USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Hingham > History of the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 22
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Acts passed in 1634, 1635, and 1636 required towns to provide at their own charge a place in which to keep such powder and ammunition as the military authorities should order them to take from Boston, and fixed a penalty for neglect ; commanded all persons to go armed with muskets, powder, and ball, to all public assemblies, and forbade any one going unarmed at any time above a mile from his dwelling-house ; and specifically directed " that the military officers in every town shall provide that the watches be duly kept in places most fit for common safety, and also a ward on the Lord's day, the same to begin before the end of the first month and to be continued until the end of September, and that every person above the age of eighteen years (except magis- trates and elders of the churches) shall be compellable to this
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- service either in person or by some substitute to be allowed by him that hath the charge of the watch or warde for that time, with punishment for disobedience." The settlement of 1633, then called Bare Cove, was in July, 1635, erected into a plantation, which carried the right of sending deputies to the General Court ; and in September of the latter year the name was changed to Hingham.
House lots were granted to some fifty individuals in June and September, and other lands for the purposes of pasturage and tillage. The former were situated mainly upon Town, now North Street, but during the year the settlement was extended to Broad Cove Lane, now Lincoln Street, and in 1636 the grants were upon what is now South Street and upon Batchelor's Row, now the northerly part of Main street. And these early beginnings of our modern streets comprised the whole of the little town, with its two hundred odd inhabitants, when in 1637 it first became a duty to furnish a quota of her sons for the public defence.
It was the second year of the Pequod War, and Massachusetts- which had already been acting with Connecticut - was to raise an additional force of one hundred and twenty men, to be placed under the command of Capt. Israel Stoughton ; this number was subsequently increased to one hundred and seventy. Of these, six were men from our town. We unfortunately know the names of none of them, but we can follow in imagination the toilsome march of the little army of which our forefathers formed a small part, as it slowly and painfully made its way through the virgin thickets, almost impenetrable with the stiff, unbending, knarled scrub oak, the matted masses of luxuriant-growing and lacerating. horse-brier, beautiful in its polished green, and the almost tropi- cally developed poison-sumac, seductive in its graceful form and rich coloring; through the great forests, dark with the uncut forms of the towering pines ; and through the swamps of the coun- try around Narragansett Bay, with the rich, black soil of the bot- toms, and the majestic white cedars rising, like great sentries of the red man, far into the air ; and thence up towards the Mystic, spreading widely over the country between. We need not re- hearse the details too minutely here ; we know the story, - the Indians defeated, their tribe destroyed, and a day of thanksgiving appointed ; this time October 12, when it was also ordered that the various towns should " feast " their soldiers, - an injunction doubtless faithfully obeyed, here at least.
From the time of the Pequod War, apprehensions of renewed trouble with the natives, and the necessary precautions against it, continually grew throughout the colony. Among the enactments was one passed March 13, 1638, directing " that Hingham have a barrel of powder, to be paid for by the town," and from 1640 to 1644 frequent orders regulated the time for training the train- bands, and prescribed punishments for neglect. In the former of
