War of
181 2," which was captured and then redeemed.

The business must have increased as people established
a trading custom with Boston, for in about ten years there
were two sloops at work as packets, the Phenix and the
Glance. The Phenix was run by Captain Albert Beal, the
Glance by Captain Levi Nichols, and they made two or
three trips each week in the summer. They carried to
Boston many barrels of fish after the packing, and they
brought from Boston merchandise for the stores and for
building purposes in the town. The farmers' small prod-
uce, like butter and eggs, could be easily carried to a good
market in this way, but passengers could not be very easily
accommodated. In the first place, one could never know
precisely when a packet would sail, nor could there be any
guarantee as to the time of reaching the metropolis or of
returning. Only a few traveled by this route, therefore,
although the fare charged was nothing. The passenger
usually worked his way by helping the skipper and his one
"hand" to get under way or to manage the packet. A
little fireplace in the cabin made a cheery hearthstone for
the cold days of spring and fall, and the three or four
hours of the passage were whiled away by gossip and sea-
men's yarns.

After the days of the Glance and Phenix, the Belle, a
little schooner, was run by Alexander T. Prouty. An

* William V. Creed.

STAGECOACH, PACKET, AND RAILWAY.

443

interesting anecdote of the Belle is told, occurring about
forty years ago. She had a pleasure party of a score or
more upon a warm summer day ; and after catching a few
codfish, she returned to anchor just outside of the harbor,
while they might cook the chowder. In the afternoon
a tempest suddenly arose and the company was driven
into the cabin. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the
packet. The blow shattered the mainmast, and Charles
A. Cousens, who was standing below with his hand rest-
ing against it, was stunned. The consternation in that

Head of the Cove, i£

Photo, G. n. Roberts.

crowded cabin may be imagined. Chowder and lightning
did not make an agreeable mixture.

Another packet was the sloop Hattie J. Averill, run by
Captain Henry Collier, carrying freights of every sort,
farm produce, lumber, sand, anything wherever trade might
call him in Massachusetts Bay.

The Lycena, which followed the days of the schooner
Belle, was skippered by William V. Creed, and the suc-
cess of the little craft may be guessed when it is known
that this packet took mortgages off from three or four
houses by her earnings.

444 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

For many years after the railroad was laid to Cohasset
these packets continued to do freighting for the citizens
of the town. Many are the families that used to lay in
their supplies of groceries brought down in the fall of the
year from Boston in these packets.

It was a day of great delight to some children when
their household laid in the winter's stock of food. Per-
haps a quarter of beef had been bought and would be cut
up, some of it for salting, some for freezing, and some
for immediate use. The frugal habits of these hard-work-
ing people made it easy to resist extravagance even in the
face of abundance ; and this was the most economical
way of buying their provisions. However, these domestic
scenes have almost ceased since the passing of the
packets.

One cruise of packeting is still to be mentioned which
went many thousands of miles farther than Boston. It
was the little brig Pianette, which loaded up with Cohasset
men and supplies during the California gold excitement in
1849. Captain Henry Pratt with nineteen others* regis-
tered in Boston, March 30, 1849, ^nd sailed south around
Cape Horn and up again through the Pacific Ocean for San
Francisco, where she arrived after the long voyage of five
months. That group of Cohasset men made our quota
of the famous California " Forty-Niners." Some of them
returned the next year and others remained to gain some
of the yellow dust which was able to magnetize men from
every part of the globe.

♦Zealous Bates. Aquila Kilburn.

Israel C. Vinal. George W. Stoddard.

Charles P. Bourne. Lot Stoddard.

Otis V. Barnes. Henry Bates.

Isaac Pratt. Artemas Thorndyke.

George Bradford. Charles A. Cousens.

James Bates. Clark Cutting.

George Smith. Elijah Marble.

Joseph Briggs, Jr. Manuel King.
Frederick Bates.

6- TA GECOA CII, PA CKE T, AND KAIL WA V.

445

Of other packeting to distant shores we have already
spoken. The following list of freighting vessels owned
at Cohasset and registered in Boston during this period is
probably far from complete, but they were gleaned by
much labor from the Boston Custom House records and
may be of interest. The journeys of these vessels may
be imagined to every country of the globe. The two
brigs of Levi Tower, the Rebecca and the Ann, went
many times into the Mediterranean Sea to get fruit
cargoes.

Regis-
tered.

Name. Ton

lage.

Managing Owner.

Master.

1837

Eolus (schr.) . ,

117

James C. Doane.

John Wilson.

„

Tower (schr.) . .

121

Nichols Tower.

John Barker.

,,

Talisman (brig)

146 A. H. Tower.

Henry Pratt, 2d.

1840

Eolus (brig) . . .

"7

James C. Doane.

John Carpenter.

,,

Eunice (schr.) . .

50

A. H. Tower.

John Williams.

1841

Caroline (schr.) . .

70

John Bates.

John Wilson.

1842

Lewis (bark) . .

218

Nichols Tower.

John Barker.

1843

Speedwell (brig) .

105

A. H. Tower & Co.

Septimus Thorndyke.

Casket (brig) . .

15s

Josiah 0. Lawrence.

David Wilson.

1844

Anne & Julia (brig)

131

A. H. Tower.

Henry Pratt.

1845

.'\lniatia (brig) . .

99

Laban Souther.

Joseph Smith.

1846

Hurculean (schr.)

III

1849

Pianet (brig) . .

120 Henry Pratt & Co.

Henry Pratt.

1852

Vesta (bark) . .

196

John Bates.

„

George Otis (brig)

174

Joseph H. Smith.

„

Profit (schr.) . .

74

C. Collier;

Christopher Collier.

„

Nerissa (schr.) . .

97

Nichols Tower.

,,

Oriola (schr.) . .

83

C. Lothrop.

1853

Kepler (bark) . .

418

John Bates.

1855

Martha Allen (bark)

284

J. H. Smith.

,,

Daylight (ship)

548

John Bates.

D. Wilson.

i860

Wenonah (schr.) .

96

A. H. Tower.

1862

Forest Oak (schr.)

112

A. H. Tower.

1863

H. N. Ruggles (schr.)

132

Henry Snow.

1866

Francis L. Steele (schr

.)8o

John Bates.

But packeting and sea freighting as well as stagecoach-
ing began to dwindle as the indirect result of a steam
railway connecting us with Boston. In fact, a series of

446 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

the greatest changes ever brought about in our town has
followed the introduction of the railroad.

About fifty-three years ago, in 1845., some of our more
energetic townsmen began to urge the feasibility of a rail
connection with the metropolis. The Boston and Provi-
dence line had been running for ten years, since June,
1835, and now in November, 1845, "^ still nearer line was
opened between Boston and Plymouth running through
Abington, some miles to the west of our town.

The nearest point on the line was Braintree, twelve
miles away. The villages of Hingham and the northern
part of Weymouth needed a railroad as much as we did ;
so that business men all along the south shore advocated
the construction of a branch line that might connect with
the Old Colony Railroad at Braintree. A stock company
was soon formed, and hundreds of public-spirited persons
along the proposed line subscribed for shares at fifty dol-
lars each.

Thus the '* South Shore Railroad " was incorporated
March 26, 1846. Their capital stock was limited to
^600,000, and their proposal was to build a road from
Duxbury through Marshfield, Scituate, and Cohasset and
so on to Braintree, where they would be permitted to use
the tracks of the Old Colony the rest of the way to
Boston.

There was no little wire-pulling done by the several
communities concerned, to get the road located for their
own best and sometimes exclusive convenience. Several
miles of travel might be saved for the town of Hingham
and points below if the way were laid through Old Spain
and Quincy Point. Hingham business men worked to
secure this route ; but they tried, furthermore, to make
their own town the terminus, shutting off Cohasset from
the enterprise.

If the Hingham projectors had been willing to make
Cohasset the terminus, the road would probably have been

STAGECOACH, PACKET, AND RAILWAY. 447

located upon that short route, leaving East Weymouth
and Weymouth Landing far to the west. But rather than
to be cut off, Cohasset joined forces with the Wcymouths
to bend the road westward through their towns at a much
increased expense, on condition that Cohasset be the ter-
minus. The longer way was adopted, and the charter was
changed April 20, 1847, cutting off the towns of Duxbury,
Marshfield, and Scituate, making the terminus at Cohasset.

Two years from April, 1847, were allowed for the com-
pletion of this steam highway. The way through Wey-
mouth was excessively rough for a New England railroad,
but by dint of much blasting in granite and shale ledges,
and much grading away of gravel hills and many bridges
across inlets of tide water, the roadbed was finally com-
pleted in the latter part of 1848. The cost was much
more than the stockholders had anticipated, and the four
assessments* during 1847 rnade them feel the cost of the
institution to which they had subscribed. But the score or
more of Cohasset citizens who had embarked in this enter-
prise were willing to be put to a considerable expense for
the public good. A large amount of stock was taken also
by contractors as part payment for work done.

There was a sort of business bargain called a consolida-
tion, between the Old Colony Company and the South
Shore Company, formed while our road was being built,
September 20, 1847. The South Shore was to construct
and to maintain the road for five years, and the Old Col-
ony was i:o furnish all of the rolling stock and manage the
traffic. The rent to be paid by the Old Colony was six
per cent on the cost of the road from the time of its com-
pletion ; but as the cost was running beyond the estimates,
the Old Colony stipulated that they would pay rent upon
no more than $400,000. It was a good bargain for the

♦Fl-om Lieut. Thomas Stoddard's diary : —

July 6, 1847. " I paid my first assessment on two shares of South Shore R. R.
stock to J. C. Doane Esq." Three other assessments followed during six months.

448

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Old Colony, but the stockholders of the South Shore were
not so anxious to make money as to have the road.

An entry in Lieut. Thomas Stoddard's diary, October,
1848, says: "The South Shore Railway progresses rap-
idly ; the grading completed and commenced laying the
rails. The stock all paid in and the Cohasset depot is
building."

The depot was the old wooden station shown in the
accompanying cut. One side of the station was built
over the track, making a large room in the second story
directly above the train. It was in this room that the

The First Cohasset Station. Built iS

celebration occurred on January i, 1849, when the road
was opened for travel.

The following story of this event is taken from the
Boston Daily CJironotypc, January 2, 1849, written in a
sprightly style by an eyewitness : —

After infinite palaver, as Carlyle would say, the South Shore
Road has got itself located and oi^ened. Is not this a proof of
the feasibility of republics ? The people in the one hundred and
one coves and inlets of our many-sided Boston Harbor are some-
what like frogs — the grant of a railroad for them caused any
amount of clack. Should it be here or there ? One would have

STAGECOACH, PACKET, AND KAIIAVAY. 449

said, with such pulling and hauling, it would be nowhere. We
can testify it is there !

Yesterday was one of the brightest possible winter days, and at
12 o'clock an immense, long train waited half an hour for the
City Government, and then started, rolled on over the Calf
Pasture by Dorchester, Neponset, Quincy, and Braintree, and
gracefully curved ofT upon the new road, which the glorious
amphibious people of North Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, and
Cohasset have built for themselves.

It passes through a populous and thriving country, where chil-
dren are abundant, living off the produce of both land and sea.
They seem to have curved the road a good deal to suit as many
as possible.

Passing through the ancient hive of Hingham, the folks made
us promise to come back and take supper.

Arrived at Cohasset about half-past two. Cohasset is of itself
no small place. It has considerable ground to stand upon, be-
sides the water beyond it. We saw two churches, many snug
houses, multitudes of people. Probably some, by permission of
their mothers, came from Hull.

At Cohasset is a spacious car house, some two or three hun-
dred feet long, the whole of which was converted into a sort of
summer bower, with evergreens for foliage and red and white
bunting for blossoms. Two long tables were bountifully spread,
and the crowd passed in without let or hindrance.

We should guess there were at least one thousand, perhaps
more. After an air from the fine Weymouth Brass Band and the
invocation of a blessing,* the eatables were attended to.

We must not forget to mention that besides a most bountiful
and various cold collation, with hot coffee, there was a hogshead
or two of chowder, piping hot, ladled out.

As Daniel Webster was not on hand for the responsible service
of superintending the chowder pot, our friend John Wright, of
Exchange Street, had performed that duty. This does not argue
that Cohasset people do not themselves make chowder. They
look as if they did.

The president of the road, Mr. Alfred C. Hersey, opened the

* By Rev. Joseph Osgood.

45 O HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

speech making very handsomely in a brief address, and Mr.
Johnson read the first toast to the Old Colony Road, which called
forth Mr. Derby, its president. He complimented very justly
the ladies of Cohasset for the fine appearance of the hall and the
bountiful supply of the tables, and ended with a toast for Boston,
which was responded to by three cheers for Ex-Mayor Quincy.

A toast to the good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts was
responded to by Mr. Amasa Walker, who is truly as much the
embodiment of Massachusetts spirit as any man. He gave in a
few words a striking view of what Massachusetts has done for
railroads, and what they have done for her.

Mr. Degrand, of Boston, in his inimitable manner demonstrated
that the South Shore Railroad had cost $100,000 less than noth-
ing. It had raised the value of land for a mile on each side of
it on an average of $50,00 an acre. Sic vos, non vobis, the
stockholders might say; but Mr, Degrand did not mind that.
He went on to advocate a road to San Francisco, and to prove in
the same way that it would cost less than nothing.

When the City Government was toasted, our friends Kimball
and Woodman did the honors, with an unction which showed
how well they deserve their seats in that honorable body. Moses
related how a certain roaring " Bull of Bashan " opposed the
mortgaging of the State for the Worcester railroad, and how
another common but dangerous bull of Worcester County op-
posed, to his cost, the progress of the first locomotive which
traversed that county. And then he drew a parallel, which
brought down the house, between the one bull and the other; at
last letting the ignorant know that the Bull of Bashan was B. F.
Hallett.

The Press being toasted, unfortunately the only thing in the
shape of an editor was the Ishmaelite of the Chronotype, who,
alluding to the remarkable fact that though Hull belonged exclu-
sively to the Courier, he had some interest in Cohasset, having
partly educated one of its Parsons, and gave for a toast : " The
People of Cohasset : from the liberty with which they have used
their ladles to-day, they deserve to dwell on the brim of the great
chowder pot of the world."

Time would fail us even to name all the good things that were
said and toasted. At the hour of four the immense throng piled

S TA GE CO A CH, PA CKE 7\ AA'D RAIL WAY. 4 5 T

themselves into the cars, and returned to Hinghani, where, in one
of the most beautiful station buildings in the country, they were
invited to another " light repast." It was light in regard to the
illumination, but quite substantial as to the amount of sponge
cake and coffee — nothing stronger. Indeed the whole jollifica-
tion was on temperance principles, and the very wittiest men used
nothing but cold water.

At seven o'clock the whole party, having enjoyed the best pos-
sible time of it, — a brand new edition of toasts, jokes, and com-
pliments being got out at Hingham, — returned to Boston by eight.

It was a capital sentiment offered by David Kimball, brother of
the Museum man : " The ituprovement of traveling and colla-
tions, the for?fier with steam and the latter without."

Such grand railroad doings without liquor speak well for
Massachusetts, God bless her !

The trains were run but twice each day inward and
twice outward, making the distance of twelve miles from
Cohasset to Braintree in about half an hour. The
engine rested at Braintree to bring back the cars on
their return from Boston. Such a locomotive, weighing
less than half our present ones, and burning cord wood to
make steam, would be amusing to-day ; and the two pas-
senger cars were the kind now contemptuously known as
" cattle cars." Baggage was carried in a combination car —
one half for smokers. In the summer time we had as many
as three trips of our train each way daily except Sundays,
leaving Cohasset at 6.35 and 9.55 a.m. and at 5.20 p.m.* The
same cars came back again, leaving Boston at 8. 10 a.m.
and at 2.45 and 6.40 p.m. The departure of our trains was
announced by a bell in one of the towers of the station,
ringing at fifteen minutes before the engine started and
again at five minutes before. The people of Scituate and
Marshfield were accommodated by the stages which made
connection with the trains at Cohasset. From the begin-
ning there were some Scituate men eager for a railroad, and

* Taken from time table, Boston, April 25, 1856.

452 ins TOR Y OF COHASSE T.

on April 23, 1847, the Cohasset and Scituate Branch Rail-
road was incorporated to extend the road to Scituate
Harbor; but this scheme was abortive, and the old-
fashioned stage had to be used for twenty-two years after
the Cohasset road was opened.

Then, in 1871, the Duxbury and Cohasset Railroad
Company got the way opened and operated as far as Dux-
bury. Three years later, 1874, this road extended to
Kingston, where it rejoined the Old Colony line to Plym-
outh, thus making two separate routes between Braintree
and Plymouth.

The absorption of these smaller companies by the
larger ones at a price far below the cost of construction
was a phenomenon of the railroad business now grown
familiar. It has been repeated in countless communities,
but the losses sustained by the first stockholders have
been made up many times by the increase in local values
and in convenience of travel. The Old Colony Company
in its turn has been swallowed by the much larger system
called the New York, New Haven and Hartford. The lease
to that great concern occurred in February, 1893, and
when the two companies consolidated it took ten shares of
the Old Colony stock to equal nine of the New York, New
Haven and Hartford.

The first wooden station was burned on Thanksgiving
night, 1857, and with it many of the railroad papers of
Laban Souther, the division superintendent, which might
have told interesting details of the road's early days. A
second wooden station, or "car house " as they called both
the early ones, was built upon the site of the old one. It
was a long shed spreading across the two tracks, affording
some room for offices in the second story. There was no
little business carried on in the offices, for in those days
much of the construction was carried on at Cohasset. The
cars were made and repaired here, and the engines also
were frequently patched up in our "round house," making
employment for machinists.

STAGECOACH. PACKET, AND RAILWAY.

453

The time came in a few years when the second wooden
station was torn down and the present artistic little station
was built. So expensive an improvement would not have
been placed here so early had it not been for the influence
of Uriel Crocker, one of our summer residents, and for
thirty years a director of the Old Colony Railroad. Loving
the town for its natural beauty, Mr. Crocker lent his per-

'il?S**^

Photo. Edward Xichols.

The Onset op- a W^ave, Pleasant Beach.

sonal efforts to secure one more touch of artificial adorn-
ment. It is perhaps worthy of comment that our rugged
shore with its rocky ledges was shunned in the early days
when hard Puritan utility was demanded, but that now the
very qualities which were despised are our chief source of
attraction. It was natural at first, when Cohasset was the
terminus of the South Shore Railroad, for many of the em-
ployees to be residents of this town. As the business has
increased the number of Cohasset employees has grown.
Even since the extension of theline to Duxbury in 1871 the
large percentage of employees have been Cohasset men,

454 HISTORY OF COHASSET.

because many of the trains make this station their ter-
minus. It would be difficult to estimate the effect upon this
community of this line of steam transportation to Boston.
Besides the fifty or more families of railroad employees,
there are more than a hundred families which gain their
living in our neighboring metropolis by means of this rail
connection. Moreover, during the summer months hun-
dreds of visitors to our picturesque seashore are enabled
to make a suburb of this'town and thus deeply to change
the character of the place. From the sheep raising and
agriculture and fishing with their allied industries this
community has gradually turned away ; we have become
about half suburban, and the factor which has brought
about this change more than any other cause is the South
Shore Railroad.

The transformation is being still more rapidly carried
on while the pen is writing these words, for the new
factor of electricity has been introduced. The third rail
has already been laid a part of the way between here and
Boston for the electric current, which will sweep along the
passenger cars with still greater comfort and frequency.

It was only a few years ago that some conservative
people deprecated putting on six trains a day, because
they thought such rapid changing of the engines and
trains at our station would breed accidents. Now (sum-
mer, 1898) we have seventeen trains, with the expectation
of still more as soon as the line of electrics is inaugurated.

When to these improvements we add the commodious
Union Station now being raised in Boston, the facilities for
transportation must impress any observer with the pro-
found change in the life of our community; and it must
be apparent that the occupations and habits and even the
character of our citizens have been deeply involved in
the evolution of our " Stagecoach, Packet, and Railway."

CHAPTER XXII.

WRFXKS, WRECKING, AND MINOT LIGHT.

THE privilege of an open sea has been accompanied
by many disasters for Cohasset inhabitants. The
drownings and the wrecks which have occurred upon our
shore have been an unbroken series from the earliest
settlement to the latest summer bathing. The number
and the names of many unfortunates will never be known.
The deeds of daring which have been recorded in the
books of the Massachusetts Humane Society to the credit
of Cohasset life savers cannot all be read, for these records
were burnt in the great Boston fire of 1872. Many of
their medals, however, are owned in our town as evidence
of bravery in a score of disasters.

The great wreck of the Gertrude Maria in 1793 off
Brush Island has been told in a previous chapter. In
this we have to recall some of the subsequent tragedies
which have not lost themselves from our available records.
The diary of Joel Willcutt, already referred to, gives a
number which attracted his attention during the years
immediately following the Gertrude Maria.

The first was December 7, 1796. The diary says:
" Last night there was a vessel from Chatham cast away
at the Glades. One man, one woman, and a boy were
drowned.

" Another vessel got into Briggs' Harbor and one got
ashore on Long Beach."

Saturday, December 10: "This day the people that
were drowned were buried from our meeting-house."

Three years later, December 17, 1799, the diary says:
"This day there were two ships cast away, one down by
Captain Nathaniel Nichols' (Black Rock) stove to pieces;
the other one got into the harbor by White Head."

455

456 HISTORY OF CO I/ASSET.

The next year, April 10, 1800: "This day a sloop and
a schooner got on shore at the Glades."

The next year, October 24, 1801, the following minute,
not wholly clear, is made : " Mr. Samuel Bates' schooner
got on the rocks off Brush Island and all lost. Mr. Bates,
Mr. John Kent, Captain Dan'l Loring of Hull and one
young man — Captain Loring came ashore in the boat on
the Glades." The uncertainty seems to be whether
Captain Loring came ashore dead or alive. The tragic list
continues, October 9, 1803 : "A very remarkable gale of
wind. Two vessels cast away on the beach by Mr. Aaron
Nichols'. One man drowned."

The monotony of these wrecks may be relieved by a
drowning incident which occurred March 3, 1808, in the
Gulf above where the bridge now is.

Two boys, sons of the two Captains Snow, were play-
ing upon the thin ice near the open channel about eighty
feet from the bank and broke through. Their mothers
seeing them in the water both ran to rescue them, followed
by a little daughter. The ice held until one mother
reached a place ten feet away from the boys, when she
broke through. Her little girl of eleven years also fell
in a few feet away. The remaining woman turned and
ran screaming for help, while the mother and daughter
and the two boys were hanging to the edge of the thin
ice in the cold water.

There was no man nearer than a half mile away. Cap-
tains Luther Stephenson and Nichols Tower, Col. New-
comb Bates, and Thaddeus Lawrence, and perhaps
others were standing upon one of our wharves when the
cry came from up in the Gulf. They all ran towards the
scene of drowning children and woman. Luther Stephen-
son saw two children and the woman with their heads
above the water holding on to the ice, but one of the
children had gone down. Another child was just sinking,
and Captain Stephenson, tearing off a fence rail, rushed

WRECKS AND MINOT LIGHT.

457

to the edge of the creek, which lay between him and the
sinking child, hoping to reach the child across the un-
frozen middle of the creek. But the thin ice broke, let-
ting the man into the water only ten feet away from the
child. He swam across and caught the child, holding it
above water as best he could, waiting for some one else to
help them both.

The other men passed around the head of the treacher-
ous creek and got a small boat, which they pushed off into
the water. First they pulled into the boat the exhausted
woman and one child, then they reached a long pole to
Stephenson with the other child, and by a hard struggle

Photo, Mrs. E. K. Kllms

Ice Boating on the Gulf.

pulled them through the cakes of broken ice to the boat.
The little craft was leaking dangerously ; and when
Stephenson with his protege were taken in, they had
hardly time to breathe before the boat swamped and the
whole crowd were dumped into the water again.

The children were too exhausted to try again for their
lives and they sank to the bottom. The tangle of strug-
gling men and the half-drowned woman was an awful
sight to the few that watched them from the meadow
bank seventy feet away. Some rushed up to one of the
houses to get a rope, none of which could be found,

458 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

except what was woven across the old-fashioned bed
frames to hold the mattresses. A piece of this was cut
and pulled out by nervous fingers through the meshes
and the holes into which it had been woven, while the
men were struggling to save themselves in the chilly
water.

Several of the men had raised themselves out of the
water upon the edge of the ice and crept their way drip-
ping to the shore. Stephenson and another man and the
poor woman (Mrs. Ephraim Snow) were still in the water.
One end of a bed cord was thrown out across the broken
ice, and Stephenson, quitting the sunken boat to which he
had been holding, swam for the line. He saw the hair of
Mrs. Snow's head upon the water, and seizing her, the
both of them were dragged to the edge of the firm ice.
Here a ladder was reached to them and the man held to
the ladder and to the woman until they were both pulled
upon the ice by some one who could reach them. Mrs.
Snow, limp and apparently lifeless, was taken to the
house, where she was chafed for hours until her life was
persuaded to return.

All were saved but the three children, Drusilla and
Joshua, the children of Ephraim Snow, and little Henry
of four years, the son of Captain Henry Snow. These
three were taken from the bottom within a half hour
from the time they sank, but life had gone completely.

Luther Stephenson was awarded a gold medal for his
heroic efforts by the Massachusetts Humane Society.
Silver ones were given to Newcomb Bates, Nichols
Tower, Thaddeus Lawrence, and the writer thinks to
others not known at present. It was a group of disasters
so distressing that a whole century has not effaced the
impression of it. The Gulf has seen more than these
tragedies, for at least three* persons have been drowned
in it by falling from the old tottering plank which crossed

*One was Mary Delano, aged five years, August, 1815.

WRECKS AND MI NOT LIGHT.

459

the mouth of it many years until the wooden bridge *
was built in 1822.

To return to the diary of Joel Willcutt we find, Sep-
tember I, 1815 : "Last night there was a vessel sunk off
Cohasset Rocks and five men drowned. Two were taken
off the rock alive after remaining on her spars eleven
hours."

Again, December 6, 1818, Sunday: "A gale of wind
S. E. ; this morning there was a barque from Russia
named Sarah & Susan loaded with hemp and iron, on
Minot Ledge. At eight o'clock the upper part of the
ship parted from the bottom and drifted to leeward with
the crew hanging thereon. At one o'clock nine were
taken off, four others having been drowned."

This ledge f needed to be branded as dangerous, but
our government was slow to erect a lighthouse upon it
because the rock was always covered at high tide, allow-
ing no time for a foundation to be built. Meanwhile the
luckless vessels were annually impaled upon this sharp
ledge or its similar neighbors.

The business of "wrecking," that is, of saving the
pieces, came to be the trade of a number of Cohasset
citizens. The annual castaways strewn along our shore
from Scituate Harbor to Point Allerton gave employment
to many of our amphibious laborers, securmg the cargoes
from total destruction or saving the bits of the wreck.

The underwriters of Boston naturally kept some Co-
hasseter appointed as their agent to report losses and to
save as much property as possible. One of the best
remembered underwriters' agents was Captain Nichols
Tower, who employed a number of Cohasset men in sav-
ing the cargoes of cotton upon two New Orleans vessels
grounded near the town, and the cargo of East India
merchandise upon the Massasoit.

* The present iron bridge took its place in 1896.

fThe name Minot probably was given to it in memory of some man who ran a
vessel upon it. The name has been in Cohasset families for many years.

460 HISTORY OF COM ASSET.

Many other important wrecking jobs were undertaken
in company with Captain Daniel T. Lothrop, an experi-
enced seaman of whom more will be spoken in a few
minutes ; but the most interesting salvage enterprise was
undertaken upon the coast of South America. It was the
wreck of the Spanish war frigate San Pedro de Alcantra,
which had been sunk in the Bay of Cumana on the coast
of Venezuela in the year 181 5. She had on board a good
many thousand dollars in silver coins, but being covered
by fifty feet of ocean waves, the treasure had lain un-
touched by the eager hand of man.

Finally, 1850-51,* Captain Tower fitted out a crew of
Cohasset divers and seamen, including Captain Jenkins,
George Nickerson, Lorenzo Bates, John J. Lincoln, James
Tower, Thomas Bates, and others, and sailed in the
schooner Eliza Ann for the sunken frigate. The Spanish
government supposed the enterprise a bit of folly, and
agreed to give the wreckers what they might rescue from
the deep, only requiring two and a half per cent of what
was recovered.

The result of the first year's work was fourteen thou-
sand dollars. The second summer season was yielding
well and had reached seven thousand dollars, when some
Spaniards became so menacing that our men were in con-
stant jeopardy of their lives. They escaped, however,
with the seven thousand dollars for their second season's
work.

The method of diving was not with a suit of rubber
and a helmet supplied by air pumps from above, but with
a clumsy "diving bell," which had to be drawn up fre-
quently lest the men should suffocate under the water.

Twenty years later another expedition was fitted out for
the same task, and Michael Brennock, of Cohasset, went
as professional diver. A modern diving suit was used in
this second enterprise and some seven thousand more

* Another authority gives the date 1856.

WRECKS AND MIXOT LIGHT.

461

Spanish dollars were recovered, two of which are in the
Brennock family.

Besides Captain Tower and Captain Lothrop, another
underwriters' agent was Captain Loring Bates, of whose
work during the Civil War something will be said in its
appropriate place. Furthermore, there were of course
private wrecking companies, who learned the art of rescu-
ing valuables from the sea here among our own rocks, and
who went elsewhere upon native or foreign coasts for the
same work.*

But prevention is better than cure, and a lighthouse is
of more use than wrecking companies. The dangerous
reefs spreading in both directions from Minot Ledge
were long regarded as in great need of a warning light-
house ; but the trouble was to get a broad enough founda-
tion upon any one of these sharp ledges. Finally, Captain
W. H. Swift, of the United States Engineering Corps,
proposed to the government at Washington the building
of an iron lighthouse upon stilts over Minot Ledge, like
the beacon he had placed at the entrance of Black Rock
Harbor, Connecticut. In order to persuade the govern-
ment to undertake this expensive job, he got Captain
Daniel T. Lothrop, of Cohasset, to make out a list of
losses for the preceding thirty years in the neighborhood
of the ledge.

THE LIST SUBMITTED BY CAPT.\IN LOTHROP, APRIL 15, 1847, IS

AS FOLLOWS, BEGINNING WHERE WE LEFT OFF,

JOEL WILLCUTT'S DIARY.

TOTAL LOSSES.

Ship Moses Meyers
Bark Sarah & Susan
Brig Federal George
Schr. Armistice . .

,, Pelican . . .

,, Laurel . . .
Brig Juno . . .
Spanish ):etch (with wine)

g40,ooo
60,000
15,000
10,000
3,000
2,000
20,000
lo.oco

Brig Banner . .

,, Champion

„ Boston . .

,, Warsaw .
Schr. Cardenas .

,, Aurora . .
Ship N. O. Packet
Schr. Mechanic

$20,000
5,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
5,000
30,000
3,000

* A model sliowing the arrangement of chains under a sunken hull, patented by-
Captain Joseph Smith, is in our town library.

462 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

TOTAL \.0's,'i>'e.'S>- continued.

Schr. Chance . . .
Brig (molasses cargo)
Orion (coffee) . . .
Ship Roxanna . . .
Sloop (oysters) . , .

^3,000 Schr. William Harris , , . $5,000

14,000 Brig Russia 25,000

10,000 __ Melazo 20,000

30,000

1,000 'r°*^' «343.ooo

PARTIAL LOSSES.

Brig Triton $2,000 2 brigs (timber) $2,000

Schr. Margaret 1,000 Brig (Portuguese) 1,000

Sloop Globe 500 Revenue cutter

Schr. Morning Star .... 500 Schr. (corn) 1,000

Brig America 1,000 Brig Bordeaux 2,000

Schr. Norward Douglas . . , 1,000 Bark Oberlin 3,000

,, Exchange 1,000 Ship Dublin 4,000

Ship 1,000

Total $21,000

Captain Lothrop had been an underwriters' agent for
several years and his estimates were conservative ones,
by a man in the best position to judge. In addition to
this ^364,000 worth of property, he estimated about forty
lives to have been lost during those years.

It was plain that a lighthouse would have prevented
some of these disasters, and the government authorized Cap-
tain W. H. Swift to commence his unique structure of iron.
It was ascertained that the lowest tide would not expose
more than a space twenty-five feet wide upon which to
work, but in the spring of 1847 the drilling began. Nine
holes had to be cut into the rock five feet deep and about
ten inches in diameter. One was in the center and the
other eight were around it, forming an octagon about
twenty-four feet in diameter.

Working to suit the moods of the sea, it look nearly
two seasons to get these nine holes drilled into the granite
rock. Into them at last were fitted the heavy iron piles,
wedged with strips of iron and packed securely with iron
filings. The outer piles were tapered to four and a half
inches in diameter at the top, and the center one to six
inches. The outer ones leaned towards the center, so that
the top of the frame, not quite forty feet above the rock,
was about eighteen feet across.

WRECKS AND MINOT LIGHT. 463

There it stood like a liuge spider with its eight legs
and an extra iron spike in the middle. Upon the top of
this frame a lighter iron frame was built up to a point
sixty feet above the ledge, where the lantern room was
placed. Every leg and corner was braced by diagonal
rods to resist any force of wind or waves to sway the
frame. The little room for the keeper and his supplies
was built beneath the lantern room, and all seemed to be
snug and firm. It was finished in the fall of 1849, and
Isaac A. Dunham took charge of it, lighting the lamp for
the first time on December 13, 1849.

The structure had not been completed before another
terrible wreck occurred a few hundred yards away. It
was the greatest disaster, measured by loss of life, that is
set to the discredit of our shore.

On Sunday morning at seven o'clock, October 7, 1849,
under a heav^y northeast storm, the British brig St. John,
loaded with immigrants brought from Galway, Ireland,
was driven upon Grampus Ledge near Minot, and ninety-
nine lives were lost. Another brig, the Kathleen, had
managed to creep into the mouth of our harbor and to
anchor ; but the St. John was farther out where the gale
struck furiously and made her drag anchors.

The masts were cut away, but still she dragged on.
After the first heavy thump on the Grampus Rock the old
hulk rapidly tumbled to bits. Previous to the breaking
up, the jolly-boat was hanging by the tackles alongside
when the stern ringbolt broke and she fell into the waves.
Captain Oliver, the second mate, and two boys jumped
into her to clear her, when about twenty-five passengers
poured into her and swamped her so that all perished but
the captain. The first mate hauled in the captain, who
caught the end of a rope.

Then the longboat was loosed and the captain with the
first mate and eight of the crew and two passengers
scrambled into her, reaching shore at the Glades. Many

464 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

more passengers wer.e drowned in their desperate endeav-
ors to get into the longboat which saved the captain and
crew. Ten others, upon a piece of the deck which was
wrenched off by the waves, were floated safely to shore,
seven men and three women.

The St. John was only an hour in tumbling to pieces
under the incessant banging of the waves upon her.
Ninety-nine lives were lost and twenty-two were saved.
One of the survivors was a young woman who afterwards
settled in Cohasset, marrying a man whose name was by
strange coincidence St. John.

The account of this wreck, told by the famous Hermit
of Walden, Henry D. Thoreau, who was an eyewitness, is
as follows : — *

We left Concord, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, October 9, 1849.
On reaching Boston, we found that the Provincetown steamer,
which should have got in the day before, had not yet arrived,
on account of a violent storm ; and, as we noticed in the
streets a handbill headed, " Death ! one hundred and forty-five
lives lost at Cohasset," we decided to go by way of Cohasset.
We found many Irish in the cars, going to identify bodies and to
sympathize with the survivors, and also to attend the funeral which
was to take place in the afternoon ; and when we arrived at
Cohasset, it appeared that nearly all the passengers were bound
for the beach, which was about a mile distant, and many other
persons were flocking in from the neighboring country. There
were several hundreds of them streaming off over Cohasset com-
mon in that direction, some on foot and some in wagons, and
among them were some sportsmen in their hunting-jackets, with
their guns, and game bags, and dogs. As we passed the grave-
yard we saw a large hole, like a cellar, freshly dug there, and, just
before reaching the shore, by a pleasantly winding and rocky
road, we met several hay-riggings and farm wagons coming away
toward the meeting-house, each loaded with three large, rough
deal boxes. We did not need to ask what was in them. The
owners of the wagons were made the undertakers. Many horses

* Thoreau's Cape Cod, pp. 3-10.

U^KECKS AND MINOT LIGHT. 465

in carriages were fastened to the fences near the shore, and, for a
mile or more, up and down, the beach was covered with people
looking out for bodies, and examining the fragments of the wreck.
There was a small island called Brook Island, with a hut on it,
lying just off the shore. This is said to be the rockiest shore in
Massachusetts, from Nantasket to Scituate, — hard sienitic rocks,
which the waves have laid bare, but have not been able to crum-
ble. It has been the scene of many a shipwreck.

The brig St. John, from Galway, Ireland, laden with emigrants,
was wrecked o;i Sunday morning \ it was now Tuesday morning,
and the sea was still breaking violently on the rocks. There were
eighteen or twenty of the same large boxes that I have men-
tioned, lying on a green hillside, a few rods from the water, and
surrounded by a crowd. The bodies which had been recovered,
twenty-seven or eight in all, had been collected there. Some were
rai)idly nailing down the lids, others were carting the boxes away,
and others were lifting the lids, which were yet loose, and peeping
under the cloths, for each body, with such rags as still adhered to
it, was covered loosely with a white sheet. I witnessed no signs
of grief, but there was a sober despatch of business which was
affecting. One man was seeking to identify a particular body,
and one undertaker or carpenter was calling to another to know
in what box a certain child was put. I saw many marble feet and
matted heads as the cloths were raised, and one livid, swollen,
and mangled body of a drowned girl, — who probably had in-
tended to go out to service in some American family, — to which
some rags still adhered, with a string, half concealed by the flesh,
about its swollen neck ; the coiled-up wreck of a human hulk,
gashed by the rocks or fishes, so that the bone and muscle were
exposed, but quite bloodless, — merely red and white, — with
wide-open and staring eyes, yet lusterless, dead-lights ; or like the
cabin windows of a stranded vessel, filled with sand. Sometimes
there were two or more children, or a parent and child, in the
same box, and on the lid would perhaps be written with red chalk,
" Bridget such-a-one, and sister's child." The surrounding sward
was covered with bits of sails and clothing. I have since heard,
from one who lives by this beach, that a woman who had come
over before, but had left her infant behind for her sister to bring,
came and looked into these boxes, and saw in one, — probably

466 HISTORY OF COIIASSET.

the same whose superscription I have quoted, — her child in her
sister's arms, as if the sister had meant to be found thus ; and
within three days after, the mother died from the effect of that
sight.

We turned from this and walked along the rocky shore. In
the first cove were strewn what seemed the fragments of a vessel,
in small pieces mixed with sand and seaweed, and great quan-
tities of feathers ; but it looked so old and rusty, that I at first
took it to be some old wreck which had lain there many years.
I even thought of Captain Kidd, and that the feathers were those
which sea fowl had cast there ; and perhaps there might be some
tradition about it in the neighborhood. I asked a sailor if that
was the St. John. He said it was. I asked him where she
struck. He pointed to a rock in front of us, a mile from the
shore, called the Grampus Rock, and added : —

" You can see a part of her now sticking up-; it looks like a
small boat."

I saw it. It was thought to be held by the chain-cables and
the anchors. I asked if the bodies which I saw were all that
were drowned.

" Not a quarter of them," said he.

" Where are the rest ? "

" Most of them right underneath that piece you see."

It appeared to us that there was enough rubbish to make the
wreck of a large vessel in this cove alone, and that it would take
many days to cart it off. It was several feet deep, and here and
there was a bonnet or a jacket on it. In the very midst of the
crowd about this wreck, there were men with carts busily collect-
ing the seaweed which the storm had cast up, and conveying it
beyond the reach of the tide, though they were often obliged to
separate fragments of clothing from it, and they might at any
moment have found a human body under it. Drown who might,
they did not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. This
shipwreck had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of
society.

About a mile south we could see, rising above the rocks, the
masts of the British brig which the St. John had endeavored to
follow, which had slipped her cables, and, by good luck, run into
the mouth of Cohasset Harbor. A little further along the shore

IVRECKS AND MINOT LIGHT. 467

we saw a man's clothes on a rock ; further, a woman's scarf, a
gown, a straw bonnet, the brig's caboose, and one of her masts
high and dry, broken into several pieces. In another rocky cove,
several rods from the water, and behind rocks twenty feet high,
lay a part of one side of the vessel, still hanging together. It
was, perhaps, forty feet long, by fourteen wide. I was even more
surprised at the power of the waves, exhibited on this shattered
fragment, than I had been at the sight of the smaller fragments
before. The largest timbers and iron braces were broken super-
fluously, and I saw that no material could withstand the power of
the waves ; that iron must go to pieces in such a case, and an
iron vessel would be cracked up like an eggshell on the rocks.
Some of these timbers, however, were so rotten that I could
almost thrust my umbrella through them. They told us that
some were saved on this piece, and also showed where the sea
had heaved it into this cove, which was now dry. When I saw
where it had come in, and in what condition, I wondered that any
had been saved on it. A little further on a crowd of men was
collected around the mate of the St. John, who was telling his
story. He was a slim-looking youth, who spoke of the captain
as the master, and seemed a little excited. He was saying that
when they jumped into the boat, she filled, and, the vessel lurch-
ing, the weight of the water in the boat caused the painter to
break, and so they were separated. Whereat one man came
away, saying : —

" Well, I don't see but he tells a straight story enough. You
see, the weight of the water in the boat broke the painter. A
boat full of water is very heavy," — and so on, in a loud and im-
pertinently earnest tone, as if he had a bet depending on it, but
had no humane interest in the matter.

Another, a large man, stood near by upon a rock, gazing into
the sea, and chewing large quids of tobacco, as if that habit were
forever confirmed with him.

" Come," says another to his companion, " let 's be off. We 've
seen the whole of it. It 's no use so stay to the funeral."

Further, we saw one standing upon a rock, who, we were told,
was one that was saved. He was a sober-looking man, dressed
in a jacket and gray pantaloons, with his hands in the pockets.
1 asked him a few questions, which he answered ; but he seemed

468 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

unwilling to talk about it, and soon walked away. By his side
stood one of the lifeboat men, in an oilcloth jacket, who told us
how they went to the relief of the British brig, thinking that the
boat of the St. John, which they passed on the way, held all her
crew, — for the waves prevented their seeing those who were on
the vessel, though they might have saved some had they known
there were any there. A little further was the flag of the St. John
spread on a rock to dry, and held down by stones at the corners.
This frail, but essential and significant portion of the vessel, which
had so long been the sport of the winds, was sure to reach the
shore. There were one or two houses visible from these rocks, in
which were some of the survivors recovering from the shock
which their bodies and minds had sustained. One was not ex-
pected to live.

We kept on down the shore as far as a promontory called White
Head, that we might see more of the Cohasset rocks. In a little
cove, within half a mile, there were an old man and his son col-
lecting, with their team, the seaweed which that fatal storm had
cast up, as serenely employed as if there had never been a wreck
in the world, though they were within sight of the Grampus Rock,
on which the St. John had struck. The old man had heard that
there was a wreck, and knew most of the particulars, but he said
that he had not been up there since it happened. It was the
wrecked weed that concerned him most, rockweed, kelp, and
seaweed, as he named them, which he carted to his barnyard ;
and those bodies were to him but other weeds which the tide cast
up, but which were of no use to him. We afterwards came to the
lifeboat in its harbor, waiting for another emergency, — and in
the afternoon we saw the funeral procession at a distance, at the
head of which walked the captain with the other survivors.

On the whole, it was not so impressive a scene as I might have
expected. If I had found one body cast upon the beach in
some lonely place, it would have affected me more. I sympa-
thized rather with the winds and waves, as if to toss and mangle
these poor human bodies was the order of the day. If this was
the law of Nature, why waste any time in awe or pity? If the
last day were come, we should not think so much about the sepa-
ration of friends or the blighted prospects of individuals. I saw
that corpses might be multiplied, as on the field of battle, till

WRECKS AND MI NOT LIGHT. 469

they no longer affected us in any degree, as exceptions to the
common lot of humanity. Take all the graveyards together, they
are always the majority. It is the individual and private that
demands our sympathy. A man can attend but one funeral in
the course of his life, can behold but one corpse. Yet I saw that
the inhabitants of the shore would be not a little affected by this
event. They would watch there many days and nights for the
sea to give up its dead, and their imaginations and sympathies
would supply the place of mourners far away, who as yet knew
not of the wreck. Many days after this, something white was
seen floating on the water by one who was sauntering on the
beach. It was approached in a boat, and found to be the body
of a woman, which had risen in an upright position, whose white
cap was blown back with the wind. I saw that the beauty of the
shore itself was wrecked for many a lonely walker there, until he
could perceive, at last, how its beauty was enhanced by wrecks
like this, and it acquired thus a rarer and sublimer beauty still.

Why care for these dead bodies? They really have no friends
but the worms or fishes. Their owners were coming to the New
World, as Columbus and the Pilgrims did, — they were within a
mile of its shores ; but, before they could reach it, they emigrated
to a newer world than ever Columbus dreamed of, yet one of
whose existence we believe that there is far more universal and
convincing evidence — though it has not yet been discovered by
science — than Cohmibus had of this ; not merely mariners' tales
and some paltry driftwood and seaweed, but a continual drift
and instinct to all our shores. I saw their empty hulks that came
to land ; but they themselves, meanwhile, were cast upon some
shore yet further west, toward which we are all tending, and
which we shall reach at last, it may be through storm and dark-
ness, as they did. No doubt, we have reason to thank God that
they have not been " shipwrecked into life again." The mariner
who makes the safest port in Heaven, perchance, seems to his
friends on earth to be shipwrecked, for they deem Boston Harbor
the better place ; though perhaps invisible to them, a skillful
pilot comes to meet him, and the fairest and balmiest gales blow
off that coast, his good ship makes the land in halcyon days, and
he kisses the shore in rapture there, while his old hulk tosses in
the surf here. It is hard to part with one's body, but, no doubt,

470 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

it is easy enough to do without it when once it is gone. All their
plans and hopes burst like a bubble ! Infants by the score
dashed on the rocks by the enraged Atlantic Ocean ! No, no !
If the St. John did not make her port here, she has been tele-
graphed there. The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit ; it is
a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any
Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it
succeeds.

•--■^i.-.^J

■^

From a drawing by John W. Bennett, keeper.

The Old Iron Lighthouse on Minot Ledge, destroyed in the Gale
ON April i6, 1851.

The second year after this disaster of the St. John came
a storm yet more furious upon a heaping full tide, and
Swift's iron lighthouse upon Minot Ledge was knocked
into bits. Some seamen have said that the iron frame
would have stood out the gale but for a platform which
the keeper had fastened into it as a sort of shelf for his
boat. This save an additional surface for the waves to

WRECKS AND MINOT LIGHT. 47 I

lift against, so that when the great tide came mounting sev-
eral feet higher than usual the giant waves got their shoulders
against the house and wrenched it off from the iron pillars,
plunging the two men,* lantern and all, into the hissingdeep.
The glimmering light had been watched from the shore
until far into the* night. The highest tide was at about
twelve o'clock midnight, April 16, 1851, and the beacon
must have fallen before that, because a bit of the wreck
had been given time enough to drift into Sandy Cove,
where it was landed at the highest reach of the tide.f

The failure of this iron structure was an incentive to a
less economical Congress to appropriate sufficient money
to build a stone tower upon that submerged ledge, and to
build it so strongly that the ledge itself must break before
the lighthouse will fall.

There was an interval of five years after the old light-
house fell before the first blow was struck upon the ledge
for the new one, July i, 1855. The twisted wreck of the old
one first had to be cleared away, and much preliminary
work had to be done. A description of the process, taken
from the " New England Magazine" for October, 1896, is
as follows : —

Captain Barton S. Alexander of the engineer corps was chosen
to superintend the construction, and for the various trades em-
ployed in the task old Cohasset gave of her trained and tried
sons. The very table upon which the plans were drawn was
specially constructed, a massive piece of mahogany with a top
leveled and squared to a nicety. The building of the model itself
occupied the best of two winters, and the old shop still stands
near the head of Cohasset Cove where Richard Bourne and Zac-
cheus Rich toiled upon this important toy. The scale employed
was one inch to the foot, and the model, which was to be seen in
the United States Government Building at the Chicago exposition,
is stone for stone a counterpart of the granite tower out in the
Atlantic.

* Joseph Wilson and Josepli Antonio.

t The testimony of Captain Nathaniel Treat.

472

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

A lightship had in the mean time done duty as a beacon, and
anecdotes are told of the superb Newfoundland dog who lived
aboard and acted as carrier for the news bundles thrown out from
passing vessels. Crowds would gather at steamer rails to witness
his fearless plunge into the sea, where he would dart here and
there until he had his mouth so full of news that barking was no
longer possible, when he would swim for his floating home.

The actual labor of building the present tower upon the ledge
might be likened to holding at bay a wild beast robbed of its

Scene on Government Island when the Stones for the Lighthousa
were being shaped. fishing schooners in the cove beyond.

prey. The action of sea waves upon and about hidden or partly
sunken ledges will at times defy the judgment and skill of the
oldest sea dog afloat. Ever varying, always erratic, a swell pour-
ing over a reef seems animated by a distinctly malignant power ;
and woe to the dory caught disabled in its grasp ! From Cape
Ann to Boston, from the Graves to Cape Cod, at Thatcher's,
Straitsraouth, Egg Rock or Minot, the records of the sea rock

WRECKS AND MINOT LIGHT.

473

lighthouses are dotted with overturns of small craft of all classes
in the simple attempt at landing.

In the face of this malevolent spirit of unrest, the Cohasset
men sailed forth under Captain Alexander to conquest and
achievement. The first step was to remove the stumps of piling
which still adhered to the rock. " Three things," said Captain
Alexander, " were necessary, a perfectly smooth sea, a dead calm,
and low spring tides. This could only occur six times during any
one lunation, three at full moon and three at the change."

A party sailed from the cove and under these conditions
grappled for the ruins. A Scandinavian who passed under the
name of Peter Fox, a fearless fellow and an accomplished
swimmer, would locate the iron which had been carried into
deeper water, then diving with a light tackle would hook on to
the fragment and strike out for the surface. In this way, and by
wrenching from the rock-bed those fragments which still remained
fixed, the ledge was cleared ; and a new iron framework was in-
serted in the holes left by the wrecked tower, pile for pile, all
save the central shaft, the cavity for which formed the center of
the base circle, and above which the well for fresh water was
afterwards shaped. The skeleton frame was of wrought iron, and
was painted a bright red. The " spider " which capped it served
as a landing stage during the subsequent proceedings.

The working season was from April i to September 15. During
the following January another fearful gale obscured the ledge ; and
when the seas moderated it was seen that the work had shared the
fate of the first tower. Even Captain Alexander's dauntless spirit
was shaken. The labor of two seasons was cast aside like a toy
house. " If tough wrought iron won't stand it," said he, " I have
my fears about a stone tower."

A boat load of sober men rowed out to the scene of the wreck,
and thoroughly inspected the work of the storm, with the happy
result, as it proved, of an entire revulsion of feeling. During the
gale, a bark-rigged vessel, the New Empire, loaded with cotton,
had been driven ashore, and lay in an easy position near White
Head, the northern buttress of Cohasset Cove. At the suggestion
of Captain John Cook, a famous Cohasset rigger, the party visited
the disabled craft and inquired whether during the storm any
unusual shock had been felt. No one had noticed any, but as the

474

HISTORY OF CO II ASSET.

visitors turned to go home, a sailor came to the side and claimed
the contrary, — and at the same moment a pair of sharp eyes dis-
covered several faint traces of red upon the dark side of the hull.
The evidence was weak, but undeniable ; and when the Empire
was dry-docked at Boston her hull was found pierced in several
places, and embedded among her cotton bales were some frag-
ments of the piling.*

Again was the work taken up — this time to meet with unquali-
fied success. The rock was first cut to a succession of levels,
determined by its natural structure, that which is termed the zero
being one foot and nine inches above the mean low-water level.
Outside of a diameter of thirty feet the rock was found to be too
soft to be safely worked, and a circular base of that diameter
was therefore agreed upon. An eyewitness thus describes the
scene : —

" Captain Alexander had constructed two large, stanch row-
boats, naming one Deucalion and the other Pyrrha, — for he was
a droll fellow, full of dry wit. The Deucalion was painted red,
and this was more especially for his own use, while the Pyrrha, a
green painted craft, was to carry the men. We would watch the
tide from the cove, and just as soon as the ebb had reached the
proper stage we would start out with it, and at the moment a
square yard of ledge was bare of water out would jump a stone-
cutter and begin work. Soon another would follow, and as fast
as they had elbow room others still, until the rock would resemble
a carcass covered with a flock of crows. The high-sounding
names for the boats piqued the curiosity of the men not a little,
until one finally inquired of Captain Alexander, ' What on airth it
meant.' ' Oh,' replied he, ' Deucalion was a giant who went
through Greece of old, picking up stones and throwing them out
of the way, and Pyrrha was his wife who ate them,' — with which
mixed definition the questioner was forced to be content."

From the time when, on Sunday, the first day of July, 1855,
the stroke of a hammer first rang out upon the summer air, until
the rock was ready to receive the first cut stone, was nearly three
years — years wrenched from the sullen power of old ocean.
New dowels were inserted in the rock and successfully carried to

* These facts seem to prove that the wrecked New Empire drove against the
iron framework, which the waves alone had not broken down.

WRECKS AND MI NOT LIGHT.

475

a height of nearly twenty-five feet, or to where the twelfth course
of masonry was afterwards laid. And now began the real work,
— the laying of the courses ; and this, executed in a compar-
atively short period of time, proved, as has many another noble
superstructure, the value of
the long, tedious prepara-
tion, a task whose results
were destined to remain
forever unseen. During
the year 1855 work upon
the foundation pit could
only be performed one
hundred and thirty hours ;
in 1856, one hundred and
fifty-seven ; and in 1857, in
excavating and in laying
four stones, one hundred
and thirty hours and
twenty-one minutes, the
remainder of these years to
be relinquished to the
savage sea ! During 1858

a small gain was made, when the last of the cutting and the laying
of six courses of stone was accomplished in two hundred and

Plan of rock as prepared to receive the foun-
dation stones. " O " is 1' 9'' above mean low
water ; the other parts are deeper than the
central.

First and second courses,
reaching to the height of the
natural rock in the center.

Third course, showing the
eight iron columns, and well
in the center.

eight hours. It was important that none but the best of granite
should be employed, and samples from many localities were
submitted to the severest tests. Of stone taken from Rockport,

476 HISTORY OF con ASSET.

Cohasset, and Quincy, that of the last-named place was proven
to be "finest of grain, toughest, and clearest of sap."

Visitors to Cohasset invariably wish to visit Government Island,
which seems scarcely an island at all, so narrow is the deep, rocky
tideway which separates it from the main land. Upon a level
spot at the northern shore are two circular pavements of granite,
as level as a ballroom floor, grass-grown and soil-covered at the
edges, but exquisitely laid. It was here that the tower for Minot
Ledge was first constructed. Stone sheds were erected ; and for
many months the island presented a busy scene. From many
Cohasset homes a later generation can look out to the distant
tower that dots the ocean beyond the Glades, or to the nearer
heights of Government Island, with honest pride in the craft of
hands which have now, most of them, forever laid the tools aside.
Cohasset will not soon forget them ; and their names deserve to
be blazoned beside those who have stood between their country
and her foe, for their work is enduring and multiplies in blessing
as the years go by.

There was Captain John Cook, a famous rigger of the days
when seventy sail went out of Cohasset and Scituate, whose ability
with a rope and block was something marvelous. He died only
this last summer. He made the model for the derrick which was
used in raising the stones in the lighthouse. A prize was offered
for the most practical plan for this derrick, and his was accepted.
The massive granite blocks were teamed to the cutters by Clark
Cutting, unassisted save by his sturdy oxen. It is said he never
had occasion to shift a stone twice.

Captain Nichols Tower, — a proud old Cohasset name, that of
Tower! — one of a family of noted skippers, captained the first
vessels used to carry the finished stones out to the ledge. How-
land Studley and Elijah Pratt are remembered as men of cool
judgment and skilled hand ; while of the many others employed,
none could have felt their responsibility more keenly than Wesley
P. Button and George Reed, the latter of Quincy, who superin-
tended the selection of the stone.

Not the smallest detail of preparation escaped the watchful
eye of Captain Alexander ; and down to the very pulley-blocks
of the derricks, with their specially forged straps, everything was
constructed with a view to prevent the slightest mishap. These

WRECKS AMD MINOT LIGHT.

477

derricks were the pride of the sparmaker's art ; and the perfect-
running, flawless pulley-blocks of lignum vitse were from the care-
ful hands of Richard Bourne, one of the model builders, who first
laid out the circumference of the ground plot at the ledge. Mr.
Bourne, now a resident of Clinton, Mass., is still hale and hearty,
and enjoys with a keen relish the recollection of this splendid
undertaking of his native town.

The Quincy cutters avowed that such chiseling had never left
the hand of man ; and a closer look into the manner of joining

MiNOT Lighthouse, half grown.
From an old photograph.

the tower will prove that the need was of the first order. The
first few courses bear no semblance to regular masonry. The
lines of junction formed by the juxtaposition of the various rock-
levels trace out the most erratic curvings, and suggest a snarl of
wire loosely confined within a circle. As the courses grew, how-
ever, clearing first one and then another of the points of rock,
they began to take shape and to admit of a radial arrangement,

478 J}!S TOR V OF COHA SSE T.

until, reaching the third, the last of the bed rock was covered,
and the courses proceeded with regularity and greater speed.
When it is considered that each stone must be cut to fit its neigh-
bors above, below, and at either side, and exactly conform to the
next inner row upon the same level ; that eight iron piles, taper-
ing as they ascended, must be allowed for in certain of the stones ;
and that those of the innermost row, the ends of the eight great
"headers," must be finished each as a fragment of the bore of
the well that drills its way from the first floor nearly to the bed
rock, it will be seen that nothing short of perfect cutting and
flawless joining could be tolerated. Each stone was secured to
the course under it by two or more bolts or dowels of three-inch
gun metal, that material having been selected from a variety of
metals which had received an under-water test of more than a
year. The hole in the undermost stone was drilled flaring at the
bottom, and the bolt, its end split into two
..«d?^7^^^^~ tiny clefts, was spread

and cHnched when '^^s..

driven home. Strap ^ --^-^-^

iron inserted between /- . /
the courses kept the
stones apart sufficient-
ly for the flowing in
Twenty-second course, of Portland cement, ^ . .

*i,a flo^r ^f fi,,^ ;r,o;^«> Ihntieth course, floor

r, ruu which becomes almost oi bedroom

of the lighthouse. °' Deaioom.

literally a part of the
solid stone. Each stone is dovetailed to those upon either side.
This process holds good up to the twenty-third course, which,
forty-four feet above the rock, serves as the first course of the
"shell" or hollow portion containing the keepers' rooms. Here
each course is "joggled" by a middle annulus to the course
which it rests on. At the top the interior is arched over, and
upon the outside the top course flares outward in a severely plain
but shapely cornice.