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these years, an interesting town record informs us that the follow- iug vote was passed, " That from the date hereof thenceforth there shall be no tree or trees cut or felled upon the highway upon the pain of twenty shillings to be levied for the use of the town because all good trees are to be preserved for the shading of cattle in the summer time and for the exercising of the military." The desirability of preserving the trees "for the exercising of the military " arose from the benefit to be derived from training the latter in the practical methods of Indian warfare, wherein every savage placed the protecting trunk of a tree between himself and the enemy; a situation giving him a distinct advantage over troops in regular order. It was ignorance or neglect of this fact that led to the destruction of the brave Capt. Pierce of Scituate and his company in 1676 and to the defeat of Braddock nearly eighty years later. "Garrison houses," so-called, which for the most part were probably private dwellings of unusual size and adaptability for defence, were constructed, and stringent laws passed for the enforcement of military discipline. The location and appearance of such of the former as were then or after- wards erected in Hingham, it is not possible to fully determine. Among them, however, was what is now known as the Perez Lincoln house standing on North, and a little east from Cot- tage Street. It was erected by Joseph Andrews, probably in 1640. He was the first constable and first town clerk of Hing- ham. From him it passed for a nominal consideration, in 1665, to his son Capt. Thomas Andrews, and was then known as the Andrews house. It is the best authenticated " garrison house " that we have. Doubtless during many an alarm its massive tim- bers and thick log walls gave a sense of security to the settlers who, with their wives and children, had gathered within. A pecu- liarity of this building, now perhaps the oldest in town, is that, excepting its first transfer, it has never been conveyed by deed, but has continuously passed by will or simple inheritance for some two hundred and twenty-five years from one owner to another. Although now clapboarded and plastered, it is still one of the most interesting of the old landmarks, and its sound old ribs as seen within seem capable of defying the inroads of another century. Another of these primitive defences stood near what is now the easterly corner of Hersey and South streets, and on the site of the Cazneau house, - formerly belonging to Matthew Lincoln. Another was the house of Capt. John Smith, on the Lower Plain, about where the store of Mr. Fearing Burr now is. John Tower's house near Tower's Bridge was also a garri- son house ; and yet another, at South Hingham, was Capt. John Jacob's house, situated in the pass between Massachusetts and Plymouth. There were doubtless others, of which the record is lost.
In 1642 military officers were empowered to punish neglect
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and insubordination by fine, imprisonment, corporal punishment, the stocks, etc., and every town was obliged to provide a place for retreat for their wives and children, and in which to store ammu- nition. The meeting-house answered for this double purpose in Hingham, although the military stores were often distributed among the commissioned officers of the town, thus securing greater safety and availability in case of surprise. Every smith was directed to lay aside all other work, and " with all speed attend the repairing of the ammunition of the several towns, fitting them for any sudden occasion, and shall receive country pay for it." In every town there was a council of war, consisting doubtless of the military officers, the selectmen, - generally including in their number these same officers, - and perhaps other prominent citi- zens. This council seems to have had certain advisory powers, and perhaps even of direction in emergencies, but in the event of its failure to act, the commander of the company was specially authorized to use his own discretion both for defence and offence. The General Court directed, too, the manner in which alarms might be given in case of danger. Any inhabitant was empowered to distinctly discharge three muskets, to continually beat the drum in the night, or to fire the beacon, or to discharge a piece of ordnance, or to send messengers to adjoining towns ; and every soldier was to respond at once, under a penalty of five pounds. The captains of the three towns nearest that in which the enemy should be discovered were to proceed thither with their companies. The watches throughout the country were posted at sunset at the beat of the drum, and discharged at sunrise drumbeat. From this arose the custom of payments which we find made to many indi- viduals through a long series of years for " maintaining the drum." Thus among the " disbursements paid out of the Towne rate for the Towne's use " in 1662, are the following : -
" To Joshua Beals for maintenance of ye drum, £01 00 00.
"To Steven Lincoln for maintenance of ye drum, £00 10 00."
And again, - besides many other similar disbursements, - " John Lincoln to be paid ten shillings a year for drumming, he to buy his own drum ;" this in 1690.