As the hammers clinked ashore, the busy chisels were slowly re-
ducing the ledge to a condition to receive the fitted stones ; but
the progress out at sea was of necessity tedious and protracted.
" Frequently," says Captain Alexander, " one or the other of the
conditions would fail, and there were at times months, even in

WRECKS AND MI.XOT LIGHT.

479

summer, when we could not land there at all." But once well above
the hungry water, the difficulties of the task were lessened, and the
last 26 courses were laid in 377 hours during the year 1859.

Captain Cook loved his joke, and upon one occasion, while in
charge of the men at the ledge, he solemnly inquired of a recent
comer, a lank stripling from Vermont, " Can you swim, sir?"
" No, sir, I cannot. Why do you ask?"

The mischievous skipper looked nervously around and replied :
" Well, if Captain Alexander knew you were at work here and
unable to swim, I — I should be a little afraid he might discharge
ye. Now, just you strap one of these life preservers on to you,
and if you get washed off we'll pick you up."

A number of the clumsy old " hourglass " style of life preserv-
ers were lying upon the deck of the schooner which attended the
cutters, and throughout part of one day
the luckless youth labored with his ungainly
incubus strapped, bustle
fashion, to his back. Pres-
ently some one announced, i
"Red boat coming;" and /
what excuse the master joker \
advanced for the removal of

Floor o^ lantern. ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ Co.n.ce course.

man settled with him ashore, is not stated.

Each stone having been approved, and the courses actually laid
upon the island, the work at the ledge was simply a repetition,
although the conditions out upon the bosom of the heaving
Atlantic must have given a rare zest to the undertaking, not to be
found ashore. The shaft is purely a frustum of a cone, the useless
tree shape at the base being discarded.

Like a page of fiction runs the anecdote of one Noyes, who
was employed upon both the iron and granite towers. Owing
to some petty official friction he ceased work and for a time
disappeared. During the Rebellion a fine clipper ship, the
Golden Fleece, with Cohasset men aboard of her, fell a prey to
the marauding Alabama. As the men filed aboard their con-
(lueror, one glanced up the side, and there, leaning over the
poop rail, in the uniform of a Confederate naval officer, was
the renegade Noyes.

48o

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

Section of Mi.not Lighihuusk, show-
ing Six Rooms, Lantern, Well,
Iron Columns, etc.

The tower was finished Septem-
ber 15, 1S60, just in time for the
autumnal fury of the Atlantic to
accord a full test to its right of
existence. The total cost was
about $300,000. Of rough stone
there were used 3,5 14 tons, of ham-
mered stone 2,367 tons, and from
this amount were produced 1,079
separate blocks. The first cut
stone was laid July 9, 1857, and
the lowest block July 11, 1858.
The entire time consumed was
1,102 hours 21 minutes.

The dimensions are not realized
from a distant view of the tower.
From the lowest stone to the top
of the pinnacle is 114 feet i inch.
The height of the focal plane
above the lowest point is 96 feet
I inch, and above mean high-
water mark, 84 feet 7 inches.
The diameter of the first full
course, the third from the
bottom, is 30 feet, and that
forming the granite floor, or
the top of the twenty-second,
is 23 feet 6 inches. Its com-
pletion must have seemed to
the builders like the finishing
touch to a pedestal, for such
it was, to the lighter yet no
less important work
which grew, course
by course, above it.
The lantern parapet
rises four courses
above the cornice
of the tower proper,

WRECKS AXD M/.VOy UGHT. 48 1

and is crowned by the lantern itself, strapped and bolted to the
unyielding stone. High guards of iron railing encircle both the
cornice and the parapet, and from this dizzy height the curving
outlines of the awful reefs can be traced for many a fathom.

What an ocean graveyard is guarded by the gray old tower, its
foot streaked slimy and green with the washings of the tides !
The stanch pilot boat Lawlor has within the past twelvemonth
added her bones to the bleaching skeletons of oak which strew
the bottom between the Minot and the dreaded Harding's, —
"somewhere within two or three miles," says her survivor; and
about the same "somewhere " from the light, perhaps nearer, the
Allentown went down in the blizzard of 1888, a fine iron steamer
sinking with all on board. It is said that in one spot the ledge
runs evenly but a few feet below the surface for several fathoms,
parallel with the shore, with its outer wall a sheer drop of nine*
fathoms !

The keepers and their monotonous life have been thoroughly
introduced to a public which has only of late begun to remember
the pride with which this noble triumph of peace was at the time
received.

The day of the corner-stone oration, with no less a personage
than Edward Everett for orator of the day, still lives, a vivid
memory in the minds of the people of the South Shore.

The powerful light of the second order has for more than thirty
years sent its aggressive rays out upon the ugly expanse of black
ocean which nightly encircles the tower with its vast cold plain.
But of late a change has come over the staid old sentinel. Weary
with his quarter-century vigil, has he given up the struggle and
tossed his superb torch hissing into the restless waters that chafe
his foot? There is black darkness upon the ledge, although the
stars fleck the very horizon and the shore lights twinkle in radiant
perspective from Cohasset to Strawberry Hill, and the unquench-
able fire of Boston Light sears a pathway of shriveled silver as its
powerful beam wheels slowly around in its faithful circle. But,
ah ! — from the blackness above the dread Minot there leaps,
bursts, a mighty outpouring of light ! It quivers, throbs, and is
gone. A space of darkness — and again the unbearable flash, —
once, twice, four times, — and again darkness, and a tremendous
relay of power. Then — one, two, three — and the number of the

482

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Minot station has been spelled out in splendid telegraphy upon
the ebon scroll of night.

Lighthouse inaugurated October 2, 1858. Addresses on the occasion by Captain
B. S. Alexander, Mayor Lincoln, Hon. Edward Everett, Col. J. T. Heard, Dr.
Winslovv Lewis, Hon. L. B. Comins, C, R. Train, and Hon. B. C. Clark.

On November 25, 1888, the schooner Stella Lee was driven upon Bassing Beach.
By the same storm the Sasanoa was driven across from Gloucester Harbor and
was thrown high upon Pleasant Beach. The dismantled wreck was so picturesque
that Messrs. Luce, Kendall, and Manning bought it and kept it there for seven or
eight years, until some vandals burned it. During this storm the H. C. Higginson
was driven upon the rocks at Atlantic Hill. Captain James Anderson, of Cohasset,
with his volunteer crew shot a line over the mast; it caught securely, and three
men of the four who were lashed in the rigging were taken off alive ; the fourth was
dead. Manuel E. Salvador, Frank F. Antoine, and John J. Ainslie received bronze
medals for bravery on this occasion.

But a storm far more destructive than any other in the history of our coast has
just broken upon us November 27, 1898, while this book is being printed. Over
two hundred and fifty lives have been reported lost upon the shores of this one
■ State. Fifty-six vessels, including the massive passenger steamer Portland, have
been cast away or hammered to splinters. Upon our own Cohasset shore two
wrecks have fallen. One was a coal barge heavily loaded which was dashed to bits
"upon Black Rock. Three of the crew jumped upon the island. Our Cohasset vol-
unteer crew in a lifeboat endeavored to rescue these men, but the sea was so vio-
lent that the boat was capsized before she was fairly started, throwing her crew into
the water. Captain James, of Hull, with his United States life-saving crew in their
own lifeboat, made a long detour to the island and finally rescued the castaways.
Another wreck was the fine new fishing schooner Juniata, of Boston. She was
returning to port with her catch, when the northeast gale with its blinding snow
overtook her. She anchored several miles north of Minot Light, but the sea broke
her cables and the wind ripped her new sails into rags and drove her with her crew
of eighteen men lashed in the rigging to our shore. She lodged first upon a ledge
outside of Brush Island and then she was driven past the western end of Brush
Island to the breakwater upon Beach Island, where the entire crew landed in safety.
The destruction of roads and buildings near the sea has been the greatest in our
history. The road at Pleasant Beach and Sandy Beach has been washed out,
stone walls and gravel and all, to a depth of six feet in some places, while in others
hundreds of tons of beach stones have buried the road out of sight. The sea
leaped the barriers and swept bath houses across Little Harbor, landing them a half
mile away. At the Cove, houses were flooded, and pleasure boats which were sup-
posed to be hauled up to safe distances were borne upon the tidal wave into the
street.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CIVIL WAR.

THERE is one point of connection with the Civil
War which belongs peculiarly to Cohasset. The
chief person in all that epoch, Abraham Lincoln, de-
scended from one of our earliest Cohasset homes. The
homesteads built by Mordecai Lincoln, the great-great-
great-grandfather of that infinitely greater son, are yet
standing near the mouth of Bound Brook, one in Scitu-
ate and the second in Cohasset. The ancestor* who first
went westward from New England to be a forbear of the
nation's hero learned his first lessons of toil in our old
Lincoln Mill at the south end of the town.

The time came when our citizens, many of them rela-
tives of Abraham Lincoln, were called upon to vote for
him or to reject him. The summer and fall of i860 was
full of an unusual political excitement for this quiet ham-
letj not much given to politics. There were a few South-
ern sympathizers here who abominated the efforts of
abolitionists on behalf of the negro slaves.

Slaves had been formerly toilers on some of our farms
and even worshipers in the church now standing upon
our Common. As early as the year 1683, as we read in
Chapter IX, there was an Indian slave farmed out to a
Cohasseter, Cornelius Canterbury. For about a century
slaves were owned, Indian and negro, by a few of the
wealthier of our citizens. One suggestive item in the
inventory! of John Jacob's estate, 1759, was a negro man
valued at fifty pounds and a negro woman valued at
nothing, coming immediately after the item of " live-
stock." But when our State Constitution was adopted, in

* Mordecai the son of Mordecai. (See Hingham Genealogy.)
fTo be found in the Probate Office, Boston.

483

4S4 HISTORY OF COM ASSET.

1780, the words "free and equal" constituted a legal bar
against slavery.

There were no property interests therefore at stake in
our community over the nation's vexatious problem. Polit-
ical prejudices were not wholly absent, however; for
after Lincoln had- been elected the rancor of some was
so bitter that they cursed him publicly, calling him a
baboon and other epithets too indecent to repeat. When
Sumter was fired upon the next spring, and volunteers
were called forth to defend our nation, these bitter parti-
sans added their hope that every man who should go
"might rot there" ! But the rising of public wrath soon
choked into silence every murmui of such disloyalty, and
our brave young men soon offered themselves to arms
under the folds of our national banner.

To encourage patriotism William B. Johnson, who lived
at the corner of Beechwood and South Main Streets,
gave the town a flag. It was hoisted amid patriotic
speeches upon a huge staff in our Common by a company
of girls representing the several States of the Union.

An amusing incident which illustrates the spirit of
loyalty is remembered as follows : It was reported one
day that a man living upon Cedar Street near Hull Street
had been seen defiantly flourishing a Confederate flag.
Men grew so indignant over the matter that a squad of
them determined to tar and feather the offender. They
got a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers, and under the
leadership of Oakes Lawrence, a wide-awake patriot, they
marched through the streets amid cheers and much noise
to the home of the Southern sympathizer. Some say that
the man when he heard them coming got his shotgun
and stood at bay in his door, daring them to come on with
their tar. But without resorting to violence he was
finally persuaded to honor his country by spurning the
Confederate flag and by putting up the stars and stripes,
which he loyally saluted.

THE CrVIL WAR.

485

In response to the call of President Lincoln thousands
throughout the State offered themselves in the month of
April, 1 86 1. Our own town held several public meetings
to discuss the burning topic of the war and to kindle
patriotism that might lead to enlistments. The recruiting
officer in our town hall, after a mass meeting which many
citizens still hold fresh in memory, received the voluntary
enlistments of all who would sign their names.

Common, from tttf. North End, about 1840.

The first one to step forward to take the pen was
William F. Thayer, forty-four years of age, with a family
of sons and daughters, the oldest just coming to maturity.
He was able to go, and he hated slavery and he was not
afraid to fight. Another was J. Foster Doane, twenty-five
years of age, a grandson of Elisha Doane. A third was
Oliver E. Simpson, of twenty-four years. These men
could not be taken for the first call of April 16, so they
and two others, making five, were enlisted for a three

486 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

years' service in response to the second call, of May 3,
1861.

The other two were Forrester A. Pelby, twenty-four
years, and Charles F. Weils, twenty-three years.

Readville was the camping ground for the recruits,
where they might be drilled and equipped for service.

Cohasset already had one of her sons, Zealous B.
Tower, in the regular army, stationed at Fort Pickens,
Fla., where he was promoted to the rank of major in
the corps of engineers. His education at West Point,
where he graduated at the head of his class, July i, 1841,
had revealed the constructive talent which was common
in some of the Tower family. He had been assistant
professor of engineering and had been engaged in the
construction of defenses at Hampton Roads, Va. In the
Mexican War he had served with much distinction, lead-
ing General Riley's column of attack at Contreras ; and
being wounded at the storming of Chapultepec, he had
been brevetted major for gallant and meritorious services.
Now that the Civil War had broken upon the nation,
the services of this capable officer were still further
drafted by giving him the rank of brigadier general of
volunteers.

The war cry, " On to Richmond," had forced the third
call for volunteers, June 17, 1861, and Cohasset supplied
thirty-four more men upon a three years' enlistment.
But our only men at the front at this time were Doane,
Thayer, Pelby, Simpson, all of Company I, and Wells,
of Company G. These were in the First Regiment of
Massachusetts volunteers and were in the opening cam-
paign of Bull Run.

After crossing the Potomac the march was taken up
through Germantown, Va. The Confederate outposts were
ready to resist the march to Richmond, and a part of
the brigade under Richardson got tangled in a skirmish
at Blackburn's Ford. Company I was in the fight, and

THE CIVTL WAR. 487

one of our Cohasset men, Corporal Oliver E. Simpson,
was among the thirteen killed in that first taste of battle.
His comrade, William F. Thayer, lifted the dead bod}^
upon his own shoulder, and carrying it up back of a meet-
ing-house, buried it there, the first of our men to die in
the great cause.

On the third day, July 2r, the memorable battle of Bull
Run was fought, followed by the retreat of the Union
forces. The four other Cohasset men escaped with their
lives. The work of William F. Thayer was that of a
commissary sergeant, who had to draw rations and to
issue them. A part of the time while the army of the
Potomac was moving from place to place, a drove of sev-
eral hundred cattle had to be guarded for use, being
slaughtered for daily food. P'ood that could not be used
nor safely carried away from a battlefield had to be
burned. On one occasion our sergeant, to prevent a lot
of provisions from falling into Confederate hands, burned
ten barrels of rice, seven barrels of salt pork, and ten
barrels of whisky. Rice was very unpopular stuff, be-
cause the company cooks had only iron kettles for boiling
it, and the rice would almost invariably burn on, to the
disgust of hungry soldiers.

The duties of J. F. Doane were largely with the officers
as a clerk and a wagoner, while Forrester A. Pelby was
promoted in the regular line from sergeant to second
lieutenant, August 26, 1861, first lieutenant, July 18, 1862,
and captain, March 2, 1863

The defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run was humili-
ating to the loyal citizens of Cohasset, and they began to
feel as never before the seriousness of the Rebellion.
During that autumn of 1861 and the winter months of
1862 there were many more citizens coming to the des-
perate decision to fight for the Union. The selectmen
reported thirty-four men furnished for three years' serv-
ice, in response to the general order of June 25, 1861.

488 HISTORY OF COM ASSET.

Who they all were the writer has been unable to ascer-
tain, but some of them were as follows : —

Leonard IV. Minot enlisted in Dedham in the Eight-
eenth Regiment, which went into winter encampment at
Hall's Hill near the nation's capital, and served on picket
duty. In the spring of 1862 Minot contracted a severe
cold and was taken to Philadelphia, where he died of
pleurisy, April 23, 1862.

Franklin Joseph Crane, of Company K, went into the
Seventh Regiment, which did some serious fighting upon
Virginia soil, including the battles of Fair Oaks, Fred-
ericksburg, and The Wilderness.

Ezekiel P. Bourne went into the Twelfth Regiment,
Company H, with a number of Weymouth men. Leav-
ing Fort Warren July 23, this regiment was stationed
near the Potomac River during August and September.
They had to do a lot of furious marching, sometimes
freezing and shoeless during that winter, having but one
taste of battle at Rappahannock, Va., the next spring,
April 18, 1862. Later in the month of August a battle
was fought at Cedar Mountain. Then in the latter part
of August came the sharp struggle at Manassas, or the
second Bull Run.

At one o'clock on the last day of the fight the brigade
under command of our general. Zealous B. Tower, was
placed in support of Heintzelman and Reno in their
attempt to turn the Confederate left, and when that
attempt failed General Tower was ordered to Bald Hill,
which the enemy were making a desperate attempt to
possess. The Twelfth Regiment formed the right of the
brigade,- which took up the battle bravely ; but the per-
sistent onsets of the Confederates finally forced back the
Union line. General Tower was severely wounded in the
leg, and was laid up in the hospital at Washington until
well enough to return to Cohasset for complete recovery.*

*See Massachusetts in the War, by James L. F5o\ven, p. 224.

THE CIVIL WAR. 489

The next February, 1863, Ezekiel P. Bourne was dismissed
on account of being disabled.

Charles Frederick Befuiett was in the Sixteenth Regi-
ment, Company A. Corporal at twenty-one years of age.
The company was made up mostly of Cambridge men,
and they left Boston August 17 by way of Fall River for
the scene of war. The next June, the twelfth, they were
attached to the corps of Heintzelman just referred to in
the account of Manassas, and their first blood was in the
skirmish of Fair Oaks three days later. Other battles
in which Corporal Bennett fought were Malvern Hill, Va.,
August 5, 1862, where he was wounded ; Chancellorsville,
May 2, 1863; Gettysburg, Pa., July, 1863; Mine Run,
Va., November, 1863 ; The Wilderness, Va., May, 1864;
Spottsylvania, Va., May, 1864; Hanover Junction, Va.,
May, 1864; Cold Harbor, Va., June, 1864; and Petersburg,
Va., July 12, 1864. That was a three years' service in the
thick of the fight.

In this connection should be mentioned Bennett's chum,
Andrezv IV. Williams, who served in the regular United
States army in the Battalion of Engineers, Company C,
being engaged for three years in all the principal battles
of the Army of the Potomac except the second Bull Run
and Gettysburg.

Three others who should be added to our Cohasset list
of engineers or sappers and miners are Charles H. Pratt,
Zenas Stoddard, Jr., and Elbridge Willciitt. The last
named was in the service as a mason, and Zenas Stoddard
had the rank of orderly sergeant for daring conduct.

George F. Leithead was a member of the Nineteenth
Regiment, Company G. This regiment was proniinent in
the famous Seven Days' Battle at the beginning of July,
1862, when the Army of the Potomac changed its base to
James River. High praise at Antietam was won by this
regiment September 17, 1862. After many engagements
Leithead was discharged disabled, April 2, 1863.

490 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Alvan T'^w^T marched in Twentieth Regiment, Company
A. This regiment endured a terrible slaughter at Harri-
son's Island, October 21, 1861. The winter camp was
broken February 25, 1862, and they were started upon
the Peninsular campaign, Virginia, April 5. Alvan Tower
saw but little of this campaign, for he died in the General
Hospital June 8, 1862, from the effect of wounds.

Samuel K. Diinster joined the Twenty-fourth Regiment,
Company K, as one of the Cohasset quota, but after-
wards reenlisted for Lynn and was a hospital steward.

Benjamin Fi'anklin Oakes was of the same regiment,
Company H. He began his army career at nineteen
years, a sergeant, and was promoted to a captain August
26, 1863, in the Thirty-fifth United States Cavalry troops.

Amos L. Poole belonged to the Twenty-sixth Regiment,
Company F. From September 12, 1 861, to August 26,
1865, this man was in the service of this regiment which
was the famous Sixth, rehabilitated after its first three
months' term, in which the Baltimore riot spilled the first
blood of war.

James Shay was in the Thirtieth Regiment, Company
D. Only about one year of service was allowed this man,
for he died at Carrollton, La., October 22, 1862. This
Thirtieth was the regiment raised by General Butler for
the capture of New Orleans. It was transported to Ship
Island, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, where
the forces for that campaign were gathered during the
winter and spring of 1862.

Here in the far South the service of Cohasset was again
utilized in an important function. The ship North America,
which bore the Thirtieth Regiment April 15-18 from Ship
Island up to the head of South West Pass in the Missis-
sippi River, was captained by James Collier,* a Cohasset
mariner of a family of mariners. Farther up the river to

* A picture of the North America now hangs upon the wall in Captain Collier's
old home at the head of Beech Street.

THE CIVIL WAR.

49 r

New Orleans the vessel sailed after the capture of the
forts, drawing up before that angry city on the second day
of May, 1862. The climate of those low lands was too
trying for our Northern men. After the battle of Baton
Rouge the health of the men was badly broken, and our
James Shay was one of the many unfortunates who died
from exposure and disease.

Lcander W. Groce, of the Thirty-second Regiment, Com-
pany A, was another of the enlistments of 1861. In the
same regiment were five more who enlisted for the credit
of Cohasset in December of 1861 or in February, 1862.
George A. LitcJifield, twenty-two years of age, George H.
Prouty, of thirty years, and Martin T. Ripley, of thirty-five,
all belonging to the same Company F ; Robert B. Shaw,
just come of age, and Joseph M. Tozvle, one year older,
belonged to Company E. A friend, Warren Fuller, of
Scituate, made up the seven who went from here into the
Thirty-second Regiment at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor.

The next May 25 six companies of the regiment were
hustled southward to protect the national capital. A dev-
astating malaria at Harrison's Landing, Va., marked
Litchfield one of its victims August 15, 1862. The regi-
ment joined the shattered Army of the Potomac at Manas-
sas, and followed in the wake of the main body back
towards the Potomac. The battle of Fredericksburg fell
hard upon this regiment December 15, 1862. After various
maneuvers in Virginia the regiment was tramped back to
Pennsylvania during June, 1863, to take part in the great
battle of Gettysburg. Groce had been discharged for dis-
ability January 6, 1863. It was the sad lot of Ripley to
be taken prisoner June i, 1864, and to be starved to death
at Andersonville, Ga., August 21.

Besides the infantry regiments here noted there were
some heavy artillery men from Cohasset upon the third
call, James S. Beal, at twenty-two years of age, joined Com-
pany A of the First Battalion Heavy Artillery, February

492

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

26, 1862. Also in the same company at that time went
Samuel Beal,Jaines L. Bates, Henry C. Hardzvick, Jo/m G.
Hay den, John L. Manuel, Oliver D. Morey, Bar din A.
Proiity, George Spooner, Francis C. Tower, CJiarles WJiittier,
and William WJiittier. Of these, John L, Manuel died in
the service at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor.

Besides these whom we have enumerated as the army
enlistments of 1861 and the first three months of 1862

Photo, Harriet A. Nickersou.

Lily Pond.

there were several who entered the navy. Perhaps the
earliest of these were Daniel Bray Lijicohi, a descendant
of our first Daniel of two centuries ago, enlisting May,
1861, onboard the Minnesota, and George B. N. Tower,
who took the position of third assistant engineer upon the
Huron, and who afterwards was promoted to first assistant
engineer.

Later, July, 1861, there was Lincoln Bates, a sailor, on

THE CIVIL WAR.

493

board the Sciota. In March of the next year Alexander
Liiidsey went into the service as sailor upon the Ino. At
the same time TJiotnas T. Spear engaged in the St. Claire,
and was promoted September, 1862, to quarter gunner
in the Fort Donelson fight on the Mississippi River, sup-
porting General Grant.

In May of that year, 1862, Stephen P. Lincoln enlisted
as sailor upon the King Fisher. While procuring water
one day, June 2, 1862, on the coast of Florida, he was
captured and taken to Libbey Prison. Here he fortunately
had only three months when he was exchanged in October.

It was the spring of 1862. The war had now dragged
on for a full year, and a serious disappointment filled many
hearts who had prophesied that the Rebellion could be
quelled in three months. Many who were lukewarm sup-
porters of the government at first had grown so indignant
at the persistent and widespread efforts of the confedera-
tion that they were prepared to go at the enemy with
more determination than ever before.

The fifth call for State volunteers was issued upon the
Fourth of July, and men in Cohasset began a new series
of enlistments. The town furnished thirty-eight men in
response to this call for a three years' service, and it spent
six thousand fifty dollars to secure the men.

Among the first to be mustered in at this call were six
young men, three of them not twenty years of age, who
chose the heavy artillery service of the First Battalion,
Company A : Sergeants Charles A. Pratt and John IV.
Tower ; Corporals George T. Af orey a.nd Caleb F. B. Tilden ;
also Vr'wzXQ?, Joseph J. Bates, who was afterwards promoted
to second lieutenant, 2Lnd Johti J. Richards. These became
a part of the same Company A which already had drilled
twelve of our Cohasset men in Fort Warren, Boston Har-
bor, for their heavier work in Virginia.

Then followed, August 9, John A. Treat and Sylvamis
Franklin Treat, who were enrolled in the Fourteenth Regi-

494

HISTORY OF COM ASSET.

ment, but the whole regiment was soon transformed into
heavy artillery of the First Regiment. These two broth-
ers were in some heavy fighting at Winchester, Fred-
ericksburg, Tolopotomy, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg.
John A. Treat was taken prisoner at Petersburg, June 22,
1864, when the enemy cut through a slack place in the
Union lines and came upon our men from the rear in the
thick woods. After being confined in the Andersonville
Prison pen for a while, he was transferred to Florence,
where he died November 23 from starvation.

Isaac PJiimiey was mustered into the Thirty-fifth Regi-
ment of infantry. Company A, in which he served his full
three years. Thomas LatJirop was mustered into Com-
pany G, August 12, 1862, belonging to the First Regi-
ment, of which we spoke when five of our first recruits
went into it. Two more, Albert F. Barnes and Harrison
Henry, were enrolled in the Twenty-fourth Regiment,
Company A, on August 14, where already two men from
Cohasset had entered.

On the twentieth day of that month seven men, the
largest number yet mustered from our town into any one
company, joined Company D of the Thirty-eighth Regi-
ment. Their rendezvous was at Lynnfield, and their
names as follows : Daniel P. Arnold, George Arnold, Ed-
ward H. A mold, Bela Bates, Joseph W. Fish, Thomas O.
Hayden, and Thomas Williston. The regiment went by
rail and boat through Worcester, New London, Jersey
City to Washington, August 27. B^-om here, after some
fussing back and forth, they went to Hampton Roads on
board the Baltic, where they exercised until December 8.
Then they sailed around into the Gulf of Mexico and
landed at Ship Island, where they did some more tiresome
loafing. By the next February they did a little marching
in the vicinity of Baton Rouge and Carrollton, where our
James Shay had died a few months before.

Edward H. Arnold had been disabled before the south-

the: civil war.

495

ern voyage was undertaken, and of the other two Arnolds,
George, after some fighting near New Orleans, was dis-
abled May 20, while Daniel endured the strain until
October 31, when he died. Some desperate fighting was
done during that summer by the Thirty-eighth at Port
Hudson before its surrender to the Union arms on July
9. Thomas Williston was dismissed October 20, 1863, on
account of disability. Three were left of our Cohasset
seven to return by transport to Fortress Monroe, Va.,
whence they marched to Washington.

The idle beginning had developed into some hard fight-
ing at the South, and it continued hard now when the regi-
ment returned to the Army of the Shenandoah. At the
furious battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, Bela Bates
was last seen fighting for the flag ; but no one can tell
what fate he suffered. The military records report him
"missing in action." These things happened to the re-
cruits who were mustered in August 20, 1862.

The following day, August 21, 1862, our State ordered
another quota of men for service, this time only a short
service of nine months, to carry the war along until the
next spring. But before finding out who responded, we
shall have to complete the list of thirty-eight men on the
call for three years of which we have counted just one half.

On September 2 Leavitt Whittier was mustered at Dor-
chester in Company H of the Thirty-ninth Regiment, his
two brothers, Charles and William, having entered, as we
saw, the heavy artillery. Twenty days later William R.
Carl was recruited in Company E of the Forty-first, which
was mounted the following June and became the Third
Cavalry. After about four months' service in the cavalry
Carl was dismissed on account of disability, November 5,
1863.

The larger part of this quota was made up by heavy
artillery enlistments. Before the middle of October the
following six became a part of Company B of the First

496 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

Battalion : Sergeant Thomas Tower, Corporal Eustis IV.
Tilden, Privates George A. Fish, William H. Morse, Alonso
L. Palmer, and Levi C. Tozver. Two more were added
later, Isaac H. Tower the next January and Charles H.
Willis ton in May.

Another squad of eight joined on January 10, 1863, the
Third Unattached Company, which afterwards became
Company A of the Third Regiment, Heavy Artillery :
Sergeant William H. Remington, Corporal Charles F. Davis,
Privates Levi L. Minot, Thomas Katie, Alfred Haskell,
William F. Harris, Jr., David J. Co7iillard,2iV\dJohn Clarke.
The next year, upon a later draft, Wallace Willcntt joined
the company, making a total of nine. Four of these after-
wards joined the navy, Couillard, Haskell, Kane, and
Minot. Remington became second lieutenant May 23,
1864. These men had to perform garrison duty in Boston
Harbor until the spring of 1864, when they were ordered
to report to Washington.

This completes the quota of thirty-eight men except
one. Several navy enlistments might be drawn from to
fill out this one, but there was one of the Thayer boys who
perhaps should be counted to fill out the thirty-eight.
Ancil P. Thayer enlisted at Braintree, August 6, 1862, in
the Third Regiment of Cavalry, Company K, dying upon
the battlefield near Winchester, Va., September 19, 1864.

To return to the enlistments under the nine months'
call, which began before the three years' enlistments
were filled, we find Andrew J. Studley mustered in on
September 8 in Company F of the Sixth Regiment.
The most of this regiment's duties were in the vi-
cinity of Blackwater River, on the southern coast of
Virginia. One terrible day was the last of January, 1863,
when three distinct fights were pushed through, with a
march of forty miles in twenty-four hours. They were
busy keeping as much of the Confederate army as possible
away from northern Virginia.

THE CIVIL WAR. 4.97

Another nine months' enlistment was in the Forty-
fourth Regiment, into which were mustered September 12,
Thovias O. S. Gibbs and William Randall, both for Com-
pany C. Their maneuvering was done still farther
south, in North Carolina, at the battles of Whitehall, New-
bern, and Little Creek.

It was about this time, September 26, 1862, that nine
more Cohasset young men, the oldest only thirty, enlisted
in Company A of the Forty-fifth Regiment. They were
Charles A. Gross, Richard H. Lincobi, Stephen Lincoln,
Lyman D. Willcutt, William. H. Pratt, Charles A. Vinal,
Cyrus H. Bates, Elias W. Bon me, and Caleb L. Bates, —
three more than in Company D of the Thirty-eighth. Be-
sides these there ^^^.s James M. Stveoiey in Company K of
this regiment, making ten from Cohasset in the Forty-
fifth.

These also, like the Forty-fourth, were pushed into
North Carolina to trouble the Confederate Army of Vir-
ginia. Camp was established on the bank of the Trent,
some two miles from Newbern, from which the Goldsboro
expedition set forth December 12, 1862. Company A
was taken out some twelve miles on the railway one night
on a scouting trip and dumped into a cornfield ; there they
tried to get a little sleep in the furrows. It rained and
froze that night, and no wonder some of them took cold.
In the morning a charge was made upon the enemy,
and Caleb Bates accidentally injured his ankle in a pile
of iron rails. His cold settled in the bruise, and his
leg had to be amputated some time after the war was
over.

The regiment won much praise at the battle of Kinston
and again at Whitehall. Their work having been done,
they remained encamped near Fort Spinola till June 24,
1863, returning to Boston on the thirtieth. Stephen
Lincoln was dying on the way, and here at his home he
was buried.

498

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Another nine months' man was George IV. Sczvall, of
Company G of the Forty-seventh Regiment, who mus-
tered in November 6, 1862, and was in service at Carroll-
ton, La. After his discharge in July, 1863, he entered
the civil service of the government. The last to be men-
tioned of these short call men in the army is Joseph R.
Davis, who was our only representative in the light artil-
lery. It was the Eleventh Battery, engaged upon garrison
duty about the Potomac.

In the navy, however, there were a few of the nine
months' men. Alfred Whittiiif'toji Lincoln and Hiram

Low tide, looking toward Boston.

Whittington, both landsmen on board the Montgomery,
were two of these. Whittington was promoted October
30, and was in the engagement which took the Confederate
steamer Caroline. There is one more man required to
make up the eighteen furnished for the nine months' call,
and the writer is not sure whether that man was JoJin F.
Bates, a sailor upon the Vermont, or Robert V. Beal ; for
both of these enlisted in that month of August. More-

THE CIVIL WAR. 499

over, it may have been Sanmel H. Hall, a sailor upon the
Crusader.

The task of tracing out the records of our brave men
must be monotonous, but the making of records was in-
finitely more so. The whole business of the war was
wearisome and worrisome, and the future looked dark in-
deed at the beginning of summer, 1863.

During June Lee's army was sweeping up into Pennsyl-
vania and no one knew whether our Union forces could
stop the invasion. The situation was desperate, for no
decisive break in the Rebellion had yet been accomplished,
though for more than two years rivers of men and money
had been poured into the nation's defense. It is true that
General Grant was at this very time besieging Vicksburg,
in which the Confederate general, J. C. Pemberton, with
thirty thousand men, was cooped up ; but no one was sure
that this western wing of the army could succeed any
more than the Army of the Potomac had done.

On the first day of July, 1863, Robert E. Lee's uncon-
quered army of one hundred and eight thousand men* had
pressed through every barrier of our Union forces, through
Virginia up into Maryland, on into Pennsylvania, where
the whole scattered army of defense was scarcely equal in
number to the invaders. At this critical moment another
call for soldiers to defend the country was issued ; not, as
before, an invitation to noble patriots to volunteer nor even
to engage in consideration of a bounty of two hundred
dollars, but by a draft which compelled men to go to the
front or else to procure substitutes. Several of our men
living to-day remember paying for their release three hun-
dred dollars or furnishing substitutes to be shot at. Our
town mustered twelve men under the draft ; but before
any men could be sent, the terrible suspense was broken.
It was done by the battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
where the head of the Army of Virginia plunged into the
Army of the Potomac.

* According to Gen. O. O. Howard's count.

500 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

The billows of battle began to surge on the morning of
July I ; regiment was dashed against regiment all that day.
At night there lay about ten thousand men mangled and
dead upon the ground ; every one of them taken from
some distant home. The fifty thousand survivors rested a
little in sleep, and then in the morning with a hundred
thousand reinforcements they moved into battle array
against each other. In the afternoon of that hot July day
at about four o'clock the signal guns of Lee boomed out
slowly the command to attack our Union forces.

Some of our Cohasset men remember the awful cannon-
ade upon the hills that followed, and the infantry charges
against the Union trocps on Little Round Top and the
Devil's Den and Cemetery Ridge. On into the night the
fighting continued in different parts of the field, while
others who had borne the brunt of battle lay exhausted in
sleep.

Yet again on the third day the carnage was renewed.
At about half-past one Lee's signal guns spoke out " one "
— " two," and both armies sprang to the contest. This
country had never seen more terrible courage than the Con-
federates displayed in their determination to plant their
banners upon our ramparts, but the vigor of Lee's army
was soon exhausted. Pickett's desperate charge under our
raking streams of shot was all in vain. His gallant men
were literally mowed down by our bullets, and then the
Union regiments sprang upon the field, capturing prisoners
and trophies of war. That night Lee withdrew with
twenty-six thousand less men than he brought. Of our
own soldiers nearly as many had been lost, and the rest
were too utterly exhausted to pursue the retreating Army
of Virginia.

It was a sad Fourth of July, but also a sort of thanks-
giving day for the North, when President Lincoln an-
nounced the victory of Gettysburg. But on the same day
came the news that Grant had choked Vicksburg into sur-

THE CIVIL WAR. 5OI

render by his cordon of blue. The backbone of the Re-
bellion was broken ! While the Confederates still fought
on in a desperate defense for a couple of years, it was in
defense of a cause already lost.

From time to time during the remainder of that year
and the next additional calls for men were issued, to fill
the places of the dead and of those whose terms of
enlistment had expired. Several of our Cohasset soldiers
reenlisted. Gustavus P. Pratt entered as an assistant
surgeon of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, July 20, 1863,
and was promoted to surgeon of the Nineteenth Regi-
ment, November 23, 1864. John C. Orcutt, of the Twenti-
eth Regiment, Company A, enlisted first for Boston, then
afterwards on December 21, 1863, for Cohasset on a
bounty of 1^325. William H. Bcals likewise received the
bounty of 1^325, enlisting in Company A of the Twenty-
fourth Regiment, in which regiment four of our Cohasset
men had already served. He died at Hingham, December
20, 1865.

Four more of our men, three of them but eighteen
years of age, joined the Fourth Regiment of Cavalry,
Company A, on December 26, 1863. They served in
Florida, South Carolina, and at last in Virginia, riding into
Richmond after the great surrender. Their names 3.vQjohu
F. Bates, John O. Barnes, James Rooney,Jr., and Willie F.
Thayer.

One soldier who had considerable hard service in Vir-
ginia, but whose name does not appear upon the Massa-
chusetts rolls, was David Lyons, who enlisted in the
Twenty-eighth Regiment, Company F, but was afterwards
transferred to a New Hampshire regiment. Another who
was in a branch of the service outside of Massachusetts
companies was William L. Smith, one of the Guards of
District of Columbia. Dawes S. Nott was an unassigned
recruit from October 22, 1863, to February 8, 1864, as
\\k&yN\^Q. yN2i?> Morris Connor orv the $325 bounty. At the

502 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

same bounty JoJin G. Hayden and Henry G. Putnam were
mustered into the First Battalion, Company A, Heavy
Artillery, which had in all twenty of our men.

Another company of this battalion of heavy artillery.
Company D, took the six following men at the regular
bounty in January and February of iSG/i^: Jo/ui Banies,
Solomon J. Haydefi, Joseph F. Munnice, Thomas Mnrphy,
Warren Neivcomb,^ and Letvis L. Wheelwright.

Besides these there were probably men whose names
are unobtainable, for the selectmen reported ninety-one
enlistments after the battle of Gettysburg to the end of
the war. Of these the following were in the naval service,
in addition to the marines already mentioned : —

Nichols Pratt had enlisted as acting master's mate
August 23, 1862, upon the steamer McKnight (?) ; pro-
moted acting ensign November 2, 1863, acting master
April 25, 1865. He was on the blockade for twenty-three
months, also in the convoy and recovery of the ship Ohio,
and received a letter from the department for services at
Fort Fisher. Adna Nichols Bates also was mustered in
as master's mate. He was in the Canandaigua from July
12, 1863. Johtt H. Dinsmore was second assistant en-
gineer in the Saco from December 21, 1862. The Ainslee
brothers, Peter E. and Henry, both entered the Nyphon
as sailors December 10, 1863. William L. Baker in
August, 1863, went upon the Hendrick Hudson as
master's mate. JoJin Keating was a sailor in the Shenan-
doah, April, 1863, afterwards serving as fireman in the
monitor Yuma until June 30, 1866. Joseph W. LitcJifield,
at first a sailor in the Falcony, July 17, 1863, afterwards
saw some frightful fighting on board the Minnesota.
Henry Powers from December, 1863, was a sailor in the
Harvest Moon. Atnos Kendall Tildeti was in the Pam-
pero, September, 1863. Abner W. Bates was a sailor in

* Warren Newcomb was transferred to the navy S.S. Santiago De Cuba, pro-
moted to captain of gun number two at the battle of Fort Fisher.

THE CIVIL WAR. 503

the Pequot, August 30, 1863. Robert Lorenzo Curtis, a
sailor in the Flag from December 28, 1862, was discharged
at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia, February 15, 1865.
Williavi J. Couillard was a sailor in the Antony from
August 20, 1863, being discharged in August, 1864; he
reenlisted in November for twelve months.

The account of marine enlistments ought not to end
without some reference to the Cohasset men * who were
engaged under private contract to do wrecking for the
government near the mouth of the Potomac. Captain
Loring Bates in 1862 took the schooner Sarah Young
with the three divers, Israel C. Vinal, Joseph Battles^
and Michael Brennock, besides the seamen Levi Creed,
Lorenzo Bates, Joseph Richardson, Joseph Willcutt, and
others, going to Fortress Monroe.

They examined the sunken Cumberland off Newport
News and reported on her condition. The Whitehall
also, blown up by the Merrimac, was searched and her
guns recovered. General Butler's Greyhound at the
mouth of James River was also raised. For two or three
years these men were busy for the government saving
stuff from sunken craft and clearing rudders and doing
all such marine work.

But who can tell of all the persons who contributed in
one way or another to the success of our nation in her
great struggle .'' Even the women at hom^e had an im-
portant work of sending comforts to the soldiers. When
lint was needed for dressing wounds in the early part of
the war, a number of our women gathered daily in the
engine house upon Main Street and there scraped pieces
of linen with case knives, making bunches of soft fibers
to send to the hospitals at the front. f Anxieties almost

* Captain Joseph H. Smith was in the employ of the government, raising
sunken ships. One of his apparatuses for fastening chains around a submerged
craft is shown in the historical collection.

tOne of the Cohasset girls, Helen A. Bates, afterwards Mrs. Brigham, became
in later years the president of the Massachusetts Department of the Woman's
Relief Corps, thus continuing the kindly services to our nation's soldiers.

504

HISTORY OF CO /{ASSET.

as great as the soldiers endured were suffered by those
who were left at home, waiting to hear the news of each
battle and fearing lest they might hear of the death of
some loved one.

The drain upon the resources of our town to send men
into the Civil War was a serious one, as we all know. Our
selectmen reported a list of one hundred and ninety-nine
men furnished in the army and navy. Twelve of these
died in the service, one was missing in action, which
probably means "killed," and ten were dismissed when
they had become disabled. Besides this expenditure of
life there were nearly thirty-six thousand dollars which
the town had to pay in bounties to secure men when the
war became irksome, and to defray the other necessary
expenses of the bloody enterprise.

But gladly and well done is it all, for an unbroken
nation with ever-expanding power under the principles of
a free government extending from ocean to ocean is a
heritage of inestimable value to be transmitted to pos-
terity. And the Cohasset men which we have enumer-
ated in this chapter have obtained a prestige of undying
honor because their names are associated for all future
time with that memorable tragedy the Civil War.

SOME OF THE PRESENT COHASSET MEMBERS OF THE HENRY

BRYANT POST 98, G. A. R., WHO SERVED IN THE

WAR FROM OTHER PLACES.

Name.

Service.

Rank at
Discharge.

E. E. Wentworth . .
Otis S. Wilbur . .
Robert B. Pratt . .
Thomas D. Blossom
Samuel P. Stoddard
Frank A. Field . .
Joseph E. Butman .
Charles B. Bridgham
George E. W. Ide .
Roscoe G. Lopaus .

7th Maine Infantry, Co. F
1st Battery, H. A. ...
25th Maine Infantry, Co. E
32d Massachusetts, Co. E
i6th Lio'ht Battery . . .

Private.

1st Lieutenant.

Private.

1st Sergeant.

Private.

45th Massachusetts, Co. A
13th Massachusetts, Co. I

Private.
Corporal.
Asst. Surgeon.

United States Navy,
ist Maine, H. A., Co. G.

CHAPTER XXIV.

UP TO DATE.

THE work of this chapter is to spin out a few of the
unfinished threads of our narrative and to bring
them together at the close.

Taking up the story of the churches at the point where
it was interrupted, the year 1825, it may be followed
down to the present year. The original parish was
divided, as we saw, by the planting of a Methodist
Church * in Jerusalem, and of a new Congregational
Church in the center of the town where it now stands.
With these three bodies of worshipers, the town continued
its religious life for about thirty-seven years before a
fourth congregation was organized. During those thirty-
seven years the old town-church was forced to readjust
itself to several serious chano-es. The oreneral lack of

*THE LIST OF MINISTERS IN THE METHODIST CHURCH OF
COHASGET.

1818-22.

E. Taylor.

1864-65.

Franklin Gavitt.

1823-29.

Stephen Puffer.

1866-67.

John N. Collier.

1830.

William Kamsdell.

1868.

Philip Crandon.

I83I.

Asa U. Swinerton.

1869-71.

John B. Husted.

1832-36.

Stephen Puffer.

1872-73.

F. D. Goodrich.

1838.

J. Mudge.

1874-76.

James O. Thompson

1839-46.

Stephen Puffer.

1877-79.

Silas Sprowl.

1847.

Onesiphorus Robbins.

1880-81.

Francis D. Sargent.

1848-49.

George K. Winchester.

1882-83.

Angelo Canoll.

1850-51.

Daniel Webb.

1884.

James Matlier.

1852-53-

John D. King.

1885-86.

John H. Allen.

1854.

Lawton Cady.

1887-89.

D. L. Brown.

1855-56.

Oliver P. Farrington.

1890-91.

J. H. MacDonald.

1857-58.

Thomas Spilsted.

1892-93.

Charles Smith.

1859-60.

Lemuel Harlow.

1894.

Elijah Smith.

I86I.

George S. Alexander.

1895-97-

Rennetls C. Miller.

1862-63.

Benjamin L. Sayer.

1898.,

John N. Geisler.

50s

5o6 n I STORY OF COH ASSET.

faithfulness to it before the two new parishes were split
off had been hard enough to endure, but when a con-
siderable number from the most devout members of the
first parish transferred their allegiance to the new ones,
the loss was irreparable.

Moreover, the State laws passed at various times had
removed the church taxes so that those who preferred to
support no church, as well as those who preferred* a dif-
ferent church, were free to neglect the old one. Those
who remained loyal had to increase their voluntary con-
tributions to make up for these losses.

But there is no evidence that their losses diminished
the number of worshipers in the old church.

The number admitted into full communion during the
nine years 1825-34 was thirty-five, nearly equal to the
number during the preceding period of nine years.
When to this thirty-five we add the seventy-three mem-
bers which were admitted into full communion in the new
Congregational Church during the same nine years 1825-
34, it becomes evident that the religious interest of the
town was much increased by the rupture in the old
parish.*

Measuring also by the standard of money contributed,
the religious efforts of the town were much increased;
for while the salary of the old parish was not diminished
but rather increased, that of the new one upon the plain
soon grew to be six hundred dollars a year in addition.
This, moreover, leaves out of the count the financial sup-

* A LIST OF PASTORS OF THE FIRST PARISH (UNITARIAN)
CHURCH.

Rev. Nehemiah Hobart, December 13, 1721-May 31, 1740,

John Fowle, December 31, 1741 1746.

John Brown, September 2, 1747-October 22, 1791.

Josiah C. Shaw, October 3, 1792-June 3, 1796.

Jacob Flint, January 10, 1798-October, 1835.

Harrison G. O. Phipps, November 18, 1835-December, 1841.

Joseph Osgood, D.D., October 26, 1842-August 2, 1898.

William R. Cole, December 9, 1896-

UP TO DATE.

0^/

port of the Methodist Church at Jerusalem which came
partly from Cohasset. The population and wealth of the
town was not increasing half as rapidly as its religious
efforts during the twenty-five years following the
divorce.

The services of the Sabbath were morning and after-
noon, with an intermission of one or two hours, while the
Second Church * held a Sabbath-school and a prayer-meet-
ing in addition. A wood-burning stove had been placed
in the old meeting-house for the first time in 1822, Febru-
ary 3,f and the new church from its beginning possessed
this modern convenience.

Foot stoves also were needed to soften the temperature
where the feeble stove could not penetrate. The instru-
mental music afforded was made upon bass viols and
violins until after 1850, when pipe organs were installed,
first in the old church, then, 1857, in the new one.

The general requirements of the service for public wor-
ship increased as culture and "creature comforts " became
better regarded. One of the phenomena of this develop-
ment was the growing unwillingness to travel far in order
to attend service. The dwellers in Beechwood, three
miles away, sent only a handful of attendants to the two
churches upon the plain, while some others were cultivat-
ing Sunday habits of a sort that injures any community.
As early as the year 1S59 several persons commenced

*.'\ LIST OF PASTORS OF THE SECOND PARISH
(CONGREGATIONAL).

Rev. Aaron Pickett,
Martin Moore,
Daniel Babcock,
Frederick A. Reed,
Calvin R. Fitts,
Moody A. Stevens,
Granville Yager,
John W. Savage,
E. Victor Bigelow,

t See Joel Willcutt's diary.

November 15, 1826-May 7, 1833.
September 4, 1833-August, 1841.
June 9, 1842-June 9, 1847.
March 9, 1848-March 13, 1866.
April, 1868-October 12, 1870.
April 18, 1871-June 20, 1878.
June 20, 1878-February 6, 1883.
December 30, 1883-November, 1890.
September 24, 1891-

5o8

HISTORY OF con ASSET.

to advocate the establishment of a church in Beech-
wood.*

Those families which had been in the habit of walking
six miles each Sabbath in order to attend church could be
relied upon to form the nucleus of an organization within
their own neighborhood.

Religious services had been held occasionally in the
schoolhouse, with preaching by Rev. Joseph Osgood, Rev.
Frederick A. Reed, and Rev. Stephen Puffer, of the Cohas-

Photo, Harriet A. Nickerson.

Heechwood Congregational Church.
Built 1866.

set churches, and by others. Rev. E. P. Dyer, of Hing-
ham, was particularly influential in securing a permanent

*A LIST OF PASTORS OF THE BEECHWOOD CONGREGATIONAL

CHURCH.

Rev

Cyrus R. Stone,

1862-67.

Rev.

Nelson M. Bailey,

1889-92.

Charles B. Smith,

1867-72.

,,

John Sharp,

1892-95.

T. S. Norton,

1873-75-

Mr.

George J. Newton,

1895-96.

Austin S. Garver,

1875-

Rev

John Wriston,

1896-98

E. C. Hood,

1875-83-

„

Frank Park,

1898-

Harlan Page,

1883-88.

UP rO DATE. 509

church organization, and a committee of three* to solicit
support for regular preaching services was appointed.

Rev. Cyrus Stone, a retired foreign missionary, held
preaching services there in the year 1862, and within
eighteen months there were twelve persons who formed
themselves into the Evangelical Union Church.

Deacon Damon and Mrs. Samuel Litchfield and others
of Scituate aided in the matter, regardless of both town
and denominational boundaries. The Pratt brothers, John
and Aaron, gave the land to hold the proposed meeting-
house.

Citizens in the central village were appealed to, and a
fair which had been held in Beechwood was repeated
in the town hall to raise money for building. It re-
ceived a liberal patronage from all the inhabitants of the
town.

In the year 1866, after our soldiers had returned from
the Civil War, the building of the Beechwood Congrega-
tional Church was undertaken, and it was finished at a
cost of over five thousand dollars, about half of it being
paid by citizens of our town. As a moral and social
factor in the community where it has been placed, this
meeting-house with its devoted attendants has been for
thirty-two years an important institution.

The fifth religious organization to claim the support of
our people and to call forth their spiritual energies was
the Roman Catholic Church. The building called " St.
Anthony's Church," which now stands upon the old
Jacob's Meadow, South Main Street, was begun in the
year 1875. But for about thirteen years before this build-
ing was undertaken, services of the Roman Catholic
faith were held in the Brennock home at the Cove and
at other "stations." The need of this additional institu-
tion of worship has been already intimated, for the com-
ing of a score or more of Portuguese to engage in our

* Moses V. Wallace, Silas Bates, and Henry Damon.

5IO

HISTORY OF COHASSRT.

fisheries before the year 1850, as well as a number of
Irish immigrants of that period, made such a church
necessary.

Rev. Hugh P. Smith,* of Roxbury, who then had the
oversight of these Roman Catholic newcomers in Wey-
mouth, Hingham, Cohasset, and Scituate, soon saw the
necessity of a building for public worship, and with char-
acteristic energy he set about it. From the time of its
completion in 1876, St. Anthony's Church has called an
increasing number of worshipers, until now there are as

Photo, Harriet A. Nickerson.

St. Anthony's Church (Roman Catholic).
Built 1876.

high as five hundred at some services. During the sum-
mer months especially, when the visitors from city homes
bring more than a hundred domestic servants to our town,

♦ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS AT COHASSET.
Rev. Hugh P. Smith and others, i86o(?)-76.
Peter J. Leddy, 1876-80.

Gerald Fagin, 1880-84.

Ignatius P. Egan, 1884-97.

Charles F. Cowen, 1897-98.

William McDonough, 1898-

UP TO DA TE. 5 I I

the Roman Catholic Church fills a large function of the
town life.

The last Christian denomination to get established
within our borders is the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Many of the summer residents in Cohasset, being Episco-
palians, had been compelled to drive to the Hingham
Episcopal Church or to attend the churches of other
denominations here, or else to attend no service.

Chapel services were instituted as early as 1894 in the
little Grand Army Hall upon the ledge near the center of
the village. Two years later, 1896, June 8, at a meeting
of twenty-one members, a parish was organized with Rev.
J. B. Thomas as rector, called the St. Stephen's Parish.
No building has yet been erected for the use of this
church, and we see the organization in those same early
stages of development which have been successively out-
grown by the Unitarian, the Methodist, the Congrega-
tional, the Beechwood, and the Catholic churches.

With six churches established in a town of only twenty-
four hundred persons, one might question whether we are
not over-established. But they are all self-supporting with
the exception of the Beechwood church, and that is in a
community so distant from other places of worship that
to aid in its support is a necessary benevolence of the
denomination to which it belongs. It is true that this
self-support of the other five churches depends to a con-
siderable extent upon the summer residents ; but many of
these are legal citizens of the town and others live here
so large a part of the year as to make these churches
almost their own church homes.

There is a third Congregational Church which is sup-
ported partially by residents of this town, called the
Bethany Church, of Nantasket. This church was organ-
ized in 1 89 1, and meets in a hall that stands upon the
Hingham side of Hull Street. It cannot be claimed there-
fore as belonging to our town, though much of its support
comes from our citizens.

5^

HISTORY OF COUASSET.

One sometimes hears it said that our forefathers were
more faithful to the church than we of an irreverent age ;
but these more than six churches for a population of
twenty-four hundred have some things to say in refutation
of that charge. So far as money can measure devotion
the present expenditure of more than seven thousand dol-
lars a year for our churches refutes that charge, for it is
more than ten times what was paid a century and a half
ago, while our population is not three times greater than
it was then. Moreover, while the cost of manual labor
has multiplied only three times, the salary of a minister
has multiplied four times.

The attendance upon meetings for public worship shows
a similar gain. The whole number of worshipers in the
town who gathered in their church each Sabbath in the
year 1747 when it was built upon the Common failed to
fill it by a large lack. A number of extra pews have been
put in since then ; indeed, the church was built much too
large, for the people looked for an increase in population,
and it was to be used also for town meetings and for ex-
ceptionally large gatherings.

There is every reason to believe that less than two hun-
dred people constituted a large congregation in those
days. That would be crediting them with about twice the
present day attendance in that same meeting-house; but
when we count the whole church attendance upon the
main Sabbath service in our town to-day, we find that it
amounts to eight hundred.* The population is only three
times what it was a hundred and fifty years ago, while
church attendance is four times what it then was. More-
over, this gain is still further to be estimated, for we have
nowadays several additional services, such as Sunday-
schools, young people's meetings, prayer-meetings, wom-
en's meetings, and others, in all of the six churches,

* This is by actual count £or sfvural Sundays in the spring of 1898 before tlie
summer residents had come.

UP TO DATE.

D'O

which enlarge very much the extent of our religious
activities.

But none of these gains in religious life have been made
by the town acting as a municipality ; they have been
secured through the efforts of private individuals and
groups of individuals.

On the other hand, our public schools are known to be
in their up-to-date development a function* of the town's
administration.

We quitted the narrative of our schools at the year 1840,
when they had got established firmly in the three divisions
of primary, grammar, and high. For ten years the high
school was fostered only during the four winter months;
but in 185 I it began its career for the full school sessiort
of a year. After the removal of the old academy * in
1857, in which the feeble infancy of the high school was
spent, the present town hall was built the same year, with
rooms for the high school in the lower story. Here it
flourished for thirty-four years, when in 1891 it was trans*
ferred into the new Osgood School.

Of primary schools there were five in the town by the
year 1880, and there were four grammar schools with two
mixed and one intermediate. These were all con-
ducted in the old methods intimated in a previous
chapter, but the time for a great change came about ten
years ago.

As early as 1885 the old system of pulverized school
administration was condemned by some of the more pro-
gressive citizens who desired to see instruction bettered
by bringing a large number of pupils into one building
where a half-dozen teachers might be used with greater
efficiency. There were eight schools then kept in five
different houses in the central village of the town. The
buildings were crude things, in great need of repairs, with
no ventilation but their drafty windows and doors, no

* It was moved over to Beach Street and changed into a dweUing house.

514 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

modern sanitary conveniences, and no proper method of
heating them.

The whole number of pupils in attendance at these
eight schools was two hundred and forty during the year
1885 ; and these two hundred and forty were fairly well
graded for the first time in the history of our schools. Rev.
Joseph Osgood, chairman of the committee, had been try-
ing to bring this to pass during a half-century of service
in connection with the schools, but for a hundred and fifty
years, scholars had been allowed to enter wherever a guess
at their ability * might assign them. They had hopped
over classes or had plodded through them according to no
fixed standard. Now in 1885 a four years' course was
required of primary pupils, three years for the grammar
school course, and four years for the high school.

For the first time " winter scholars " were debarred
from the high school. Four of these boys, such as always
spent only the few winter months in haphazard studies,
applied for admission ; but they were not fitted for any
one of the classes, and the old custom of teaching " any-
body at anything " was dead. But it was difficult to keep
the four primary and the three grammar schools uniform
in their studies, for the graded system was new, and
teachers needed grading as well as pupils. One of the
difficulties was in the matter of discipline. All teachers
about the center of the town, except the principal of the
high school, were women at that time, and when a refrac-
tory pupil needed a man's muscle to bring him into decent
behavior, there was none to be had in these separated
schools.

The idea of having the schools brought into one prop-
erly constructed building, well heated, ventilated, plumbed,
and all under the control of one man, was cherished for
several years. Finally, in 1887, a majority of the school

*In fact, promotions were frequently made into the high school, not for ability,
but because the age of thirteen years had been reached.

VP TO DA TE. 515

committee urged upon the town the need of a large cen-
tral building and the abandonment of the old ones. Ed-
ward F. Ripley, E. Pomeroy Collier, Joseph S. Bigelow,
Grenville D. Braman, and Herbert O. Beale of the com-
mittee signed the report, which contained the following
paragraphs : —

We would this year call the attention of our townspeople to
the advantages of a large central school building, containing the
North Grammar and Primary, Center Grammar and Primary, South
Grammar and Primary, and the Harbor and Elm Street schools.
Provision must be made before another year for our high school,
which will have more pupils in 1889 than it can possibly accom-
modate. The Center, Elm Street, Harbor, and North primary
schools barely accommodate this year's pupils. In some in-
stances, in years past, we are told that owing to the crowded con-
dition of certain primary schools some of the pupils had to be ad-
vanced to the grammar schools one year before they were qualified
to enter, thus completely disarranging our whole plan for grading
the schools.