Increasing rumors of Indian conspiracies induced greater vigi- lance and more careful preparation from year to year. In 1643 the military officers were placed in charge of the arms brought to public meetings, and the care of ammunition in the farmhouses was given to them ; and in 1644 all inhabitants were compelled to keep arms ready for service in their houses. At a town meeting, June 24, 1645, it was voted to erect a palisade around the meeting-house " to prevent any danger that may come into this town by any assault of the Indians." Previous to 1645 Hingham appears to have had no captain, and it is probable that for pur- poses of military organization and discipline the soldiers of Hull and Weymouth were joined with our own in forming a company,
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and that they were commanded by a captain residing in the latter place. Winthrop says that in 1645 Hingham chose Lieutenant Eames, who had been the chief commander for the previous seven or eight years, to be captain, and presented him to the council for confirmation. For some reason not now known, the town be- came offended with Eames before his new commission could be issued, and a new election was held, or attempted to be held, at which Bozoan Allen was chosen captain ; whom, however, the council refused to confirm. A bitter controversy lasting several years ensued. The town became divided into partisans of the two officers, and the quarrel occupied much of the time of the deputies and magistrates until 1648. In it the Rev. Peter Hobart, together with many leading citizens, became deeply in- volved, and the issues soon came to relate to civil and reli- gious, rather than to military interests. The details of this most unfortunate affair, which cost the town many of its best families and much of its prosperity, would seem to be- long more properly to the chapter on ecclesiastical history, and there they may be found at length.
Lieut. Anthony Eames, the first local commander of the town, was one of the first settlers, coming here in 1636, in which year a house lot was granted him on the lower plain. He seems to have been an able officer and a leading and trusted citizen, being a deputy in 1637, 1638, and 1643, and frequently holding positions of responsibility and honor in the town. Together with Allen, Joshua Hobart, and others, he was chosen to represent the town's interests in Nantasket lands, and in 1643 he with Allen and Samuel Ward had leave from the town to set up a corn mill near the cove. From Lieutenant Eames, through his three daughters, - Milicent who married William Sprague, Elizabeth who married Edward Wilder, and Marjory who married Capt. John Jacobs, -many of the people of Hingham are descended. Pending the settlement of the trouble in the company, the General Court- ordered, August 12, 1645, that "Lieutenant Tory shall be chief military officer in Hingham, and act accord- ing as other military officers till the court shall take further orders." Lieutenant Tory was from Weymouth, and was un- doubtedly appointed as a disinterested party to the controversy. He was succeeded in the care of the company in May, 1646, by Maj. Edward Gibbons. The same day that Lieutenant Tory was assigned to the charge of the company an important order was passed by the General Court to the effect that the commander of every company should select thirty men out of every hundred in their command who should be ready for service at half an hour's notice ; and further provided for the thorough arming and equip- ping of every man, with penalties for neglect. Provision was also made at the May session of the General Court for the training of youth between the ages of ten and sixteen years of age, by experi-
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enced officers, in the use of arms " as small guns, pikes, bows and arrows " but excepting such as parents forbade. This order was renewed in nearly the same form in 1647. Another order pro- vided that any man not having arms might be excused from the usual penalty by bringing to the company clerk corn to one-fifth greater value than the cost of the articles in which he was defi- cient. "But if any person shall not be able to provide himself arms and ammunition through mere poverty, if he be single and under thirty years of age, he shall be put to service by some ; if he be married or above thirty the constable shall provide him arms, and shall appoint him with whom to earn it out." How indicative are all these orders, both of the constant dangers which necessitated them, and of the efficient and untiring provisions against surprise and ruin. The distaste for temporary officers from other towns, and the danger from farther delay apparently led the people to seek a settlement of the military trouble, and we find in the State archives the following petition : -
The Humble Petition of the Soldiers of Hingham to the Honorable Court now sitting in Boston, Sheweth That we acknowledge ourselves thankful to you for many favors ; especially considering how little we have deserved them, either from the Lord or you his instruments. Yet your bounty does encourage us and our own necessities forces us to crave help from you that so we may be provided for the defense of ourselves, wives, children, and liberties, against all oppressors. Therefore we crave this liberty, as the rest of our neighbors have which we take to be our due, to choose our own officers, which if granted it will be a great refreshment. But if we be not worthy of such a favor for present as your allowance herein, then that you would be pleased to set us in a way that we may be able to do you servis and provide for our own safety and not be in such an uncomfortable and unsafe condition as we do. So praying for the presence of our Lord with you, we are yours as he enables us and you command us.