Now we claim that our North, South, Center, and Harbor school
property could be disposed of for a good round sum, especially
the North, which is a valuable piece of property for building, be-
ing situated at the junction of the Jerusalem Road, and that a
building of ten rooms could be built, designed according to the
latest and best ideas in schoolhouse construction, with perfect
ventilation, comfortably and economically heated by furnace or
steam heat, an ornament to the town, and, best of all, a school
where scholars could be perfectly graded, and where all the teach-
ers and scholars would be under the direct supervision of one
man.

But an enterprise so big had never yet been undertaken
by the town. All sorts of objections were raised ; children
would have to be conveyed in barges, costing more money.
Large and small children gathered in such a crowd on
one playground seemed perilous to some parents. The call
for ventilation and other modern sanitary improvements

5 I 6 HIS TOR Y OF COHASSE T.

seemed to some conservative citizens absurd, since the
town had thrived with very good health in the old primi-
tive schoolhouses for many generations.

Furthermore, the expense of the new proposal was a big
item. The advocates tried to whittle down this fact by
promising a less expense for running the central building.
Only one janitor and one fire would be required, and the
committee promised various other trifling advantages which
proved afterwards to be false anticipations. The advocates
also urged the gain of money by selling the old properties,
so that the net cost of the new building they said would
be but eight thousand dollars. They traveled to Beech-
wood and to Jerusalem, and held mass meetings whenever
they could, trying to gain votes by every argument, sound
or otherwise.

At last the town voted at its March meeting in 1890 to
buy a suitable lot of land and to build a central school-
house costing twenty thousand dollars, according to the
plans drawn by Edward Nichols, who had been formerly a
Cohasset schoolboy. Instead of eight thousand dollars as
first represented, a debt of twenty thousand was thus re-
quired.

To impart to a new generation the flavor of the bitter
opposition endured by the committee who advocated this
new and costly enterprise would be impossible. Folly
was the least of the charges hurled at them. Many par-
ents threatened to boycott the new building by keeping
their children at home, or at least in the little old school-
houses. The prophecy was freely made that the building
would be empty in a short time and thus its uselessness
would be proved. To aggravate the case, when the cellar
had been dug, the estimates for the building were so much
larger than anticipated that twelve thousand dollars more
were called for. The request was refused at a special
town meeting August i, 1890, but the committee pro-
ceeded with the work, and the money had to be voted.

UP TO DATE.

517

Therefore, at the next March meeting, nine thousand of
the twelve were doled out. The other three thousand and
more had to come later to pay the last bills, so that the
total amount spent by the town was more than thirty-two
thousand dollars.

To this cost the value of the land upon which the build-
ing stands should be added, though this was a gift from
some friends* of Rev, Joseph Osgood, made upon con-
dition that the school be named after him, in recognition

Photo, M. H. Reamy.

Osgood School, Elm Street.
Built 1890.

of his half-century of faithful work in behalf of the town
schools.

Thirty-two thousand dollars seemed a large expense for
a public schoolhouse ; and then it was discovered, of course,
that the cost of running it was more instead of less than
that of the old system. The indignation of conservative

* Charles S. Bates was the principal benefactor.

5 I 8 HIST OR Y OF C OH ASSET.

citizens was frequently exhibited when they would point
out the beautiful building to strangers as " Town's Folly " ;
but its success has been so much more than its friends an-
ticipated that instead of being empty, it is so crowded that
an enlargement of it or an additional building upon the
same lot must be undertaken.

The children who grow up under its advantages need no
words of apology to justify to their minds the existence of
the Osgood School. People who look upon the event from
the outside wonder why so much opposition should have
come from men whose taxes are so insignificant and whose
children receive so many obvious advantages from the
school. The trouble was mainly that it was a step so far
in advance of the times ; but now that several more towns
of the State have adopted the same system its value seems
more readily confessed. The expense of conveying pupils
is large ; but some conveying to the high school had been
done before the Osgood School was established, so that the
principle of the work had only to be extended.

Provincialism is now being abolished by bringing all
sections of the town together under a variety of instruc-
tion, so that it is no longer possible to tell in what part of
the town any children live by the peculiarity of their
speech. The advantages of this sort, which really vindi-
cate the town's expenditure, would not have been a potent
argument in appealing at first for a school ; but steadily
the work of improved instruction is being wrought into
the fiber of the community, and the day will come when
those who labored under great abuse without compensa-
tion to advance our public schools shall receive their well-
deserved praise.

Next to the schools as an educator should be mentioned
the town library.

This institution had for its forerunner two semi-public
libraries, the Social Library and the Washington Library.
The Washington Library was legally organized in the year

UP TO DA TE. 519

1832, but probably existed for two years before that. The
trustees in 1832 were five women,* who hoped to increase
the amount of good reading in the town. Seventeen dol-
lars' worth of books were purchased and loaned out under
a set of library rules, one of which declared that " any
proprietor suffering a book to be carried to any school
shall forfeit the value of his or her share."

Only the proprietors could draw books. In 1834 the
purchasing committee consisted of Thomas Tower, Levi N.
Bates, and W. E. Doane, and the number of books at that
time was somewhat over a hundred. As more books were
needed, assessments of twelve and one half cents or
twenty-five cents per member were levied.

In about twelve years from its founding, this Washing-
ton Library gave up its life to be merged into its rival the
Social Library. The record of this fact reads as follows : —

CoHASSET, January 15, 1844.
Agreeably to previous notice the proprietors of the Washington
Library met at the store of L. N. Bates. The meeting being
called to order, George W. Stoddard was chosen moderator. It
was then voted that the Library with all its rights and titles be
transferred to the members of the old Social Library, on condi-
tion that each member of the Washington Library be entitled to
as many shares in said Social Library as he or she held in the

Washington.

LEVI N. BATES, Sec.

One of the prejudices which these early organizations
suffered was that against novel reading. There were
many conservative persons who hated fiction very cor-
dially, because, in tlie first place, a narrative which was
false in the facts narrated seemed to insult one's whole
capacity for truth ; and in the second place, it was an
unwarrantable indulgence of idle fancies to read for the
pleasure of it. Better be doing housework or fishing or

* Sarah Collier, Deborah N. Bates, Jane Endicott, Jane Snow, Ophelia Whit-
tington.

520

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

farming. They could not appreciate the culture of mind
that comes from following the dramas of life which a
novelist may depict for brains not so active as his own.

The discussion of the value or harm of novel reading
was rife for many years, and the Social Debating Society
had the question up for ventilation.

This debating society, by the way, was a feature of
town life for at least ten or twelve years. It was made up
of about twenty-five active participants, though from its
beginning in 1828 it had at one time and another as many
as one hundred and five members.*

Their debates covered themes of religion, natural
science, politics, literature, matrimony, and town affairs.
In fact, nothing was too sacred or too difficult for them.
Another debating society was thriving in Beechwood and
two or more in Scituate during those days of Daniel
Webster oratory.

The debating society in Beechwood was formed in Janu-
ary, 1840, under the inspiration of William Mayo, a public
school teacher, with about forty f members from the men
and boys of that neighborhood. They called themselves
the Beechwood Album Society and debated such questions
as the following: —

* The first twenty-six names signed to the constitution are as follows, between

eighteen and forty-five years of age : —

Henry J. Turner. George Beal. Edward Tower.

Samuel Pratt, Jr. Dawes Studley. Zealous Bates.

Caleb Nichols. Josiah O. Lawrence. James Pratt.

Martin Lincoln. D. T. Lothrop. Warren Willcutt.

Nichols Pratt. Lewis Willcutt. Micajah Malbon.

Caleb Lothrop. Horace Hancock. Sylvanus Brown.

George A. Lawrence. James Stoddard, Jr. George W. Collier.

Job Tower. David B. Tower. Jonathan B. Bates.

Joseph Lincoln. Alfred Whittington.

tThe first ten names on the list of thirty-eight are as follows ; —
William Mayo. Thomas Whitcomb. Minot Pratt.

Alvah Richardson. Timothy W. Brown. Warren Bates.

E. C. Upton. Lot W. Pratt. John Pratt, 2d.

Osborne Wood.

UP TO DA TE. 521

"Which is conducive of the most happiness, the married or
single state?"

"Which takes the most comfort, the miser or the spendthrift?"

It was not possible in those days for men to buy daily
papers for a penny or two, in which an army of news
gatherers presented the world's affairs and sufficient dis-
cussions upon them ; therefore this custom of a town
debating society, which is now almost obsolete in our
nation, was a necessity.

But to return to the library. The day came when the
town itself, instead of a private club, was persuaded to
furnish a treasury of reading matter for its inhabitants.
For about thirty years the old Social Library had fallen
into disuse, when in the year 1878 the superintendent of
schools, Rev. Joseph Osgood, incorporated in his annual
report a strong plea for a town library. The State
Legislature had already passed acts authorizing towns to
undertake this public function, and our town meeting
appointed the following five men to canvas the matter :
Rev. Joseph Osgood, Edward E. Tower, Levi N. Bates,
Philander Bates, and John Warren Bates.

It was clear that not over one tenth of the people in
town would avail themselves of the reading matter in a
public library, and it seemed necessary to rely therefore
partly upon private enthusiasm for the support of such an
institution. The next year three hundred dollars were
appropriated on condition that an equal sum be raised by
private subscription. Nine trustees * were appointed to
administer the affairs of the Cohasset Free Public
Library.

The place provided for the library at first was a part of
the lower floor of the town hall next to the schoolroom,

*FOR ONE YEAR. FOR TWO YEARS. FOR THREE YEARS.

Rev. Joseph Osgood. Rev. Granville Yager. E. Pomeroy Collier.

John Warren Bates. Lot Webster Bates. Mrs. Fannie H. Tower.

Mary Lewis. Sarah S. Pratt. Abbie N. Bates.

522

HISTORY OF CO H ASSET.

the part now used for the library anteroom ; but the
trustees hoped that some day benevolent persons might
provide a suitable building which would be a monument
for the town.

That hope * still lures on the friends of the library,
and in the mean time the town has enlarged the library to
take the place of the school which moved out of that part
of the town hall in 1891.

The regular appropriations at first were $200 or ^300
each year to pay the salary of the librarian and to add
new books. In three years from its beginning there were
772 who had come to borrow books from the three thou-
sand volumes to which the library had grown by purchase
and by private donation.

Since that time the sober progress of an established
institution has characterized the library. A few bequests f
of public-spirited individuals have added to the stock of
books, but the future is still to reveal some one who will
secure for the town a more appropriate building for this
necessary adjunct of public education.

Passing from the consideration of these fountains of
learning to other fountains of a less metaphorical mean-
ing, some account must be given of the town's water
supply.

Several natural springs have always slaked the thirst of
sojourners in Cohasset, the most famous of which are
probably the two Cold Springs, one on Jerusalem Road
next to the sea, near the Kendall estate, where the old
Cold Spring House was built, the other at the edge of
Jacob's Meadow, west of Spring Lane, near the railroad.

As for wells, a little digging almost anywhere in town
will tap a good supply of water. The reason for this is

*The wills of the late Harriot E. Pratt and of her sister, Sarah S. Pratt, recently
probated, provide a legacy of sufficient amount to erect a suitable building for a
library in honor of their father, Paul Pratt.

■f On January i, 1898, a legacy of three hundred dollars from Miss Marion
Cheever, who perished in the surf on Sandy Beach, was given to the library.

UP TO DATE. 523

that the great glacier left a coating of clay and gravel
upon our granite just sufficient to hold the rains that
soak in, and not deep enough to drop the water below the
reach of a pump. The glacial deposits in some places of
North America were so deep that the water may seep
through for several hundred feet before reaching bed rock.
The writer has seen a well in the city of Seattle, on Puget
Sound, dug for more than two hundred feet through sand
and clay deposited by the glacier, and even at that depth
the bottom would not hold water.

The old-fashioned well sweep has always been able to
reach the water in Cohasset wells, and pumps have never
found a case where the water has been beyond their
reach of thirty feet.

The old pump, which stands at the junction of Elm
and Main Streets in the center of the town, is one of many
that have kept man and beast supplied. Generations of
neighbors have used it, fishing schooners of bygone days
had their casks of fresh water filled from its depths, and
school children have squeaked more than one pump handle
to death above it. Speaking of school children reminds
us that the schoolhouses of old were usually placed upon
some rocky ledge which could be used for nothing else,
and consequently no wells could be furnished the thirsty
children except some kindly neighbor's or some street
pump like the one mentioned.

But the time of modern convenience in water works
came to us after nearly two centuries of primitive wells.
It was brought about chiefly by Charles S. Bates, whose
greatgrandfather, Samuel Bates, in the same spirit of solid
enterprise, established the first wharf at our harbor. The
enterprise of a public water system in Cohasset could not
promise any financial gain to the projectors, and Mr.
Bates, in his appeal to private citizens to undertake it,
placed the whole matter upon the high plane of public
benefaction and town improvement.

524

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

A plant costing sixty thousand dollars was necessary,
so that there was plenty of room for the investments of
public-spirited men. At last, on April 26, 1886, the first
meeting of the Cohasset Water Company was held.*

These men were convinced that by driving a series of
tube wells in the meadow called the Picle, a sufficient sup-
ply of water could be pumped by an engine into a reservoir
upon the top of Bear Hill, whence it could be conducted
in pipes to about nine tenths of the homes of the town.

Furthermore, the force of this water at any of the lower
parts of the town would be so great that a stream could
be thrown upon the roof of any house, and thus a lire pro-
tection of incalculable value would be afforded. The old
fire engine had many times been called to extinguish
burnings, where the water of mud puddles and wells and
brooks, so soon exhausted, left its pump a helpless thing in
the hands of disappointed firemen. f The old bucket

* The following were present at the first meeting of the Cohasset Water Com-
pany : —

Chas. A. Welch. Z. T. Hollingsworth.

Chas. S. Bates. B. C. Clark.

Waldo Higginson. J, S. Bigelow.

Jas. H. Bouve. A. H. Tower.

Chas. F. Tilden. W. C. Burrage.

Chas. A. Gross. Geo. K. Nickerson.

Ezekiel B. Studley, W. G. Cutter,

t The origin of the first fire engine company may be seen by the following peti-
tion, April 30, 1807, which was discovered some years ago by W. J. Brennock in
the attic of the town hall, and is now framed as a precious document in posses-
sion of the Zaccheus Rich Hose Company, Number One.

The front wheels of the old engine and two of the buckets are also owned by the
Hose Company. The method of working the old pump was by filling its huge tub
with the buckets of water carried from the nearest supply, and then pumping from
the tub a heavy stream upon the fire. Members of the engine company were
exempted from militia service and from the payment of poll taxes.

April 30th 1807.
To the Selectmen of the Town of Cohasset.

Gentlemen, — You are requested to insert the following article in the warrant for
May meeting, viz. : —

To see if the Town will Accept of a Fire Engine, with Bucketts &c Compleat
According to Law, to be procured and paid for, by Mr Elisha Doane jr, Mr Nich-
ols Tower, Mr John Nichols, Mr Joseph Lincoln, Mr Wm Whittington, and such

UP TO DA TE.

d25

brigade, which for many generations had lined up between
a burning building and a well to pass the water to the
flames, was promised an everlasting rest wherever the
water pipes might furnish a hydrant in the streets for the
hose that would send a drenching stream.

All these and many other promises of convenience have
been realized. The Cohasset Water Company, with a
capital stock of $100,000, half issued, has undertaken and
has succeeded in supplying some of the best drinking
water of the State. The wells driven into the meadow
are iron tubes two and a half inches in diameter, with the
lower end pointed and perforated with enough holes to
allow the water to flow in rapidly. Fifty-four of these
pipes were all connected at the top with mains that run to
the center and thence to the pump, as the accompanying
diagram will show. The steam pump sucks up the water
from all and forces it into a large main that runs up to the
top of Bear Hill, where a reservoir seventeen feet deep,
holding one and a half million gallons, has been dug in the
top of that hard clay drumlin. This large main is tapped
at a place before it reaches the reservoir by the mains that
lead through all our streets and supply our homes.* It
thus happens that the water flows up and down through
the same pipe, and when there is scarcely enough to fill
the service pipes and to pass on up into the reservoir, as

others as may Joyn them, to the number the Law allowes and to be Compleated
aggreeable to Law in the Course of Nine Months; with this proviso, that if the
selectmen should at any time hereafter appoint Engine men, to the exclusion of the
present applicants, or any of their Associates or Assigns then the Town shall reim-
burse to those who they may exclude, all expences they may have been at.

THADDEUS LAWRENCE JAMES STODDARD
ELISHA DOANE ABEL KENT Junior

WILLIAM STUTSON LABAN BATES

ISRAEL NICHOLS JOEL WILLCUTT

*The number of services furnished by the Cohasset Water Company is 307.
Some of these being stables, the whole number of homes supplied is about 280.
There are also forty hydrants at convenient intervals upon our streets, as a fire
protection, paid for by the town. The care of the whole system has been from the
beginning in the hands of Daniel N. Tower.

=;26

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

was the case in the dry summer of 1896, the throb of the
force pump may be detected at all our faucets.*

o •= cl

■Q 5

a E g
o ^ >

Q ■£ o

X C c

^ o H

S >

• Seven more wells have been driven in James Meadow, furnishing ample supply,
but the whole drainage region cannot furnish over 100,000 gallons per day in a dry
season.

UP TO DA TE. 527

The kind of water thus obtained stands a very high test
under the State Board of Health. The monthly analysis
is fairly represented by the following for April, 1896: Dis-
tinct turbidity, slight sediment, color .10 (about one tenth
that of Boston water for six years' average), odor none
(either cold or hot), residue on evaporation totItoi ^''^e
ammonia none, albuminoid f^^^^o» chlorine tttwW nitro-
gen rn^VW oxygen consumed tSM-qo' hardness 8.7, iron

• 0_7

lOOOOO-

In this analysis the presence of chlorine indicates that
a little salt from our sea air has got deposited in our hill-
sides and meadows where the water that soaks into the
ground carries it along into our wells. However, the
amount is hardly worth speaking of, for according to this
analysis it takes more than three tons of our water to
furnish less than two ounces of chlorine. The unusual
amount of iron held in solution adds to the hardness of
the water, but this is unavoidable where the granite rock
and clay furnish so much of this metal.

An inspection of the names of those who attended the
first meeting of the Cohasset Water Company shows sev-
eral of the summer residents whose interest in the town
has grown out of its attractiveness to them as a summer
resort. Moreover, this public convenience has made it
possible for a number of summer homes to be built upon
the ledges along our shore where no wells could be dug,
except by a rock boring such as G. T. W. Braman's upon
Jerusalem Road, and thus still more summer residences
have been made available.

Many persons who have built along our shore in these
later years were first drawn here by the pleasures of a sum-
mer visit. For more than seventy-five years this custom
of summering at Cohasset has been developing. Board-
ing places like the Black Rock, Kimball's Hotel, the War-
ren Bates House, the Lothrop House, and others have
been filled for many years by visitors.

;28

HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

Perhaps the most distinguished was Daniel Webster,
who used to enjoy cooting and fishing off the Cohasset
rocks. A memorial of him has been carved by nature
in one of the granite rocks of our shore in easy view of
which he often must have passed, without realizing the
remarkable resemblance between the outline of the rock
and the profile of his own face.

b

,-'>

Photo, Octavius H. Reamy

Profile ok Daniel Webster in Granite, next to the Sea
IN Front ok Kimball's Hotel.

Among the persons who were summer residents of Co-
hasset, previous to 1872, are the following, most of whom
have owned houses here : —

William D. Sohier, Esq.
Martin Bates.
Henry Bryant.
Edward Blanchard.
Mrs. Sarah Wheelwright.
Henry A. Wheelwright.
Edward Wheelwright.
Mrs. Caroline Wheelwright.
Andrew C. Wheelwright.
Thomas Richardson.

Mordecai L. Wallis.
Nehemiah Ripley.
Charles Cunningham.
William Parker.
John Tyler.
Calvin Clarke.
Thomas W. Clarke, Esq.
Captain John Codman.
John Howe.
John C. Howe.

UP TO DATE. 529

Edward D. Peters. Edward Cunningham.

Dr. Samuel Kneeland. ' B. C. Clark.

Eliphalet (ones. Mrs. T. B. Williams.

Alexander Williams. Samuel T. Snow.

George O. Sears. Henry Tolman.

Charles Grant. Washington Brown.

T. Henry Perkins. Henry D. Hyde.

Dr. Charles T. Jackson. GrenviHe T. W. Braman.

Nathaniel D. Silsbee. J. B. Moors.

Francis P. Appleton. Matthew Luce.

There were others whose names have not been ascer-
tained that might be added to these.

Among the recent persons of renown who have be-
come Cohasset resorters are the late Lawrence Barrett
and several living actors and playwrights, who have taken^
a genuine interest in the town. From the first occa-
sional outings many men of means have come to establish
permanent summer homes where the sea cools our
shore.

The influence of this part of our town's populace has;
been shown in many instances where expensive improve-
ments have been encouraged and patronized by them.
For example, the electric lighting system is another town
improvement which has been made feasible by means of
the large addition to our taxes paid by the summer resi-
dents and by means of the patronage they furnish in
lighting their own homes with electricity.

When the old cattle herders from Hingham village used
to spend their summers here as early as 1640, their light
in the evenings was the same as the Ouonahassit Indians
had used — camp fires. When settlers came, forty years
after, such as Daniel Lincoln, Ibrook Tower, and others,
tallow candles, both molded ones and "dips," were in-
dulged in. During a century of the feeble flare of tallow
and bayberry wax, the use of sperm oil lamps for polite
occasions crept gradually into Cohasset homes. Indeed,
for nearly two centuries the little rod of tallow with its
wick of linen was scepter of the night. Its sway was
narrow, for none of the streets could be lighted except as

530 HISTORY OF COH ASSET.

tin lanterns punctured with nail holes might carry a feeble
candle out of doors.

About the year 1850 a peculiar oil called burning fluid
began to be used in lamps without a chimney. This mix-
ture of camphine and alcohol or of naphtha would readily
creep up on wicks through two little tubes, and would
blaze away with two modest little flames. It made so
small an amount of heat that you could touch the burn-
ing wick with your finger, and then could carry on the
tip of the finger a film of blazing oil to light another
lamp. When the wick burned low it was pricked up by
the end of a knitting needle.

But petroleum or kerosene by the year 1850 had been
manufactured for lamps in England, and nine years later
the wonderful petroleum well at Oil Creek, Pa., made
kerosene a universal household convenience. For many
years petroleum had been sold as a liniment, but from
the year i860 it took its place as a general luminant.
Kerosene lamps were soon introduced into the churches
and the town hall, with an occasional one out of doors in
public places.

In the homes of the town kerosene is still the main
reliance ; but for public places like streets, town buildings,
churches, etc., the modern miracle electricity has been
introduced. A company of men was formed July 28,
1890,* for the purpose of furnishing electric lighting for
the towns of Cohasset and Scituate. It was a business
enterprise in which a number of our summer residents
took almost the entire stock.

The enterprise was a feasible one only upon condition
that the town would establish street lamps upon the prin-
cipal thoroughfares of the town. By giving this large
patronage the Cohasset Electric Company was guaranteed
at least a safe, if not profitable investment. It was voted
at the town meeting of 1890 "that the streets of the town,

* Incorporated August 12, 1890.

UP TO DATE. 531

as far as practicable, be lighted as recommended in the
committee's report by not less than one hundred and fifty
lights." A contract was made with the Electric Company
and the lights were turned on in our streets September
14, 1890.

The day of dark streets was left behind in the progress;
of our town.

Whether seen from the water or from some high point/
of land, these strings of brilliant beads hanging upom
hillsides and in valleys vindicate their place by their)
beauty as well as by their usefulness. The muffled throb-i
bing of the engine which runs the dynamo may be heard,
in the quiet evenings as we sit at home under the glow:
of the incandescent loops, thinking, perhaps, of the lives
and homes of long ago.

But the lamps which illumine our highways were much:
more pitifully needed in the years of our ancestors than
now, for of all our improvements perhaps none is more
marked than the smoothness of our highways. Origi-
nally rough beyond any description, they have been
blasted and dug and built up by incessant care for two
centuries. They will probably never be straight, and
indeed the curves of them contribute an element of
beauty; but the many thousand dollars expended upon
them have been well spent. And herein the character of
the town as a summer resort again is manifest, for those
who have found their pleasure in driving upon our high-
ways have required that the thousands of dollars in taxes
which they have paid be applied in a fair measure to
street improvements.

A passion for new roads was shown during the ten
years from 1876 to 1886. Doane Street, Forest Avenue,
Atlantic Avenue (from Beach Street to the Cove), and
Nichols Avenue were all undertaken.

Doane Street, so named in honor of James C. Doane,*

* Formerly a member of the Board of County Commissioners.

DJ-

HISTORY OF C OH ASSET.

was cut through woods, around ledges, and over a swamp,
from Beechwood a mile to the Hingham line at a cost of
$3,352.46.

Forest Avenue was a bigger undertaking, designed to
open for summer residences a large area of land between
Straits Pond and North Main Street where King Street
enters. The original lay-out of Joshua Fisher in 167 1 pro-
vided for a straight highway to Breadencheese Tree towards
the other end of Straits Pond ; but this new road was laid
out farther to the east, straight over hills and valleys from
the end of King Street to Jerusalem Road at the east end
of Straits Pond. The distance was a little over a mile,
but such a rough one, with so many ledges to blast and so
many hollows to fill, that it cost $16,580.

The expectation of residences being located upon this
road has not been fulfilled in these twenty years; never-
theless, the highway is abundantly used and has proved its
necessity.

Another road, built for the purpose of opening un-
used acres for summer residences, as Forest Avenue was
built, is Nichols Avenue, This crooked highway across
Cat Dam over one of the Beach Islands to the western end
of Sandy Beach was finished in 1882 at a cost of about
two thousand five hundred dollars, the five hundred being^
paid by several private citizens. For ten years this en-
terprise proved a disappointment, as Forest Avenue had
done; but the beautiful summer homes that have been
perched upon the rocky knolls in that vicinity during the
last few years have redeemed all the promises which in-
duced the building of the road.

Each added expenditure for the convenience of summer
sojourners has increased the income by taxes thus brought
into the town. The last and most expensive driveway
undertaken for the pleasure of these adopted citizens is a
beautiful stretch of macadam running along Beach Island
between Little Harbor and the ocean.

UP TO DATE.

533

Photo, George Herbert Roberts.

The Cohasset Savings Bank.

The Cohasset Savings Bank was established Februaiy 28, 1845, when Paul Pratt, Henry
J. Turner, and John Bates, with their associates, were incorporated under the State law.

The first meeting was held at Smith's Tavern, December i, 1845, when the business was
placed into the hands of the following trustees: —

Paul Pratt, president.
Henry J. Turner. Lot Bates. James C. Doane.

Daniel T. Lothrop. Zenas Stoddard. A. H. Tower.

Job Gushing. Thomas Smith. Nichols Tower.

Francis L. Bates. Levi N. Bates. Solomon J. Beal.

The bank was kept by Levi N. Bates thirty-seven years in an upper room of his own
home, above his apothecary store, until his successor, the present treasurer, Caleb Lothrop,
was chosen; then it was moved downstairs, where it remained until the new bank building
was completed in 1898.

The growth of the institution may be judged from the following statistics: —

There were fifty-three depositors the first year, 1846 total $7,552.00

At the end of the first ten years the total amount on deposit 74,763.5s

In 1898 there are 1,480 depositors with a total amount 660,244.38

The trustees of 1898 are as follows: —

Abraham H. Tower, president. Charles F. Tilden.

Louis N. Lincoln, vice-president. Morgan B. Stetson (deceased).

Newcomb Bates, secretary. Caleb F. Nichols.

Loring Bates. C. James Pratt.

Philander Bates. Charles A. Gross.

Newcomb B. Tower. Amos A. Lawrence.

Charles H. Willard. George K. Nickerson.

534

HISTORY OF COHASSET.

It was called Jerusalem Road Extension when it was
finished in 1891, but it has been legally named Atlantic
Avenue because it lies next to the Atlantic Ocean, and be-
cause it is practically a lengthening of Atlantic Avenue
which had already been built from the Cove to Little
Harbor.

Some sort of a cartway had been in use over Beach
Islands since the beginning of Cohasset haying. In later
years when Cuba Dam was built, a narrow way stretched
along the top of the dam across the guzzle. A respectable
wooden bridge was thrown across this channel after the

dam was cut away
in 185 1 ; but now
when the new
Beach Island road
was made, a new
iron bridge,
called Cunning-
ham Bridge, was
built at a cost of
about eight thou-
sand dollars, half
of the eight
being spent upon
the abutments.
The whole cost
of the road was
over seventeen thousand dollars, but there is not another
mile of driveway to be found in Massachusetts to com-
pare with it for beauty and variety of scenery.

A change in the care of our streets was made in the
year 1890, when the old system of electing three or four
surveyors for different parts of the town to make and
to keep the highways was abandoned. Since then one
superintendent of streets for the whole town has been
elected and a more uniform method of providing good

Photo, Addison Aldrich.

Walnut Angle, junction of Jerusalem Road
AND Atlantic Avenue.

UP TO DATE.

535

highways has been followed. Neighborhood jealousies and
jobberies have been diminished and the whole responsi-
bility for good roads rests upon one man, towards whom
the town never has been niggardly in its appropriations
for highways.

The recent State enterprise in appointing a State High-
way Commission has touched the Cohasset streets in only
one place. A stretch of a half mile of macadam leading
through the Great Swamp on the way to Hingham has
been built during the past year under the direction of the
commission, by our superintendent of streets. Thus
the impassable swamp* which had compelled Cohasset
carts in early days to make the detour of Cedar Street
among rocky ledges became at last the most perfect high-
way in the town.

Among the many items which could be noted to reveal
our character as a summer resort is the post office. Our
mails are more than doubled by the people who have made
this their summer home. The postal service at the begin-
ning of our national life has been indicated already in the
chapter upon " Stagecoach, Packet, and Railway," but the
small days were continued with only slight growth until
about fifteen years ago.f The abode of the office in Joel
Willcutt's time, 1806, was a cobbler shop J on Elm Street
near the Cove.

In Zenas Stoddard's term of twenty-four years its home
was in a general country store on Main Street, now the
dwelling of Charles H. Willard. The little case of post-

* See a subscription paper in the town's historical collection, written by Elisha
Doane about the year 1815, upon which thirty-four names were signed pledging
different amounts of labor to open the new road through the swamp.

tPostmasters appointed by the government from the first one to the last are as
follows : —

Samuel Brown, April i, 1803. Joseph St. John, October 21, 1885.

Joel Willcutt, February 26, 1806. Charles A. Gross, September 13, 1889.

Zenas Stoddard, March 15, 1837. Joseph St. John, September 25, 1893.

Edward Tower, April 4, 1861. Harry W. Souther, August 2, 1897.

Charles A. Gross, March 27, 1873.

J See picture of this post office on p. 329.

536 HIS roK V of com a sse t.

office boxes, eighteen, used by Zenas Stoddard at about
1840, has for its successor at present a case of five hun-
dred boxes. Letters in those days, before 1845, cost five
cents each, and no adhesive stamp was used until after
1847. Ill fact, no envelope was used, but the letter was so
folded and sealed as to be its own envelope.

In the days when postal cards first were in vogue
(1873) the reading them by curious keepers of the office
must have been irresistible, and even the letters when they
were so few must have been targets for Yankee guessers
who could peek at the addresses.

As late as twenty years ago the letters were kept in an
ingenious device which tempted many loungers to examine
private correspondence. This device was a long cylinder,
or rather a prism with ten or twelve sides, resting upon
one end on a store counter. The letters were slipped into
little racks upon the flat sides of the prism with the ad-
dresses turned out plainly to view. The case could be
wheeled around by the lower edge which was exposed so
that any one who came might turn it, and looking at all of
the letters, he might at last find his own. A board was
placed in front of this case so that no one could take a
letter ; but a long pane of glass allowed the eye to see all
the letters as they came successively to the pane of glass.

What an interesting toy for idlers ! And what gossip
could be expected to suppress a shrewd guess about a
suspicious handwriting in a letter addressed to a neighbor .-•
Many were guilty of looking for letters when there was not
the least hope of a letter ; for the letters of some neigh-
bors were more than interesting, just to look at. Com-
plaints were made not only in Cohasset, but in other towns
where the same apparatus was in vogue, and the old
" wheel " was abolished by order of the government.

The office now has reached the dignity of the Third
Class, issuing money orders, and has a building con-
structed for its own use. The stamps that are sold each

UP TO DA TE.

537

year nowadays amount to three thousand dollars' worth,
to say nothing of the rent of three hundred and seventy-
four boxes.

The names, moreover, which are written nowadays
upon letters passing through this office are many of them
different from those which formerly flourished here,
though the family names Bates, Pratt, Tower, Lincoln,
Nichols, and a few others still keep their heritage. The
Portuguese names, Grassie, Jason, Silvia, and others, with
various names of an Irish origin, have obtained a large
place.

Photo, M. H. Beamy.

Colonel Pope's Residence, Jerusalem Road.

The variety of people now comprised within the limits
of the town is quite remarkable for so small a population.
In the beginning all were poor and all were filled with
substantially the same experiences and the same ambi-
tions ; but this homogeneous condition has passed away,
and we now have the rich with the poor, the cultured
with the unlearned, the cosmopolitan with the provincial,
in a greater variety, perhaps, than any town of the same
size in the Commonwealth. All these kinds of human life

538 HISTOR V OF COIIASSE T.

are mutually useful, moreover, and afford a stable condi-
tion of society able to endure good times or bad times
without much disturbance.

No strikes affect us because no manufacturing industry
has ever engaged a large proportion of our town. Even
the shoe business has never been established as a town
industry, though some twenty-five years ago a number of
small shops in different parts of the town furnished "job
work " for a great many upon shoes manufactured in
neighboring towns. Also " slop work," or the making of
cheap garments, was carried on by many needlewomen in
their own homes, after the fishing business had failed.
But no large factory since our fish packing, ever has been
established here; neither is there much likelihood that
one ever will be established.

The character of this town as a suburb and summer
resort, to the exclusion of industries, has become fixed.
A fair estimate of the future for at least a century must
predict for Cohasset a suburban retirement. Many more
homes of a comfortable and expensive sort may be ex-
pected to nestle among our ledges and hills. To Nan-
tasket upon one side and to North Scituate upon the
other must be given the popularity that brings swarms
of humanity to the beaches in summer; but to Cohasset,
which has no long beach and whose shore line has been
preempted already by quiet-loving people, there must
remain a long era of immunity from crowds.

People of large means have laid out generous areas for
their "grounds," and no one can see any near prospect
of many of these beautiful estates being parceled out to
small holders. As rapid transit to Boston is developed,
in years to come our hills remote from the shore will offer
homes of a less expensive sort to a large number of work-
aday people.

Little by little the old landmarks familiar to our an-
cestors will be transformed by the hands of an incoming

UP TO DATE. 539

people and by the descendants of our old pioneers, who
may fondly return to claim a part of their ancestral home-
steads.

Even under our very eyes these things are now being
done, and no one could bid them stop ; but these lines
have been written and the pages of this book have been
filled with a record of events which have transpired here
for the purpose of furnishing all who come with some
faint conception of the honorable career of this beautiful
town.

APPENDIX.

BOTANY OF COHASSET.

The following list, contributed by Miss Priscilla L. Collier, contains most of the
commoner plants to be found in Cohasset. It is not by any means complete, but
represents what Miss Collier has been able to collect in her leisure time during the
past three seasons.

RANUNCULACEiE. — Crowfoot Family.

Clematis Virginiana, L. Virgin's Bower.
Anemone nemokosa, L. Wood Anemone.
Hepaiica triloba, Chaix. Round-lobed Hepatica.
Anemonella thalictroides, Spach. Rue Anemone.
THALICTRUM DIOICUM, L. Early Meadow Rue.

polygamum, Muhl. Tall Meadow Rue.

PURPURASCENS, L. Purplish Meadow Rue.
Ranunculus abortivus, L. Small-flowered Crowfoot.

FASCICULARIS, il/«/i/. Early Crowfoot.

BULBOSUS, L. Bulbous Buttercups.

ACRIS, Z. Tall Buttercups.
Caltha palus TRis, L. Marsh Marigold.
CoPTis TRIFOLIA, Halisb. Three-leaved Goldthread.
Aquilegia Canadensis, L. Wild Columbine.

BERBERIDACEiE. — Barberry Family,

BerBERIS vulgaris, L. Common Barberry.

NYMPHiEACEiE. — Water Lily Family.

NYMPHi^A ODORATA, Ait. Sweet-scented Water Lily.
NUPHAR advena, Ait. f. Yellow Pond Lily.

SARRACENIACEiE. — Pitcher Plant Family.

Sarracenia purpurea, L. Pitcher Plant, Sidesaddle Flower.

PAPAVERACEiE. — Poppy Family.

Sanguinaria Canadensis, L. Bloodroot.
Chelidonium majus, L. Celandine.

FUMARIACE^. — Fumitory Family.

Corydalis GLAUCa, Piirsli. Pale Corydalis.

CRUCIFERiE. — Mustard Family.

Draba verna, L. Whitlow Grass.

Nasturtium officinale, R. Br. True Water Cress.

„ Armoracia, Fries. Horse-radish.

BarbarEA vulgaris, R. Br. Common Winter Cress, Yellow Rocket.
Sisymbrium officinale. Scop. Hedge Mustard.
Brassica sinapistrum, Boiss. English Charlock.
Capsella Bursa-Pastoris, Moench. Shepherd's Purse.
Lepidium Virginicum, L. Wild Peppergrass.
Raphanus raphanistrum, L. Wild Radish.
CAKILE AMERICANUM,iV«//. American Sea-rocket.

541

542 APPENDIX.

CISTACE^. — Rock Rose Family.

Helianthemum Canadense, jl/iV/ijr. Frostweed.
HUDSONIA TOMENTOSA, Nutt. Downy Hudsonia.

VIOLACEiE. — Violet Family.

Viola pedata, L. Bird-foot Violet.

,, palmata, L. Common Blue Violet,
z^ar. CUCULLATA. Gray.
BLANDA, Willd. Sweet White Violet.
„ LANCEOLATA, L. Lance-leaved Violet.

CANINA, L., var. MUHLENBERGII, Gray. Dog Violet.

CARYOPHYLLACE^. — Pink FamUy.

Saponaria OFFICINALIS, L. Soapwort, Bouncing Bet.
SiLENE CucuBALtiS, Wibel. Bladder Campion.
NOCTIFLORA. Night-flowering Catchfly.
Lychnis Githago, Lam. Com Cockle.
Arenaria laterifolia, L.
Stellaria media, Smith. Common Chickweed.

LONGlFOLiA,il//^/i/. Long-leaved Stitchwort.
Cerastium VISCOSUM.Z,. Mouse-ear Chickweed.

VULGATUM, L. Large Mouse-ear Chickweed.

ARVENSE, L. Field Chickweed.
BUDA, Gray; Spergularia, Wood; BUDA-RUBRA, Z^awor/. Sand Spurrey.

PORTULACACE.^. — Purslane Family.

PorTULACA OLERACEA, L. Common Purslane.

HYPERICACEiE. — St. John's-wort Family.
Hypericum perforatum,/,. Common St. John's-wort.

„ NUDICAULE. Walt.

Canadense, L.
multilum, l.
Elodes campanulata, /"wr^/J. Marsh St. John's-wort.

MALVACEiE. — Mallow Family.

Malva ROTUNDIFOLIA, L. Common Mallow.
sylvestris, L. High Mallow.
„ MOSCHATA. Musk Mallow '^escaped).
alcea, L.

GERANIACEiE.— Geranium Family.

Geranium maculatum, L. Wild Cranesbill.

Robertianum, L. Herb Robert.

Carolinianum, L.
OXALIS stricta, Sav. Yellow Wood Sorrel.
Impatiens ¥Vl.VA, Nutt. Spotted Touch-me-not, Jewelweed.
,, PALLIDA, Nutt. Pale Touch-me-not.

ILICINE^.

Ilex OPACA, Ait. American Holly.

VERTiciLLATA, Gray. Black Alder, Winterberry.
L^viGATA, Gray. Smooth Winterberry.
„ GLABRA, Gray. Inkberry.

CELASTRACEiE. — Staff Tree Family.

Celastrus scandens, L. Waxwork, Climbing Bittersweet.

VITACEiE. — Vine Family.

VlTiS Labrusca, L. Northern Fox Grape.

Ampelopsis QUINQUEFOLIA, Mx. Virginia Creeper, Woodbine.

APPENDIX.

SAPINDACE^.— Soapberry Family,

Acer RUURUM, L. Red or Swamp Maple.

ANACARDIACEiE.— Cashew Family.

Rhus TYPHINA, L. Staghorn Sumach.
„ GLAKRA, L. Smooth Sumach.
„ COPAI.LINA, Z. Dwarf Sumach.
„ VENENATA, D C. Poison Sumach or Dogwood.
Toxicodendron, L. Poison Ivy, Poison Oak.

POLYGALACEiE. — Milkwort Family.

POLYGALA SANGUINEA, L.

VERTICILLATA, L.

LEGUMINOSiE, — Pulse Family.

Baptisia TINCTORIA, R.Br. Wild Indigo.
Trifolium arvense, L. Rabbit-foot or Stone Clover.

PRATENSE, L. Red Clover.

MEDIUM. Zigzag Clover.

REPENS, L. White Clover.
„ HYBRIDUM. Z. Alsike Clover.

AGRARIUM. Yellow or Hop Clover.
Melilotus officinalis, Willd. Yellow Melilot.
Medicago LUPULINA,Z. Black Medick, Nonesuch.
ROBINIA Pseudacacia, L. Common Locust or False Acacia.
Desmodium nudiflorum.Z) C
Lespedeza VIOLAcea, Fers. Bush Clover.

POLYSTACHYA, Michx.
ViCIA SATIVA, L. Common Vetch or Tare.

„ Cracca, L.
Lathyrus maritimus. Big. Beach Pea.

PALUSTRIS, L.

Apios tuberosa, Moench. Groundnut.
Amphicarp^a monoica, NuH. Hog Peanut.

ROSACEiE. — Rose Family.

Prunus MARITIMA, Wang. Beach Plum.

SEROTINA, Elirh. Wild Black Cherry.
Pennsylvanica, L. Wild Red Cherry.
VIRGIXIANA, L. Choke Cherry.
Spir^A SALICIPOLIA, L. Common Meadowsweet.
TOMEXTOSA, L. Hardhack, Steeple Bush.
RUBUS ODORATUS, L. Purple Flowering Raspberry.
STRIGOSUS, Mx. Wild Red Raspberry.
occidentalis, L. Black Raspberry, Thimbleberry.
„ VILLOSUS, Ait. Common High Blackberry.
„ HISPIDUS, L. Running Swamp Blackberry.
„ Canadensis, L. Low Blackberry.
Geum virginianum.

Waldsteinia fragaroides. Trait. Barren Strawberry.
Fragaria Virginiana, Mill. Wild Strawberry.
VESCA, L.

I^otentilla Norvegica, L.

ARGENTEA, L. Silvery Cinquefoil.

„ anserina, L. Silver Weed.

„ Canadensis, L. Common Five-finger or Cinquefoil.

.•\GRIM0NIA EUPATORIA, L. Common Agrimony.
Rosa blanda, ^/A Common Wild Rose.

Carolina, L. Swamp Wild Rose.

rubiginosa, L. Sweetbrier, Eglantine.
Pyrus ARBUTIFOLIA, L. Chokeberry.
Amelanchier Canadensis, Torr. and Gr. Shad Bush.

543

544

APPENDIX.

SAXIFRAGACEiE. — Saxifrage Family.

Saxifraga Virginiensis, Mx. Early Saxifrage.
RiBES OXYCANTHOIDES, L. Gooseberry.

CRASSULACEiE. — Orpine Family.

SEDUM acre, L. Mossy Stonecrop.
„ Telephium, L. Live-forever.

HAMAMELIDEiE. — Witch-hazel Family.

Hamamelis Virginiana, /,. Witch-hazel.

MELASTOMACEiE.

Rhexia VlRGlNiCA, L. Meadow Beauty.

LYTHRACEiE. — Loosestrife Family.

Lythrum Salicaria, /.. Spiked Loosestrife.
„ Hyssopi folia, L.

ONAGRACEiE. — Evening Primrose Family.

LUDWIGIA PALUSTRIS, Ell. Water Purslane.

Epilobium aNGUSTIFOLIUM, L. Great Willow-herb, Fireweed.

LINEARE, Ml4hl.
CEnothera PUMILA.Z.

,, biennis, L. Common Evening Primrose.

CiRCv«A Lutetiana, L. Enchanter's Nightshade.

FICOIDE^.

MOLLUGO VERTICILLATA, L. Carpet-weed.

UMBELLIFER^.— Parsley Family.

Daucus Carota, L. Carrot.

Pastinaca sativa, L. Parsnip.

LiGUSTicuM ScoTicuM, L. Scotch Lovagc.

CiCUTA maculata. Spotted Cowbane, Musquash Root.

Heracleum lanatum. Downy Cow Parsnip.

ARALIACEiE. — Ginseng Family.

ARALIA nudicaulis, L. Wild Sarsaparilla.

„ TKWOl^W, Descme and Planch. Dwarf Ginseng.

CORNACEiE. — Dogwood Family.

CoRNUS Canadensis, L. Bunchberry.

„ FLORIDA, L. Flowering Dogwood.
PANICULATA, L' Her.
Nyssa sylvatica, Marsh. Tupelo, Sour Gum Tree.

CAPRIFOLIACEiE. — Honeysuckle Family.

Sambucus Canadensis, L. Common Elder.
Viburnum acerifolium, L. Dockmackie, Arrowwood.

„ dentatum, L. Arrowwood.

„ LENTAGO, L. Sweet Viburnum, Sheepberry.

Triosteum PERFOLIATUM. Tinker's Weed, Wild Coffee.

RUBIACEiE. — Madder Family.

HOUSTONIA C(ERULEA, L. Bluets, Innocence.
Cephalanthus occidentalis, L. Button Bush.
MITCHEI.I.A REPENS, Z. Partridge Berry.
Galium circ^zans, Mkkx. Wild Licorice.
„ TRIFIDUM, /.. Small Bedstraw.

APPENDIX.

COMPOSITE. — Composite Family.

MiKANIA SCANDENS, Z,. Climbing Hempvveed.
EUPATOKIUM PERFOLIAIUM, Tourn. Thoroughwoit, Boneset.

,, PURPUREUM.Z,, Joe-Pye Weed.

SOLIDAGO BICOLOR, L.

OUORA, Ait. Sweet Golden-rod.
„ RUGOSA, Mill.

„ Elio rril, Tor. and Gray.

SEROTINA, Alt.
SEMPERVIKENS, Z..
SERICOCARPUS CONYZOIDES, Nees

Aster corymbosus. Ait.
„ Nov/E-Angli^, Z,.

„ UNDULATUS, L.

„ CORDIFOLIUS, /..

„ ERICOIDES, Z..

„ MULTIFLORUS, .///,

Novi-Belgu, Z..

„ PUNICEUS, L.

„ UMBELLATUS, A/llt.

LINARIIFOLIUS, L.
„ PATENS, Ait.
„ POLYPHYLLUS, li'illd.

Erigeron belli DiFOLius, ^«/2/. Robin's Plantain.
„ Philadelphicus, L. Fleabane.

STRIGOSUS, Mukl. Daisy Fleabane.
Antennaria plantaginifolia, Hook. Plantain-leaved Everlasting.
AnaphaLIS MARGARllACEA, Bentli. and Hook. Pearly Everlasting.
Gnaphalium polycephalum, Mx. Everlasting.

ULIGINOSUM, Z,. Cudweed.
Ambrosia ARTEMISI^FOLIA, L. Roman Wormwood, Ragweed.
Xanthium spinosum, L. Spiny Cocklebur.
RUDBECKIA HIRTA, L. Cone Flower.
Helianthus divaricatus, L. Wild Sunflower.

„ TUBEROSUS, Z,. Jerusalem Artichoke.

BiDENS FRONDOSA, L. Common Beggar's Ticks.
CERNUA, L. Smaller Bur Marigold.
CHRYSANI'HEMOIOES, Michx. Larger Bur Marigold.
Anthemis Cotula, D C. Mayweed.
Achillea millefolium, L. Yarrow.

Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, L. Oxeye Daisy, Whiteweed.
Tanacetum vulgare, L. Tansy.
Senecio aureus, L. Golden Ragwort, Squawweed.

„ vulgaris, Z. Groundsel.
Erecthites HIERACIFOLIA, Raf. Fireweed.
Arctium Lappa, Z,., var. minus. Gray. Burdock.
Cnicus LANCEOlatus, Hoffm. Common Thistle.
PUMILUS, Torr. Pasture Thistle.
„ ARVENSIS, Hoffm. Canada Thistle.
Tragopogon pratensis, L. Goat's Beard.
Krigia VIRGINICA, Willd. Dwarf Dandelion.
Chicorium Intybus, L. Chicory.
Leontodon autumnalis,Z.. Fall Dandelion, Hawkbit.
Hieracium Canadense, Mx. Canada Hawkweed.
PANICULATUM, L. Panicled Hawkweed.
VENOSUM, L. Rattlesnake Hawkweed.

„ AURANTIACUM, L.

Prenanthes alba, L. White Lettuce.

SERPANTARIA, /"/^/-jA. Lion's Foot, Gall of the Earth.
Taraxacum officinale, Weber. Dandelion.
Lactuca Canadensis, L. Wild Lettuce.

„ LEUCOPH/EA, Gray. Blue Lettuce.

SONCHUS OLERACEUS, L. Common Sow Thistle.
ASPER, Vtll. Spiny-leaved Sow Thistle.
ARVENSIS, L. Field Sow Thistle.

545

546

APPENDIX.

LOBELIACEiE.— Lobelia Family.

Lobelia CARDINALIS, L. Cardinal Flower.
„ INFLATA, L. Indian Tobacco.

ERICACE^. — Heath Family.

Gaylussacia FRONDOSA, Torr. and Gray. Dangleberry.

„ RESINOSA, Torr. and Gray. Black Huckleberry.

Vaccinium PENNSYLVANiCUM,Z.aOT. Dwarf Blueberry.

VACILLANS, Solander. Low Blueberry.

CORYMBOSUM, L. Tall Blueberry.

MACROCARPON, Ait. Cranberry.
Epig^A REPENS. Trailing Arbutus.

Gaultheria PROCUMBENS, /,. Checkerberry, Creeping Wintergreen.
Andromeda ligustrina, Muhl.
Kalmia angustifolia, L. Sheep Laurel.
Rhododendron viscosum, Torr. Clammy Oralea. ,
Clethra alnifolia, L. Sweet Pepper Bush.
Chimaphila UMBELLata, Nutt. Prince's Pine, Pipsissewa.

„ MACULATA, Pursh. Spotted Wintergreen.

Pyrola ELLIPTICA, Nutt. Shin Leaf.
MONOTROPA UNIFLORA.ZL. Indian Pipe, Corpse Plant.
„ HYPOPITYS, L. Pinesap, False Beech Drops.

PLUMBAGINACEiE. — Leadwort Family.

Statice Limonium, L. Marsh Rosemary, Sea Lavender.

PRIMULACEiE.— Primrose Family.

HOTTONIA INFLATA, Ell. Featherfoil, Water Violet.
TrientaLIS Americana, Pursh. American Star Flower.
Steironema lanceolatum. Gray.
Lysimachia vulgaris, L.

„ quadrifolia, L. Four-leaved Loosestrife.

„ STRICTA, Alt.

nummularia, L. Moneywort.
Anagallis arvensis, L. Pimpernel, Poor Man's Weatherglass.

APOCYNACEiE. — Dogbane Family.

Apocynum ani)ROS.4£Mifolium, L. Spreading Dogbane.

ASCLEPIADACEiE. — Milkweed Family.

Asclepias incarnata, L. Swamp Milkweed.

„ COK^ViTl, Decaisne. Common Milkweed, Silkweed.

'„ VERTICILLATA, L.

BORAGINACE/E. — Borage Family.

Myosotis palustris. Withering. True Forget-me-not.
Symphytum officinale, L. Comfrey.
ECHIUM VULGARE, L. Viper's Bugloss, Blueweed.

CONVOLVULACEiE. — Convolvulus Family.

Convolvulus SEPIUM, Z., var. Americanus. Hedge Bindweed.
CUSCUTA GRONOVII, Willd. Dodder.

SOLANACEiE. — Nightshade Family.

SolaNUM DULCAMARA, L. Bittersweet.

„ nigrum, L. Common Nightshade.

Lycium VULGARE, Dunal. Matrimony Vine.
Datura stramonium, L. Jamestown Weed, Tliorn Apple.
TATULA, L. Purple Thorn Apple.

APPENDIX. 547

SCROPHULARIACEiE. — Figwort Family.

VERBASCUM THAPSUS, L. Coininon Mullein.

BLA'ITAKIA, /,. Motli Mullein.
LlNARlA Canadensis, Dumont. Toadflax.

„ VULGARIS, Mill. Butter and Eggs, Ramsted.

Chelone clabra, L. Turtlehead, Snakeiiead.
MiMULUS RINGENS, L. Monlcey Flower.
Veronica officinalis, L. Common Speedwell.

„ SERPYLLl FOLIA. Thyme-leaved Speedwell.

Gerardia pedicularia, /,,

QUERCIFOLIA, Pursh. Smooth False Foxglove.
„ PURPUREA, L. Purple Gerardia.

„ MARITIM'V, A'fl/I Seaside Gerardia.

Pedicularis Canadensis, L. Lousewort, Wood Betony.
Melampyrum Americanum, Miclix. Cow Wheat.

OROBANCHACE.^. — Broom Rape Family.
Aphvllon uniflorum. One-flowered Cancer Root.

LENTILABULARIACEyE. — Bladderwort Family

UTRICULARIA CLANDESTINA, Null.

„ VULGARIS. Greater Bladderwort.

VERBENACE.^. --Vervain Family.

Verbena urtiC/Efoi.ia, L. White Vervain.
HASTATA, L. Blue Vervain.

LABIATiE. — Mint Family.

Trichostema DiCHOTOMUM, L. Blue Curls, Bastard Pennyroyal.
Teucrium CaNadense, L. American Germander, Wood Sage.
Mentha VIRIDIS, Z, Spearmint.

„ piperita, L. Peppermint.
LVCOPUS VIRGINICUS, L. Bugleweed.
SINUATUS, Ell.

Hedeoma pulegioides, Pers. American Pennyroyal.
Nepeta Cataria, L. Catnip.

„ Glechoma, Benth. Ground Ivy.
Scutellaria galeviculata, L. Skullcap.
Brunella vulgaris, L. Self-heal or Healall.
Leonurus cardiaca, L. Motherwort.

PLANTAGINACEiE. — Plantain Family.

Plantago major, L. Common Plantain.
MARITIMA, L. Seaside Plantain.
„ LANCEOLA'IA, L. Rib Grass or Ripple Grass.

AMARANTACEiE. — Amaranth Family.

Amarantus retroflexas, L.

ALBUS, L. Pigweed.

CHENOPODIACEiE. -- Goosefoot Family.

SalicorNIA IIERBACEA, L. Glasswort.

Salsola Kali, L. Saltwort.

Atriplex hastata. Gray.

CheNOPODIUM album, L. (Jommon Goosefoot or Lamb's Quarters.

PHYTOLACCACEiE. — Pokeweed Family.

Phytolacca decandka, L. Common Poke, Garget.

548

APPENDIX.

POLYGONACEiE. — Buckwheat Family.
RUMEX ACETOSELLA, L. Field or Sheep Sorrel.
Polygonum convolvulus, L. Black Bindweed.

HYDROPIPEROIDES, Michx. Mild Water Pepper.

HYDROPIPER, L. Common Water Pepper or Sm:utweed.

SAGirTATUM, L. Arrow-leaved Tear-thumb.

ARIFOLIUM, L. Halberd-leaved Tear-thumb.

AVICULARE, L. Knotgrass, Dooryard Weed.

DUMETORUM, var. SCANDENS, Gray. Climbing False Buckwheat.

ACRE, HBK. Water Smartweed.
POLYGONELLA ARTICULATA, Meisn.

LAURACE/E. — Laurel Family.

Sassafras officinale, Nees.

LiNDERA Benzoin, Blume. Spicebush, Benjamin Bush.

SANTALACEiE. — Sandalwood Family.

COMANDRA UMBELLATA, Nutt. Bastard Toadflax.

EUPHORBIACEiE. — Spurge Family.

Euphorbia polygoni folia, L. Shore Spurge.

„ MACULATA, L.

Cyparissias, L. Cypress Spurge.

URTICACEiE. — Nettle Family.

Ulmus Americana, /,. American Elm.

Celtis OCCIDENTALIS, L. Nettle Tree or Hackberry.

Cannabis sativa, L. Hemp.

Urtica DIOICA, L. Stinging Nettle.

FLATANACEi^E. — Plane Tree Family.

PLATANUS OCCIDENTALIS, A. Sycamore, Buttonwood.

JUGLANDACEiE. — Walnut Family.

JUGLANS CINEREA. Butternut, White Walnut.
Carya alba, Nutt. Shagbark or Shellbark Hickory.
,, PORCINA, Nutt. Pignut, Hickory.

MYRICACEiE. —Sweet-Gale Family.

Myrica cerifeka, L. Bayberry.

„ asplenifolia, Endl. Sweet Fern.

CUPULIFERiE.— Oak Family.

Betula LENTA, L. Black Birch.

LUTEA, Mx. Yellow Birch.
POPULIFOLIA, Ait. White Birch.
ALNUS INCANA, Willd. Speckled or Hoary Alder.

serrulata, Willd. Smooth Alder.
Carpinus Caroliniana, Walt. Hornbeam.
OSTRYA Virginica, Willd. Hop Hornbeam.
Corylus Americana, Walt. Hazelnut.
QUERCUS alba, L. White Oak.

„ BICOLOR, Willd. Swamp White Oak.

Prinus, Z. Chestnut Oak.
ILICI FOLIA, Wang. Bear Oak.
„ COCCI NEA, Wang. Scarlet Oak.

FAGUS FERRUGINEA, Ait. Beech.

SALICACEiE.— Willow Family.

POPULUS TREMULOIDES, Mx. American Aspen.

„ BALSAMIFERA, Z., z'ar. CANDICANS, (^;/rf/. Balm of Gilead.

APPENDIX. 549

CONIFERiE. — Pine Family.

JUNIPERUS COMMUNIS, /,. Juniper.

„ VIRGINIANA, Z.. Red Cedar, Savin.

PiNUS RIGIDA, Mill. Pitch Pine.
STROBUS, L. While Pine.
TsuGA Canadensis, Carr. Hemlock.

ORCHIDACEiE.— Orchis Family.

SpiraNTHES CERNUA,^/V/i. Ladies' Tresses.
GOODYERA REPENS, A*. Z>>. Rattlesnake Plantain.

PUBESCENS, /?. i?r.
Arethusa BULBOSA.Z. Arethusa.
Calopogon pulch ellus, ^. 5/-.

POGONIA OPHIOGLOSSOIDES, Nlltt.

Habenaria LACERA, R. Br. Ragged Orchis.
CypripediUM ACAULE, Ait. Lady's Slipper.

HYDROCHARIDACEiE. — Frog's-bit Family.

Vallisneria SPIRALIS, L. Eelgrass.

IRIDACEiE.— Iris Family.

Iris versicolor, L. Blue Flag.

„ PRISMATICA, Piirsh. Slender Flag.
SISYRINCHIUM xVNCEPS, Cav. Blue-eyed grass.

AMARYLLIDACE.(E.— Amaryllis Family.
Hypoxis erecta, L. Star Grass.

LILIACEiE.— Lily Family.

Smilax ROTUNDIFOLIA, L. Greenbrier.

HERBACEA, L. Carrion-Flower.
Asparagus officinalis, L.

POLVGONATUM BIFLORUM, i?//. Smaller Solomon's Seal.
Smilacina RACEMOSA, Desf. False Spikenard.

STELLA ta, Desf.
Maianthemum Canadense, Desf. Low Solomon's Seal.
Allium vineale, L. Garlic.

Ornithogalum UMBELLAtum, L. Star of Bethlehem.
LILIUM Philadelphicum. Wild Orange-Red Lily.

Canadense, L. Yellow Lily.
ErythroNIUM Americanum, Ker. Dogtooth Violet.
Oakesia sessilifolia, Watson. Bellwort.

UVULARIA PERFOLIATA.

Medeola VIRGINIANA, L. Cucumber Root.
TRILLIUM CERNUUM, L. Nodding Trillium.

PONTEDERIACE.^. — Pickerel-weed Family.

PONTEDERIA CORDATA, L. Pickerel-weed.

XYRIDACEiE. — Yellow-eyed Grass Family.

XyriS FLEXUOSA, Muhl. Yellow-eyed Grass.

TYPHACEiE. — Cat-tail Family.
Typha LATIFOLIA, L. Cat-tail.
Sparganium SIMPLEX, Hudson. Bur Reed.

ARACEiE. — Arum Family.

Aris^MA TRIPHYLLUM, For. Jack-in-the-pulpit.
Symplocarpus fcetidus, Salis. Skunk Cabbage.
Acorus calamus, L. Sweet Flag.

550 APPENDIX.

LEMNACEiE. — Duckweed Family.
LEMNA TRISULCA, L. Duckweed.

ALISMACE.^. — Water-plantain Family.
Sagittaria variabilis, Englm. Arrowhead.

GRAMINEiE. — Grass Family.
PhleuM PRATENSE, L. Herd's Grass, Timothy.
AgropyrUM REPENS, Beaur. Couch, Quitch, or Quick Grass.

EQUISETACEyE. — Horsetail Family.
Equisetum ARVENSE, L. Horsetail.

FILICES. — Ferns.

POLYPODIUM VULGARE, L. Polypody.
Pteris AQUILINA, L. Brake.

ASPLENIUM EBENEUM, Ait.

FILIX-FCEMINA, Bernh.
Phegopteris hkxagonopteka. Beech Fern.
aspidium thelipteris.

Noveboracense,

spinulosum.

CRISTA rUM.
MARGIN ALE.

acrostichoides. Christmas Fern.
Onoclea SENSIBILIS. Sensitive Fern.
DiCKSONIA punctiloba (pilosiuscula).
OSMUNDA REGALIS. Flowering Fern.

„ Claytoniana.

„ CINNAMOMEA. Cinnamon Fern.

LYCOPODIACEiE. — Club Moss Family.
Lycopodium lucidulum, L. Club Moss.
„ OBSCURUM,A. Ground Pine.

„ CLAVATUM. L. Club Moss.

„ COMPLANATUM, L. Spreading Moss, Evergreen.

FUNGUSES.

1. ASCOMYCETES.

Helvelle^.
Leotia lubrica.
Morchella conica. Conical Aforel.

2. BASIDROMYCETES.

(i) Scleroderma. Hard-rind Puff Ball.

Scleroderma vulgare. Common Hard-rind Puff Ball,

(2) Lycoperde^.

Lycoperdon giganteum. Giant Puff Ball.

,, cyathiforme. Cup-shaped Puff Hall.

,, sacchatum.

„ plumbeum. Lead-colored Puff Ball.

Geaster.

(3) Phalloide/E.

Ithyphallus impudicus. Fetid Wood Witch.
Mutinus caninus.

irrhxnix. 551

BASI DROMYCETES — continued.

(4) CLAVARIE^. Coral Mushrooms,

Sparassis crispa.
Clavaria amethyslina.

„ fusiformis.

,, pistillaris.

(5) HYDNE/E. Spine Mushrooms.

Hydnum imbricatum.

„ repandum. Hedgehog Mushroom.

(6) POLYPORE^. Pore Mushrooms.

Daedalea unicolor.

Polyporus betulini.

,, Curtisii.

sulphureus. Sulphury I'ohporus.
Boletus edulis. Edible Boletus.
felleus. Bitter Boletus.
scaber. Rough-stem Boletus.
„ ornatipes.
„ brevipes.

granulus. Granulated Boletus.
punctipes.
,, pictus.

alveolatus,
Boletinus porosus.
Strobilomyces strobilaceus.

(7) Agaricine^. Agarics.

Melanosporse. {Spores black or dark gray.)
Coprinus comatus. Shaggy Coprinus.
,, atramentarius. Inky Coprinus.
„ micaceous. Glistening Coprinus.
„ ovatus.
Porphyrosporas. {Spores purple-black.)
Hypoloma sublateritius.
Agaricus campester. Common Mushroom.
„ arvensis. Horst Mushroom.
Ochrosporoe. {Spores bright brown or bright rust color.)
Cortinarius cinnainomeus. Cinnamon Cortinarius.
,, „ var. semisangumeus.

violaceus. Violet Cortinarius,
alboviolaceus.
,, ccerulescens.

Entoloma sereceuni.
Leucospor*. {Spores whitish or pale yellow.)

Hygrophorus niimatus. Vermilioti Mushroom.
niveus.
„ conicus. Red J uice Mushroom.

Lactarius chrysoirheus.

piperatus. Fiery Milk Mushrootn.
,, vellerius.

„ volemus.

Clitocybe laccata. Waxy Clitocybe.
Russula heterophylla.
„ furcata.
,, foetens.

„ emetica. lunette Mushroom,
,, lepida.
Collybia radicata. Rooting Mushroom.
Marasmius oreades. Fairy Ring Mushroom.
,, urens.

„ peronatus.

,, naucoria.

Tricholoma columbetta.

Armillaria mellea. Honey-colored Mushroom,
Lepiota procera. Parasol Mushroom,

552 APPENDIX.

BASI DROM YCETES — continued.

(7J AgaricinE/E. Agarici — continued.

Leucosporee. ( Spores whitish or pale yellow.)
Lepiota Badhami.

„ naucinoides. Smooth Mushroom.
„ cepsestipes.
„ metulaespora.
„ cristata.
Amanitopsis vaginata.
y Amanita phalloides. Death Cup.

„ mappa.
„ muscaria. Fly Agaric.

MEASUREMENTS OF TREES.

BY DR. O. H. HOWK.

The following measurements, except the first, were made in 1898 and represent
the circumference of each tree three teet above the ground.

The elm which formerly stood close to South Main Street, near the Scituate
line, in front of the Bates Estate (formerly the estate of Cummmgs Lincoln), was
felled October 7, 1892, as it was somewhat decayed and unsafe. It was probably
■the largest tree in town. A currant bush grew in a crotch of the tree about ten feet
•above the ground and ripened its currants yearly for more than thirty years. Cir-
■cumference of tree, 189 inches.

Elm, North Main Street, in rear of residence of Thomas L. Bates, 151 inches.

Ash, King Street, in front of house of James W. Nichols, 129 inches.

Ash stump (hollow and now used as a flowerpot), South Main Street, in front of
house of C. James Nichols, 163 inches.

Buttonw-ood, Highland Avenue, near the pond, 138 inches.

Buttonwood, Beechwood Street, north of Bound Brook, 120 inches.

Beech, Beechwood Street, south of Bound Brook, 88 inches.

Holly, Atlantic Avenue, near Sandy Cove, 49 inches.

Hemlock, in rear of Beechwood Church, 97 inches.

Black birch, in same locality as last, 75 inches.

Tupelo, Jerusalem Road, in grounds of George W. Preston, 87 inches.

Tupelo, in Mohawk Valley (a very handsome specimen), 62 inches.

Nettle tree, Jerusalem Road, in grounds of Ellis Motte, 79 inches. This tree
{Celtis occidentalis,'L..) is somewhat rare, but grows abundantly and in thickets
overspreading the rocky lands near Pleasant Beach.

Cedar, Jerusalem Road, near the Tolman cottages, 78 inches. This old cedar
is quite a landmark in the locality and is interesting because it shows by its leaning
position the effect of the severe winds which prevail on our coast in winter.

INDEX OF PERSONS

The following names appear in this book. In several cases one name stands for more than
one person, and occasionally one person is represented by more than one name.

Abbott, C. C, 74. Bates

Adams, Benjamin, 304. 494

Adams, John Quincy, 440. Bates

Adams, Samuel, 283, 352. Bates

Ainslee, Henry, 502. Bates

Ainslee, John, 424, 482. 524.

Ainslee, Peter E., 502. Bates

Alld, Benjamin, 304. 149,
Alexander, Barton S., 471, 473, 474, 476, 478, Bates

479, 482. Bates

Allen, Bozoan, 115, 139. Bates

Amos, Edward, 275. Bates

Andrews, Deacon, 276. Bates
Andrews, Joseph, 108, log, 120, 150, 270, 276. Bates

Andrews, Richard, 120. Bates

Andrews, Thomas, 108, 136, 149, 188. Bates

Antoine, Manuel F., 426, 427. Bates

Antoine, Frank F., 482. Bates

Appleton, F"rancis P., 529. Bates

Arnold, Benedict, 291, 297, 309. Bates

Arnold, Daniel P., 494. Bates

Arnold, Edward H., 494. Bates

Arnold, George, 494. 444,

Aspinwall, William, 120. Bates

Atwood, David, 304. Bates

Austin, Jonas, 139. 405

533.

Babcock, Daniel, 507. • Bates

Bacon, Josiah, 402. Bates
Bacon, William F., 394.

Bacon, Judah, 326. Bates

Bailey, Amasa, 388. 422

Bailey, Caleb, 388, 402. Bates

Bailey, Cotton, 403. 200

Bailey, Job, 403, 419. - 493.

Bailey, Noah, 355. Bates

Bailey, Polly, 387. 240

Bailey, William, 275. Bates
Baker, Nathaniel, 130, 133, 136, 139, 140, 149. Bates

Baker, Nicholas, in, 134, 149. Bates

Baker, William, 502. Bates

Bancroft, Major, 271. Bates

Barber, Joseph, 185. Bates

Barker, Francis, 252, 276. Bates

Barker, Elisha, 420. Bates

Barker, John, 445. Bates

Barker, Joshua, 276. Bates

Barnes, Albert F., 494. Bates

Barnes, Benjamin, 333. Bates

Barnes, Cornelius, 275. Bates

Barnes, Leavit, 403. Bates

Barnes, John, 355, 502. Bates

Barnes, Joseph, 294, 344. 458

Barnes, Otis v., 444. Bates

Barnes, Thomas, 136, 137, 139, 149. Bates

Barrett, Lawrence, 320, 399, 529. Bates

Barron, C. W., 320, 399. Bates

Bates, Abigail, 275, 387. Bates

Bates, Abner, 263, 275, 280, 294, 296, 337, 502. 276

Bates, Adna, 287, 296, 297, 321, 322, 502. 325
Bates, Ambrose, 294, 296, 297, 298, 299, 301, Bates

302, 390. Bates

Behi, 354, 386, 388, 398, 400, 419, 420,

495..

Benjamin, 149, 162.

Caleb L., 497.

Charles S., 43, 51, 166, 330, 517, 523,

Clement, 108, 109, in, 134, 136, 139,
150, i5i, 162.
Cornelius, 298.
Cyrus H. , 497.

Daniel, 239, 321, 337, 370, 386, 403.
David, 214, 229, 238, 258, 280.
Deborah N., 519.
Elisha, 263, 275, 287, 304.
Enos, 344, 388, 403.
Francis L., 533.
Frederic, 279, 444.
George, 354.
Helen A., 503.
Henry, 444, 528.
Isaac, 242, 256.

James, 150, 161, 162, 256, 263, 287,
492.

Jazamiah, 337.

John, 253, 256, 337, 344, 348, 351, 403,
419,424,427,432, 433, 445, 498, 501,

John Warren, 521.

Jonathan, 246, 276, 287, 293, 297, 304,
334,336, 354, 386.

Jonathan B., 344, 398, 400, 419, 420,
423. 424. 520.

Joseph, 149, 183, 184,185, 194, 198,
239, 246, 263, 276, 289, 292, 325, 386,

Joshua, 176, 185, 194, 202, 2X1, 212,

242, 245, 249, 263, 275, 285, 344, 403.

Josiah, 287, 298.

Laban, 337, 344, 523.

Levi, 293, 296, 393, 519, 521, 533.

Lincoln, 492.

Lorenzo, 460, 462, 503.

Loring, 461, 463, 503, 533.

Lot Webster, 521, 533.

Luke, 304.

Maria, 370.

Martin, 528.

Mercy, 387.

Mordecai, 263, 275, 280, 344.

Nathaniel, 275, 280, 293, 296.

Nehemiah, 263.

Newcomb, 344,349. 3Si, 354,355,456.

533-

Obediah, 337, 344.

Paul, 345, 370,420.

Phineas, 337, 344, 388.

Philander, 521,533.

Samuel, 149, 216, 222, 239, 246, 253,

285, 297, 312, 313, 319, 320, 321, 322,

326, 327, 336, 337, 354, 441, 456, 523.

Simeon, 279.

Solomon, 245, 262, 275.

553

554

INDEX OF PERSONS.

Bates, Sukey, 387.

Bates, Thomas, 256, 460.

Bates, Thomas Lincoln, 256.

Bates, Warren, 439, 520, 527.

Bates, William, 245, 296, 378, 420.

Bates, Zealous, 287, 293, 296, 332, 334, 372,

413, 444, 5?o. .
Battles, Benjamin, 337.
Battles, David, 344.
Battles, Edward, 185, 239, 245, 275.
Battles, Ephraim, 275, 287.
Battles, Jared, 287, 293, 296.
Battles, Joseph, 276, 280, 503.
Beal, Abel, 276, 292, 344, 383.
Beal, Abigail, 387.
Beal, Adam, 275.
Beal, Albert, 442.
Beal, Andrew, 250, 304.
Beal, Benjamin, 263, 276, 310.
Beal, Caleb, 150, 338, 344.
Beal, Christopher, 338.
Beal, Daniel, 265.
Beal, David, 334, 351, 370, 386.
Beal, Ebenezer, 244, 265, 269, 276, 277, 278.
Beal, George, 438, 439, 440, 520.
Beal, Herbert O., 515.
Beal, Hezekiah, 334.
Beal, Jacob, 269, 279, 296.
Beal, James, 491.
Beal, Jeremy, 147, 149, 179.
Beal, John, 135, 139, 149, 179, 196, 214, 246,

248, 263, 276, 323, 337, 344, 346, 355, 386.
Beal, Jonathan, 236, 242, 263, 276.
Beal, Joshua, 150, 275, 287, 292.
Beal, Lazarus, 179, 195, 215, 239, 240, 258,

263, 267, 272, 276, 285, 299, 375.
Beal, Nathaniel, 150.
Beal, Obediah, 242, 276, 279, 292, 293, 294,

295, 296, 304.
Beal, Polly, 387.
Beal, Robert, 344, 498.
Beal, Sally, 387.
Beal, Samuel, 287, 492.
Beal, Seth, 338.
Beal, Solomon J., 533.
Beal, Thomas, 276.
Beal, William, 501.
Beauchamp, John, 120.
Beaunard, Jean Philip, 304.
Beecher, Lyman, 285.
Bennett, Charles Frederic, 328, 437, 489.
Beverly, Lennox, 184.
Bigelow, Albert S., 44, 51.
Bigelow, Joseph S., 152,515, 524.
Binney, Spencer, 333.
Bixby, Abraham, 150.
Blackmer, Salisbury, 326.
Blanchard, Edward, 528.
Blossom, Thomas D., 504.
Boardman, William, 387.
Bonney, Elijah, 308.
Bourne, Charles P., 444.
Bourne, Elisha, 326.
Bourne, Elias W., 497.
Bourne, Eliza, 387.
Bourne, Ezekiel, 488, 489.
Bourne, Henry, 312.
Bourne, Newcomb, 263.
Bourne, Richard, 471, 477.
Bourne, Thomas, 18, 275, 285, 291, 292, 334,

348, 355, 386, 420.
Bouv^, James H., 524.
Bowels, John, 304.
Bowker, Joseph, 428, 431.

Brackett, Richard, 131, 132.

Bradbury, Jonathan, 271.

Bradford, Alden, 274.

Bradford, George, 444.

Bradford, William, 90, 122, 124, 126, 130.

Braman, Grenville D., 515.

Braman, G. T. W., 527, 529.

Bremes, Pompey, 276.

Brennock, Michael, 460, 462, 503.

Brennock, W. J., 524.

Bridgham, Charles B., 504.

Briggs, Abner, 370.

Briggs, Benjamin, 321, 326.

Briggs, Elizabeth, 370.

Briggs, George, 403.

Briggs, Joseph, 294, 344, 419, 444,

Briggs, Seth, 298.

Briggs, Thomas, 337.

Briggs, Walter, 132, 133, 235.

BVown, Amos, 287, 304.

Brown, Bela, 423.

Brown, Garvin, 304.

Brown, Hepsibah C, 387.

Brown, John, 280, 281, 288, 295, 307, 311,

312, 360, 361, 364, 365, 394, 506.
Brown, Nichols, 304.
Brown, Samuel, 385, 386, 436, 438, 535.
Brown, Sylvanus, 520.
Brown, Timothy W., 520.
Brown, Washington, 529.
Bryant, Henry, 504.
Buck, James, 136.
Buck, William E., 394.
Buckland, William, 139.
Bullard, Mr., 394.
Burbank, Charles, 39.
Burbank, Ephraim, 344.
Burbank, John, 205, 2x4, 246, 263, 276, 293,

296, 333. 337,.344. 365-
Burbank, Leavit, 338, 344,378.
Burbank, Robert T., 159, 188, 222, 232, 254,

440.
Burbank, Timothy, 338.
Burgoyne, Gen., 298, 299,300, 303.
Burr, Elisha, 275.
Burr, Isaac, 263, 276, 287, 293.
Burr, John, 275.
Burr, Jonathan, 275.
Burr, Joshua, 263, 276.
Burr, Samuel, 275.
Burr, Simon, 136, 139, 149, 150.
Burr, Thomas, 275.
Burrage, W. C, 524.
Burton, Edward, 139.
Burton, Margaret, 149.

Cabot, John, 93.

Cabot, Sebastian, 93.

Canterbury, Cornelius, 149, 150, 163, 164.

Carl, William R., 495.

Carpenter, John, 445.

Caswell, E. J., 394.

Chamberlin, Henry, 137, 149, 158.

Champlain, Samuel de, 94.

Chapman, William, 136.

Charles I, II, 126, 140, 145.

Chatelaine, 385.

Cheever, Marion, 522.

Chickatabut, 144.

Chubbuck, Nathaniel, 149.

Chubbuck, Thomas, 139, 149.

Church, Joseph, 149, 150.

Church, Saraii, 212.

Church, Thomas, 212.

INDEX OF PERSONS.

555

Clapp, Abijah, 263.

Clapp, Paul, 403.

Clapp, Thomas, 136.

Clark, B. C, 482, 524, 529.

Clark, Calvin, 528.

Clark, John, 496.

Clark, Thomas W., 528.

Cockerum, William, 136.

Codman, John, 528.

Cole, William R.,506.

Collier, Bozworth, 294, 296.

Collier, Christopher, 445.

Collier, E. Pomeroy, 133, 515, 521.

Collier, George, 400.

Collier, Mary, 387.

Collier, Moses, 147, 150.

Collier, James, 326, 337, 400, 402, 403, 419,

427, 490.
Collier, Sarah, 519.
Collier (Widow), 139.
Collier, William, 294.
Collins, George W., 520.
Collins, John, 325.
Connelly, William, 304.
Connor, Morris, 501.
Cook, John, 473, 476, 479.
Cornwallis, Gen., 286, 309, 311, 312.
Cousens, Charles A., 443, 444.
Couillard, David J., 496.
Couillard, William J., 503.
Crane, Franklin Joseph, 488.
Creed, John, 344, 403, 405.
Creed, Levi, 432, 503.
Creed, William V., 405, 413, 442, 443.
Crocker, Uriel, 453.
Crowley, Abraham, 326.
Crosby, Prof. William O., 22-51.
Cunningham, Charles, 528.
Cunningham, Edward, 529.
Curtis, Robert L., 503.
Gushing, Abel, 244, 269.
Gushing, Benjamin, 275, 291-296.
Gushing, Beza, 275.
Gushing, Calvin, 279-281, 287.
Gushing, David, 338.
Gushing, Daniel, 106, 137, 141-149, 236.
Gushing, Isaiah, 275.
Gushing, Henry, 444.
Gushing, Jacob, 275.

Gushing, Job, 287, 336, 337, 344, 354, 405, 533.
Gushing, Joseph, 275.
Gushing, Peter, 275, 296.
Gushing, Matthew, 134, 136, 139, 141, I42,

145, 146, 150, 170.
Gushing, Samuel, 244,246,248, 257,258,262,

275.1 361, 377. 420.
Gushing, Solomon, 263, 269, 275.
Gushing, Stephen, 275.
Gushing, Theophilus, 270, 275, 333.
Gushing, Timothy, 276, 296, 312.
Gutting, Clark, 444.
Gutter, W. G.,524.

Damon, Henry, 419.

Davenport, Mrs. Geo., 295.

Davis, Charles F., 496.

Davis, Joseph R., 498.

Deane, Henry, 337.

Decatur, Admiral, 342.

Dillano, Samuel, 337.

Dispereau, Nathaniel, 304.

Dinsmore, John H., 502.

Doane, Elisha, 261, 277, 314, 317, 318, 320-

326, 329-333, 338, 348, 384-386, 396, 485,

525. 535.

Doane, Mrs. Elisha, 365.

Doane, James G., 344, 354,387,400, 402, 403,

405. 419. 420, 445, 447, 531, 533.
Doane, Maria, 387, 388.
Doane, Henry, 344, 427.
Doane, J. Foster, 485-487.
Doane, William E., 519.
Druce, Vincent, 139.
Dunbar, Elisha, 292.
Dunbar, Obed, 287.
Dunbar, Robert, [50.
Dunster, Samuel K., 490.

Eames, Anthony, 108, 1 14, 115, 134, 135, 139.

Eames, Mark, 137.

Eddy, William, 423, 424.

Edwards, Joseph, 431.

Eldredge, Bani, 402.

Eldredge, Samuel, 400.

Elwell, David, 402.

Endicott, Jane, 519.

Endicott, John, 123, 124, 126, 130, 140.

Eunice, George, 427.

Ennice, Joseph, 427.

Enos, Manuel, 427.

Enos, Joseph, 426, 427.

Everett, Edward, 481, 482.

Ewell, Gershom, 185, 188.

Farrar, John, 139, 149, 171, 183-185, 194.

Farrar, Thomas, 77, 370.

Fearing, Elijah, 276.

Fearing, Israel, 149.

Fearing, Thomas, 332.

Fearing, John, 112, 139, 149, 275.

Ferguson, Bill, 439.

Field, Frank A., 504.

Fillmore, George H., 394.

Fish, George A., 496.

Fish, Joseph, 494.

Fisher, Joshua, 150-155, 532.

Fitts, Calvin R., 507.

Flint, Jacob, 96, 193, 194, 316, 318, 334, 352,

367, 369, 506.
Flint, Willard, 355.
Foulsam, John, 136, 142.
Fowle, Rev. John, 359, 506.
Fox, Gapt. Philip, 325.
Franklin, John, 185.
Fratus, Joseph E. , 427.
French, William B., 394.
Fuller, Warren, 491.

Gage, Gen., 284, 288.

Gannett, Matthew, 167.

Gannett, Freeman, 419.

Gannett, Seth, 275.

Gates, Stephen, 139.

Gales, Gen., 299, 300, 301.

George HI, 282, 283, 303.

Gerrish, Col., 271.

Gibbs, Henry, 137, 149.

Gibbs, Thomas O. S., 497.

Gill, Thomas, 137, 149.

Oilman, Edward, 136.

Gookin, Daniel, 79-84.

Godfrey, Zebina, 424.

Gould, Edward, 139.

Gray, Prof. Asa, 62.

Grant, Charles, 529.

Groce, Leander W., 491.

Gross, Charles A., 497, 524, 533, 535.

Grozer, John, 326.

Guy, Thomas, 304,

556

INDEX OF PERSONS.

Hall, Abraham, 344 400, 427.

Hall, Allen, 388.

Hall, Abner, 403.

Hall, George, 338, 344, 402, 403, 423, 424.

Hall, James, 216, 263, 276,285,286,290,293,

3°7. 3io> 336-
Hall, Isaac, 344, 403, 422-424.
Hall, Mary, 387.
Hall, Henry, 413.

Hall, Samuel, 209, 400, 403, 419, 499.
Hancock, Horace, 520.
Hancock, John, 307, 352.
Hammond, Thomas, 108, in, 134, 139.
Hatherly, Timothy, 120, 121, 133.
Hawke, Matthew, 136, 139, 141, 150, 210.
Hawkins, Capt. John, 93.
Harlow, Francis, 169.
Harris, Thomas, 337, 344.
Harris, James, 337.
Harris, William, 496.
Harrington, Nathan, 394.
Harrington, Col. Samuel, 394.
Hatch, Joshua, 419.
Hardwick, Henry C, 492.
Haskell, Alfred, 496.
Harmon, David, 298.
Hayden, Thomas O., 494.
Hayden, Solomon J., 502.
Hayden, John G., 492, 502.
Hayden, Deborah, 387.
Hayden, Joseph, 388.
Hayward, Gideon, 276, 278, 281, 287.
Hayward, Samuel, 344, 345.
Heath, William, 123.
Hersey, James, 149, 210, 211.
Hersey, William, 134, 139, 150, 166.
Hersey, Joshua, 210, 211, 270.
Hersey, Jacob, 276.
Hersey, David, 298.
Hett, Thomas, 136.
Hewitt, Ephraim, 149.
Hewitt, Thomas, 136, 139, 142, 150.
Henry, Harrison, 494.
Hervey, James, 393, 394.
Higginson, Waldo, 524.
Hilliard (Widow), 139, 150.
Higgins, Asa, 326.
Hobart, Edmund, 102, 103, 108, no, 114,

139. i49i 170-
Hobart, John Jacob, 241.
Hobart, Joshua, 103, 117, 130, 133, 134, 142-

149, 170, 173.
Hobart, Thomas, 103, 139, 149.
Hobart, Josiah, 150.
Hobart, Peter, 104, 108, 115, 116, 117, 118,

139, 140, 149, 166, ig6.
Hobart, Nehemiah, 196, 198, 239, 241, 249,

255. 357. 369, 506.
Homes, Henry, 370.
Horswell, Francis, 185.
HoUingsworth, Zachary T. , 236, 524.
Holbrook, Samuel, 374, 375.
Howe, Gen., 293.
Howe, John C., 17, 528.
Howe, Oliver H., Dr., 49, 242.
Hudson, Ebenezer, 217.
Hudson, Frost, 390.
Hudson, Asa, 345.
Hudson, Joseph, 250, 276, 292.
Hudson, Daniel, 308.
Hudson, Hezekiah, 276, 292.
Hudson, Elijah, 296.
Hudson, Thomas, 76.
Hughes, John, 150, 246.

Humphrey, Anna, 276.
Humphrey, George, 287.
Humphrey, Jonathan, 338.
Humphrey, Micah, 281.
Humphrey, Peter, 228.
Humphrey, Thomas, 228, 229.
Hunt, S., 431.
Hutchinson, J., 274.
Hutchinson, Thomas, 267.
Hyde, Henry D., 529.
Hyland, Isaiah, 419.

Ibrook, Richard, 136.
Ide, George E. W., 504.
Ingram, David, 93.

Jackson, Charles T., 529.

Jacob, Benjamin, 275, 287, 294.

Jacob, Nicholas, 103, 108, 109, in, 114, 130,

133. 134, 135. 138-142-
Jacob, John, 133, 141, 142, 145, 150, 160, 1D9,

170, 176, 183, 185, 193, 196-200, 202, 206,

222, 239, 244, 248, 269, 440, 483.
Jacobs, C. F., 394.
Jacobs, Joseph, 150.
Jacobs, Samuel, 172, 209.
James, Christopher, 327, 332, 334, 384-386,

390, 438.
James, Ebenezer, 344.
James, Eleazer, 287, 344, 348, 353.
James, Elijah, 275, 387.
James, Francis, 136, 139, 149, 253.
Fames, Galen, 312, 334, 338, 383.
James, Hannah, 334, 388.
James, John B., 344.
James, Josiah, 344.
James, Philip, 136, 244, 263, 275.
James, Thomas, 185, 18S, 194, ig8, 214, 246

253, 256, 276, 344.
James, Samuel, 181, 255.
Jason, Joseph, 426.
Jenkins, Betsy, 387.
Jenkins, Luther, 419, 460.
Jenkins, Sally, 387.
Jepson, Micah, 246, 361.
Johnson, Humphrey, 147, 150.
Johnson, Thomas, 139.
Johnson, William B., 484.
Jones, Eliphalet, 529.
Jones, Joseph, 149.
Jones, Robert, 139, 150.
Joslin, Abraham, 139.
Joslin, Thomas, 139.
Joseph, Antoine, 427.
Josselyn, John, 88.
Joy, Abner, 212, 276, 325, 326.
Joy, Amos, 212, 245, 262.
Joy, Asa, 338, 344.
Joy, Benjamin, 296.

Joy, Caleb, 212, 263, 275, 279, 293, 296, 338.
Joy, Deacon, 275.
Joy, Elisha, 298, 337
Joy, John, 364.
Joy, Jared, 284, 287.
Joy, Joseph, iso, 338.
Joy, Melzer, 287, 304.
Joy, Prince, 200, 242, 245, 256, 361.
Joy, Thomas, 149.

Kane, Thomas, 496.
Keating, John, 502.
Kent, Abel, 263, 275, 285, 291, 297, 314, 315,

337i 348, 382, 398, 400, 525.
Kent, Ebenezer, 185, 198, 212, 242, 245, 256.

INDEX OF PERSONS.

557

Kent, John, 456.

Kent, Polly, 387.

Kent, Sally, 387.

Kilburn, William, 400.

Kilburn, Aquila, 444.

Kilby, Gushing, 246, 263, 275, 380.

Kilby, John, 246, 275, 287.

Kilby, Richard, 296.

Kilby, Samuel, 292, 296.

King, Elizabeth, 241.

King, Manuel, 444.

Kneeland, Samuel, 529.

Knight, W. H.,394.

Knowlton, F. W., 394.

Knox, Henry, 293.

Lambert, Henry, 292.

Lambert, Isaac, 344.

Lane, Andrew, 136, 149.

Lane, Ebenezer, 276, 306, 307.

Lane, Eli, 294.

Lane, George, 139, 149, 276.

Lane, Josiah, 149.

Lane, Matthew, 137.

Langley, John, 150.

Langer, Richard, 137.

Lazell, John, 139, 149, 235.

Lazell, Stephen, 184, 185, 246.

Lawrence, Amos A., 533.

Lawrence, Josiah, 420, 423, 445, 520.

Lawrence, George A., 419, 520.

Lawrence, Captain, 342.

Lawrence, Oakes, 427, 484.

Lawrence, Thaddeus, 337, 344, 370, 413, 456,

458, 525-
Lathrop, Thomas, 494.
Leavitt, Margaret, 185.
Leavitt, John, 136, 139, 144, 146, 149, 275,

332-
Leavitt, Nehemiah, 361, 378.
Leavitt, Joshua, 275.
Leavitt, Jacob, 333.
Leavitt, Martha, 276.
Leavitt, Elisha, 276.
Leighton, Robert F., 394.
Leithead, George F., 489.
Leonard, Henry, 394.
Lewis, Jacob, 332.

Lewis, John, 210, 313, 314, 318-326, 385.
Lewis, Susanna, 318, 386, 387, 388.
Lewis, Mary, 521.
Lewis, Betsy, 388.
Lincoln, Abraham, Pres., 167, 254, 483-485,

500.
Lincoln, Abraham, 275, 294.
Lincoln, Benjamin, 149, 176, 236, 244, 270,

273, 274, 276, 286, 299, 307, 309, 340.
Lincoln, Caleb, 275.
Lincoln, Alfred W., 498.
Lincoln, Allen, 290, 296.
Lincoln, Cummins, 337.
Lincoln, Christopher, 326.
Lincoln, Daniel, 149, 165-167, 169-177, 183-
188, 193-200, 208, 239-242, 246, 258, 262,
278, 378, 492, 529.
I^incoln, Ebenezer, 275.
Lincoln, Elizabeth, 165, 172, 177.
Lincoln, Enoch, 276.

Lincoln, Ephraim, 276, 292, 296, 334, 390.
Lincoln, Elisha, 246, 276, 338, 344, 386.
Lincoln, Ezekiel, 276, 372, 428.
Lincoln, Francis, 78, 328, 344, 345, 361.
Lincoln, Francis RL, 428, 431.
Lincoln, George, 184, 219, 249, 338, 344.

Lincoln, Galen, 287.

Lincoln, Hezekiah, 165, 177, 185, 194, 256,

263, 276, 333.
Lmcoln, Isaac, 79, 236, 245, 250, 254, 257,

258, 262, 267, 274, 275, 285, 29I, 297, 364.
Lincoln, Isaiah, 78, 337, 340, 344, 345, 349,

350. 405. 428, 431-
Lincoln, Jacob, 245, 250, 275.
Lincoln, James, 167, 223, 307.
Lincoln, Jerome, 287, 296, 305, 334, 336, 354,

365, 383- , . ^
Lincoln, Jedaiah, 276.
Lincoln, Josiah, 276.
Lincoln, Joshua, 149.

Lincoln, Joseph, 173, 338, 344.345. 520, 524.
Lincoln, John, 326, 403, 460.
Lincoln, Lazarus, 298.
Lincoln, Luther, 402,
Lincoln, Louis N., 533.
Lincoln, Martin, 354, 355, 520.
Lincoln, Matthew, 276.
Lincoln, Merriel, 387.
Lincoln, Mary, 370.
Lincoln, Mordecai, 167-169, 174, 183, 185-

188, 245, 250, 251, 254, 263, 275, 483.
Lincoln, Moses, 167.
Lincoln, Obediah, 165, 184, 185, 263, 275,

278, 291, 312, 326, 344.
Lincoln, Persis (Tower), 290.
Lincoln, Priscilla, 167, 370.
Lincoln, Richard, 496.
Lincoln, Samuel, 149, 337.
Lincoln, Sarah, 185, 334.
Lincoln, Solomon, 96, 118, i85.
I^incoln, Susanna, 239.
Lincoln, Silas, 344.
Lincoln, Stephen, 150, 276, 493, 497.
Lincoln, Thomas, 103, 136, 137, 138, 139, 149,

150, 173, 246, 263, 275, 400.
Lincoln, Uriah, 328.
Lincoln, William, 337, 344.
Lincoln, Zenas, 194, 297, 298, 345, 372, 390.
Lindsay, Alexander, 492.
Litchfield, Benjamin, 419, 428.
Litchfield, Caleb, 325.
Litchfield, Charles, 344.
Litchfield, Geo. A., 491.
Litchfield, Festus, 337, 344, 388.
Litchfield, Harvey, 403.

Litchfield, Isaiah, 47, 338, 344, 349, 350, 403.
Litchfield, Joseph W., 502.
Litchfield, Josiah, 188.
Litchfield, James, 262, 275, 293.
Litchfield, Joshua, 428, 429, 431.
Litchfield, Leonard, 402.
Litchfield, Loring, 236.
Litchfield, Lothrop, 337.
Litchfield, Luther, 428, 431.
Litchfield, Meshech, 428.
Litchfield, Noah, 337.
Litchfield, Norton, 402.
Litchfield, Samuel, 403.
Litchfield, William, 419.
Little, James, 387.
Little, Jedidiah, 437, 438, 439.
Little, I>ydia, 387.
Lobdon, Nicholas, 137, 292.
Long, Jeremiah, 423.
Lopans, Roscoe G., 504.
Loring, Daniel, 456.
Loring, Jacob, 184.
Loring, Jonathan, 296.
Loring, Joshua, 329.
Loring, Josiah, 149.

558

INDEX OF PERSONS.

Loring, Thomas, 109, 275.

Lothrop, Anselm, 321, 326, 334, 400.

Lothrop, Bethia, 370.

Lothrop, Caleb, 387, 419, 423, 424, 427, 445,

520. 533-
Lothrop, Clara, 387.
Lothrop, Daniel, 345, 423, 460, 461, 462, 520,

533-
Lothrop, Drusilla, 394.
Lothrop, John, 326, 334, 386.
Lothrop, John Jacob, 321, 326.
Lothrop, Loring, 438.
Lothrop, Peter, 321, 322, 326, 337, 338, 344-

349. 354. 355. 386, 399, 400, 403, 419.
Lothrop, Thomas, 262, 275, 279, 280, 281,

285, 286, 291, 334-338, 388.
Luce, Matthew, 482, 529.
Ludkin, William, 136.
Lyons, David, 500.

Magoon, Elias, 276.

Magoon, Thatcher, 424.

Mann, George, 326.

Manning, F. H., 482.

Mansfield, John, 149.

Mansfield, Joseph, 275.

Mansfield, Jeremiah, 375.

Manson, Capt. Nehemiah, 313.

Manuel, John L., 492.

Malbon, Micajah, 520.

Marble, Abner, 344.

Marble, David, 212, 263, 275.

Marble, Elijah, 444.

Marble, Joseph, 304.

Marble, John, 249, 344.

Marble, Nathaniel, 212.

Marble, Noah, 275.

Marsh, George, 139.

Marsh, Onesipherus, 149, 150.

Marsh, Thomas, 149.

Martin, Antoine, 426.

Martin, Frank F., 427.

Martin, Joseph F., 426.

Mason, John, 150.

Mather, Cotton, 104.

Mayo, William, 520.

McCloud, Joseph, 423.

McFarlin, Perthe, 150, 161, 196.

McNeil, William, 325.

Merrill, Noah, 292.

Merritt, Elisha, 322, 400, 402, 419.

Merrill, Martin, 402.

Merritt, Seth, 275.

Metcalf, Robert, 394.

Minot, Leonard, 488.

Minot, Levi L., 496,

Montcalm, General, 280.

Moore, Martin, 507.

Morey, George T., 493.

Morey, Oliver D., 492.

Morgan, John, 426.

Morton, Thomas, 90.

Morris, William, 400, 403.

Morse, William H., 496.

Munnice, Joseph R., 502.

Murphy, Thomas, 502.

Nash, David, 400.

Neal, Abigail, 275.

Neal, John, 344, 345, 403.

Neal, Jonathan, 245, 262.

Neal, Joseph, 287.

Newcomb, Warren, 502.

Nichols, Aaron, 334, 338, 344,390, 456.

Nichols, Bela, 287, 304, 310.

Nichols, Briton, 298, 308.

Nichols, Caleb, 287, 304, 331-336, 344, 354,

365, 372, 386, 390, 398, 400, 427, 435, 436,
Nichols, Catherine, 276. [52°. 525, 533.

Nichols, Daniel, 167, 276, 285, 287, 296.
Nichols, David, 308, 337, 344, 345.
Nichols, Elias, 344,

Nichols, Elizabeth, 165, 167, 177, 242, 312.
Nichols, Edward, 516.
Nichols, Hannah, 387.
Nichols, Israel, 172, 183-185, 209, 212, 213,

228, 241, 275, 386, 525.
Nichols, Isaac, 344.
Nichols, James H., 51.
Nichols, Jazaniah, 213, 262, 276, 375.
Nichols, John, 338, 344, 386, 435, 436, 524.
Nichols, Joseph, 390.
Nichols, Lois, 387.
Nichols, Lot, 334.
Nichols, Levi, 338, 344, 355, 442.
Nichols, Micah, 263, 275, 279, 280, 281, 292.
Nichols, Naaman, 308, 332, 386.
Nichols, Nathaniel, 165, 172, 185, 229, 239,

277. 287, 310, 334, 336, 338, 344, 354, 376,

377. 386, 455-
Nichols, Noah, 246, 263,276, 279, 298,304,

310.336.
Nichols, Obediah, 217, 328, 338.
Nichols, Paul, 337.
Nichols, Peter, 287, 334.
Nichols, Polly, 387.
Nichols, Roger, 228.
Nichols, Susanna, 387.

Nichols, Thomas, 139, 149, 216, 217, 263, 276.
Nichols, Warren, 344.
Nickerson, Elijah, 337, 351, 426.
Nickerson, George, 460, 462, 524, 533.
Norton, Capt. John, 210.
Nott, Dawes, 501.

Oakes, Benjamin F., 490.

Oakes, Haugh, 287.

Oakes, Joshua, 244, 288.

Oakes, Josiah, 287.

Oakes, Levi, 308, 309, 337, 345.

Oakes, Samuel, 288, 312.

Oakes, Urian, 263, 275, 279, 285, 325.

Orcutt, Ebenezer, 244, 246, 275, 287.

Orcutt, Ephraim, 287.

Orcutt, Hosea, 263, 279, 344, 400, 403.

Orcutt, Ignatius, 275, 279, 293.

Orcutt, John, 185, 194, 198, 202,244,364, 501.

Orcutt, Luke, 276, 287, 294.

Orcutt, Samuel, 211, 212, 248, 375.

Orcutt, Thomas, 185.

Orcutt, Warren, 419.

Osgood, Rev. Joseph, 236, 255, 366, 367, 391,

431, 436, 449, 506, 508, 514, 517, 521.
Otis, Abigail, 388.
Otis, Rowland, 400.
Otis, Isaac, 240.
Otis, James, 281.
Otis, John, 135, 139, 150.

Packard, Alpheus, 337.
Page, John, 137.
Palmer, Alonzo L., 496.
Palmer, John, 139.
Park, William, 123.
Parker, John, in, 413.
Parker, Samuel, 137.
Parker, William, 528.
Parkman, Francis, 278, 280.

INDEX OF PERSONS.

559

Payson, William, 337.
Peck, Joseph, iii, 117.
Peck, Simon, 149, 162.
Peirce, Michael, 136, 1^7, 150, i6o.
Pelby, Forrester A., 486-488.
Perkins, Mr., 394, 529.
Peters, Edward D., 529.
Phillips, Sarah, 275.
Phinney, Isaac, 494.
Phinney, Seth, 337, 345-
Phippeny, David, 136, 137.
Phipps, H. G. O., 393, 506.
Pickett, Aaron, 507.
Pitt, William, 282.
Pitts, Edmond, iii, i39' i49-
Pitts, William, 186.
Poole, Amos L., 490.
Powers, Henry, 502.

Pratt, Aaron, 173-176, 181, 185, 188, 196, 212,
231,239,241, 243, 245, 249, 250, 258, 275,
293, 312, 326, 344, 380, 400, 441.
Pratt, Benjamin, 175, 337.
Pratt, Betsey, 387.
Pratt, Caleb, 288, 293, 296, 345.
Pratt, Charles A., 493.
Pratt, Charles H., 489-
Pratt, David, 337.
Pratt, Elijah, 324, 476.
Pratt, Ezekiel, 337, 355-
Pratt, Gershom, 338, 386.
Pratt, Gustavus P., 501.
Pratt, Harriot, 522.
Pratt, Henry, 337, 344> 444> 445-
Pratt, Ira B., 59, 76.
Pratt, Isaac, 444.
Pratt, Jacob, 337, 345-
Pratt, Jaitus, 370.
Pratt, James, 520, 523.

Pratt, Job, 337,344. 345- „

Pratt, John, 243, 263, 275, 279, 327, 337. 33°.

354. 372. 386, 441. 509. 520- ,

Pratt, Jonathan, 164, 212, 242, 245, 262, 275.
Pratt, Lot W.,520.
Pratt, Marshall, 243.
Pratt, Minot, 520.
Pratt, Moses, 337.
Pratt, Nichols, 419, 502, 520.
Pratt, Paul, 393, 522, 533.
Pratt, Peter, 345, 388, 400.
Pratt, Phineas, 99, 173.
Pratt, Robert B., 173, 504.
Pratt, Sarah, 241, 521, 522.
Pratt, Samuel, 386-390, 520.
Pratt, Southward, 337, 344. 387-
Pratt, Thomas, 263, 275, 294, 326, 337, 383.

402.
Pratt, William, 423, 497.
Prentice, Henry, 337, 344, 346-
Prichard, John, 275, 294, 296, 297.
Prichard, Price, 263, 279.
Prichard, Theodore, 47.
Prichard, Oliver, 275, 288.
Prichard, Richard, 288.
Prince, John, 137, 150.
Proctor, John C, 370.
Prouty, Alexander, 442.
Prouty, Andrew H., 432.
Prouty, Bardin A., 492.
Prouty, George H., 491.
Puffer, Rev. Stephen, 505, 508.
Putnam, Henry G., 502.

Randall, William, 497.
Ray, James, 185.

Reed, Rev. F. A., 507, 508.
Remington, Wm. H., 496.
Revere, Paul, 283, 365.
Rich, Zaccheus, 471, 524.
Richards, John J., 493.
Richardson, Alva, 520.
Richardson, Henry, 428.
Richardson, Joseph, 503.
Richardson, Thomas, 528.
Ripley, Charles, 245, 263, 281.
Ripley, Edward F., 515.
Ripley, John, 149, 178.
Ripley, Martin T., 491.
Ripley, Nehemiah, 528.
Ripley, William, 136, 139.
Rogers, Elkanah, 423.
Rogers, Thomas, 400.
Rooney, James, 501.
Russell, Hon. Thomas, 118, 344.
Rust, Henry, 108.

Salvador, Manuel E., 4S2.
Savage, Rev. Jno. W., 507.
Sears, Geo. O., 529.
Sewall, Geo. W., 497.
Shaw, Rev. Josiah C, 318, 366, 367, 506.
Shaw, Robert B., 491.
Shay, James, 490, 494.
Sherley, James, 120.
Silvia, Frank, 427.
Silsbee, Nathaniel D., 529.
Simmons, Eaton, 298.
Simpson, Oliver E., 485, 486.
Skeath, John, 150.
Smith, Francis, 139.
Smith, George, 444.
Smith, Henry, in, 134, 136.
Smith, Capt. John, 25, 78, 93, 95, 97, 98, 102.
Smith, John, 144, 147. i49. 427-
Smith, Joseph, 423, 445, 461, 463, 503.
Smith, Phineas, 325.
Smith, Ralph, 114, 158.
Smith, Thomas, 438, 533.
Smith, William L., 501.

Snow, Ephraim, 326, 341, 401, 427, 458, 460.
Snow, Henry, 229, 326, 400, 402, 403, 445,
458.

Snow, Jane, 519.

Snow, Samuel, 400.

Snow, Samuel T., 413, 529.

Sohier, Wm. D., 208, 528.

Souther, Annie A., 318

Souther, Caleb, 419.

Souther, Daniel, 246, 276.

Souther, Harry W., 535.

Souther, Job, 338.

Souther, Joseph, 185, 187, 245, 272, 275, 288.

Souther, Laban, 417, 423, 424, 427, 445, 453.

Souther, Nathan, 345.

Southward, Oliver, 280.

Southwick, Henry, 326.

Southworth, Theophihis, 337.

Spear, Rev. Samuel, 195, 196.

Spear, Thomas T., 493.

Spooner, George, 492.

Sprague, Anthony, 149.

Sprague, Jacob, 275.

Sprague, William, 139, 149.

Standish, Miles, 99.

Stanley, Arthur, 394.

Staples, William, 304.

Stephenson, Collins, 338.

Stephenson, Elisha, 288, 296.

Stephenson, James, 332.

56o

INDEX OF PERSONS.

Stephenson, Jerome, 275, 280, 281, 285, 296.
Stephenson, Jesse, 245, 275, 285.
Stephenson, John, 228, 240, 245, 257, 262,

267, 275, 277, 337,382.
Stephenson, Luke, 288, 296, 298, 308.
Stephenson, Lusitanus, 275, 281, 296.
Stephenson, Luther, 275, 281, 321, 326, 337,

345, 386, 398, 400, 402, 456, 458, 459, 460.
Stephenson, Solon, 263, 275, 280.
Stephenson, Thomas, 275, 382, 387.
Stetson, Benjamin, 263, 288.
Stetson, George, 413.
Stetson, James, 239, 240, 263.
Stetson, Morgan B., 170, 207, 533.
Stetson, WilHam, 217,345, 525.
Stevens, Rev. Moody A., 507.
Stockbridge, Alexander, 337,- 387.
Stockbridge, Benjamin, 240.
Stockbridge, Penelope, 387.
Stockbridge, Samuel, 315, 321, 322, 326, 387,

420.
St. John, Joseph, 535.
Stoddard, Anna, 370.
Stoddard, Canterbury, 227, 263.
Stoddard, David, 338, 345, 349.
Stoddard, Daniel, 150.
Stoddard, Elijah, 326.
Stoddard, Enoch, 263, 403.
Stoddard, George, 444, 519.
Stoddard, Gezaiah, 184.
Stoddard, James, 263, 275, 284, 287, 288,

292, 294, 304, 321, 322, 336, 354, 387, 398-

400, 420-423, 520, 525.
Stoddard, Jeremiah, 229, 265, 27G.
Stoddard, John, no, 137, 149, 150.
Stoddard, Lincoln, 337.
Stoddard, Lot, 388, 445.
Stoddard, Matthew, 276.
Stoddard, Samuel, 149, 150, 185, 504.
Stoddard, Simeon, 275, 293, 296, 312.
Stoddard, Stephen, 185, 198, 200, 212, 215,

228, ^39, 242, 245, 248, 256, 269, 276, 291,
^ 294, 296, 307.
Stoddard, Thomas, 341, 345, 350, 370, 447,

448.
Stoddard, William, 287, 420.
Stoddard, Zenas, 345, 370,489, 533, 535, 536.
Story, Abel, 419.

Stoughton, Israel, 123, 124, 126, 130.
Stowell, Adam, 387.
Stovi-ell, Samuel, 149.
Stowell, Seth, 298.
Strange, George, 136.
Studley, Andrew J., 496.
Studley, Ezekiel B., 524.
Studley, Dawes, 345, 520.
Studley, Lewis, 345.
Sutton, John, 142, 288, 313, 326.
Sweeney, James M., 497.

Thaxter, John, 144, 145, 149, 169,244.

Thaxter, Joseph, 378.

Thaxter, Samuel, 150.

Thaxter, Thomas, in, 136, 139.

Thayer, Ancil P., 496.

Thayer, William F., 485, 486, 487.

Thayer, Willie F., 501.

Thomas, Frank, 427.

Thomas, John, 419.

Thoreau, Henry D., 464.

Thorndyke, Artemas, 444.

Thorndyke, Septimus, 445.

Thorn, Reuben, 288, 304.

Thome, Joseph, 185.

Tilden, Amos K., 502.

Tilden, Caleb F. B.,493.

Tilden, Charles F., 524, 533.

Tilden, Eustis W., 496.

Tilden, Joseph, 121.

Tilton, Mr., 385.

Tolman, Henry, 529.

Torrey, Sally, 387.

Torrey, Capt. William, 131, 132.

Tower, Abraham, 284,287,321,322, 325, 326,

333.387. 398-400, 402, 403, 533.
Tower, Abraham H., 178, 253, 318, 354, 355,

362, 405, 419, 420, 423, 424, 427, 445, 524,

533-
Tower, Acten, 275.
Tower, Alvan, 490.
Tower, Asa, 338, 345.
Tower, Bethia (Resolution), 243, 290, 306,

387.
Tower, Daniel, 43, 48, 239, 243, 245, 246, 262,

263, 276, 387, 525.
Tower, David, 246,251, 354, 355, 520.
Tower, Edward, 526, 535.
Tower, Edward E., 52, 73, 422, 424, 521, 525.
Tower, Elisha, 245, 278.
Tower, Elizabeth, 177, 214.
Tower, Mrs. Fannie H., 521.
Tower, Francis C, 492.
Tower, George B. N., 492.
Tower, Hezekiah, 177, 178, 185, 205, 214, 246,

251, 254,278.
Tower, Ibrook, 160, 171, 176, 178, 183, 185,

196, 248, 253, 529.
Tower, Isaac, 263, 276, 288, 289, 293, 296,

496.
Tower, James, 460.
Tower, Jesse, 288.

Tower, Job, 246, 263, 276, 279, 355, 520.
Tower, Joanna (Widow), 276.
Tower, John, 136, 139, 141, 142, 149, 177,

185, 263, 276, 292, 493.
Tower, Levi, 52,287, 293, 296, 318, 319, 321-

326, 332-337, 343. 345, 350. 354, 37Z> 385.

387, 390. 398. 400-403, 442, 445, 496.
Tower, Margaret, 177.
Tower, Newcomb B., 533.
Tower, Nichols, 338, 345, 348, 354, 355, 370,

398, 400, 402, 419, 420, 423, 427, 445, 456,

458-461, 476, 524, 533.
Tower, Obediah, 294.
Tower, Patty, 387.
Tower, Prichard, 263, 275.
Tower, Robert, 278.
Tower, Shadrach, 246, 280.
Tower, Thomas, 496, 519.
Tower, Gen. Zealous B., 486, 488.
Towie, Joseph M., 491.
Treat, John A., 493, 494.
Treat, S. Franklin, 493.
Treat, Nathaniel, 17, 413, 415, 471.
Tuck, Jacob, 393, 394.
Tucker, Ann, 149.
Tucker, John, 139, 149.
Turner, Henry J., 520, 533.
Turner, Job, 315, 321, 322, 387.
Turner, John B., 322, 337.
Turner, Nancy, 387.
Turner, Perez, 431.
Turner, Sophia, 3S7.
Turner, Thomas, in.
Tuttle, Henry, 108, in, 112.
Tyler, John, 528.

Underwood, Joseph, 134, 136, 139.

INDEX OF PERSONS.

561

Underwood, Thomas, 108.
Upton, E. C, 520.

Valine, Manuel P., 427.
Veale, William, 63, 217.
V'inal, Cliailes A., 497.
Vinal, Cliuis, 338, 345.
Vinal, Klijah, rgS.
Vinal, Israel C, 444, 503.
Vinal, Howard, 402
Vinal, I^usitanus, 337.
Vinal, Sophia, 387.

Wade, (leorge. 217.

Wallace, Ezekiel, 345, 350, 400.

Wallace, Ezra, 403.

Wallace, Mordecai, 528.

Ward, Samuel, 108.

Ward, Henry, 149.

Warrick, Hezekiah, 276.

Warrick, Jesse, 276, 288.

Warrick, John, 136.

Warrick, Laban, 217, 337.

Washington, Gen. George, 286, 288, 289-293

298, 309, 335, 3 6, 3S2.
Webster, Daniel, 4, 449, 520, 528.
Welch, Charles A., 524.
Wells, Charles V., 4^6.
Wentworth, Edward E., 504.
Weston, Thomas, 99
Wheelwright, Andrew C, 528.
Wheelwright, Caroline, 528.
Wheelwright, Edward, 44, 164, 277, 528.
Wheelwright, Gershom, 288, 296, 337, 345.
Wheelwright, Henry A., 528.
Wheelwright, John, 275, 277, 279, 314, 328

390
Wheelwright, Joseph P., 345.
Wheelwright, Lewis I.., 502.
Wheelwright, Micah, 337.
Wheelwright, Martin, 428.
W'heelwright, Philip, 337, 345.
Wheelwright, Sarah, 528.
Whitcomb, David, 337, 345.
Whitcomb, Israel, 242, 245, 262, 263, 275.
Whitcomb, Jacob, 370.
Whitcomb, Job, 243, 263,275, 293.
Whitcomb, Joseph, 243, 263, 275, 383, 390.
Whitcomb, Lot, 263, 275, 293.
Whitcomb, Nnah, 400.
Whitcomb, Thomas, 520.
White, Thomas, 338.
Whitney, Henry M., 59.
Whiton, Enoch, iSo.

344. 3S7. 4°°.

365, 372>

Whiton, Francis 150.
Whiton, James, 136, 139
Whiton, John, 184.
Whittier, Charles, 492, 495.
Whittier, Leavitt, 495.
Whittier, William, 492, 495.
Whittington, Alfred, 427, 520
Whittington, Hiram, 498.
Whittington, Ophelia, 519.
Whittington, William, 337,

524-
Wilder, Edward, 136, 150.
Willard, Charles H., 427,533,535
Willard, Frank, 394.
Wilbur, Otis S., 504.
Willcntt, Andrew, 403.
Willciitt, Elbridge, 489.
Willcntt, Hannah, 334.
Willcutt, Jesse, 275.
Willcntt, Job, 297.
Willcntt, Joel, 325, 328, 332-334,

437. 455. 458. 461. 507, 525. 535-
Willcutt, John, 212, 245, 262, 275, 296,

334. 338, 344-
Willcutt, Joseph, 276,292, 304, 382, 503.
Willcutt, Lewis, 420, 520.
Willcntt, Lyman D., 497.
Willcutt, Philip, 185, 212, 245.
Willcutt, Thomas, 308, 333, 345.
Willcutt, Wallace, 496.
Willcutt, Warren, 520.
Williams, Alexander, 289, 529.
Williams, Andrew W., 489.
Williams, John, 445.
Williams, Roger, 86, 92.
Williams, Mrs. T. B., 529.
Williston, Charles H., 496.
Wiiliston, Thomas, 494.
Wilson, David, 423, 445.
Wilson, George, 185, 186, 219.
Wilson, John, 350, 403, 445.
Winslow, Edward, 84, 8g, 122-126, 130.
W'inslow, Josiah, 132.
Winthrop, John, it6-ii8, 140.
Wood, General, 280, 281.
Wood, Alfred F.,428, 431.
Wood, Andres, 441.
Wood, Osborne, 520.
Woodcock, William, in, 149.
Woodward, Ralph, 136, 139.
Woodworth, Abigail, 387, 388.
Wright, Prof. Geo. F., 32-52, 74.

Vager, Rev. Granville, 507, 521