In answer to this it was ordered that Bozoan Allen be lieutenant, and Joshua Hobart, ensign. Three years later at the request of the town both these officers were promoted, and Allen obtained at last the rank for which he had vainly striven six years before. He was a man of much force and considerable pugnacity. On at least one, and probably two occasions he was compelled to humbly beg pardon for disrespectful words spoken of Governor Dudley, and in 1647 he was dismissed from the General Court for the session. He held, however, many positions of honor in Hingham, being repeatedly elected a deputy, serving often with his friend Joshua Hobart. He came to Hingham in 1638, and as already mentioned was, with Lieutenant Eames, one of the owners of the mill. He removed to Boston in 1652 and died the same year. Joshua Hobart, a brother of the Rev. Peter Hobart, succeeded to the command of the company in 1653. He was a man of great
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strength of character and one of the most distinguished citizens the town has had. In 1641 he was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery company, - then a military organization, - was a deputy more than twenty-five times, serving with Allen, Lieutenant Houchin of Boston, - who, according to the custom of the time, on several occasions served on behalf of Hingham, - and with other prominent citizens. In 1670 he was on a committee to revise the laws, and in 1673 was chosen to audit the accounts of the treasurer of the colony. In 1672 Captain Hobart and Lieu- tenant Fisher presented their report upon the boundary line between the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth which they had been appointed commissioners to determine. In 1674 he was speaker of the House of Deputies. He was frequently a selectman and held other town offices. Besides holding the posi- tion of commander of the military of Hingham during many years when unwearied vigilance, strict discipline, and constant prepara- tion were of the first importance to the welfare and preservation of the town, - for it must be remembered that suspicion, fear, and at times open war succeeded the defeat of the Pequods, and that at no time was the danger of destruction absent from the minds of the colonists, - Captain Hobart is said to have com- manded a company in active service in Philip's War. His house lot was on Main Street and included the spot upon which stands the Old Meeting-house, and here, in 1682, after having been Hingham's chief officer for nearly thirty years, he died full of honors, at the age of sixty-seven years. Notwithstanding the uneasiness suc- ceeding the Pequod War, peace generally prevailed between the colonists and the Indians for a quarter of a century thereafter ; settlements multiplied and the older towns not only grew in num- bers, but began to prosper with the development of agriculture, the pursuits of the fisheries, the birth of manufactures, the trade in lumber, and the commerce which was already springing up with the West India islands. In the general prosperity Hingham shared, although her growth was not rapid, and, as has been said, the military and ecclesiastical dissensions at one time led to a serious loss in population, and consequent injury to the material advance.
The soil was however fair and in many places rich, and its suc- cessful cultivation led to the rapid increase in the number and area of the " planting fields " which were granted from time to time. Our almost circular harbor surrounded and protected on all sides by hills clothed with a noble growth of oak, pine, and cedar, and guarded at its entrance by the three beautiful islands which like faithful sentinels stood as bulwarks against the storms of the open ocean, early turned attention to Hingham as an advantageous point for the construction of craft of various de- scription and size, and the development of a prosperous foreign trade.
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Shipyards and wharves soon dotted the shore and multiplied with astonishing rapidity ; and many a stately vessel received her baptism and commenced her perilous life in the little bay which washes our coast. The commerce which subsequently was one of the chief sources of local wealth began, too, almost with the birth of the town, and in 1679 we read of the loss at sea of a vessel in which Joshua Hobart, one of Hingham's stalwart mari- ners, was a part owner. Before this Winthrop mentions the over- turning off Paddock's Island of a small shallop of ten tons, in which was John Palmer, whose house lot was on Broad Cove, and two others. This was in 1639, and the shallop was perhaps one of the fishing smacks forming the advance guard of the fleet which lined our wharves and enriched many of our citizens, and which only finally disappeared within a very few years past. But while this town and her sisters grew and prospered and pursued their peaceful vocations, the shadow of a coming struggle lengthened, and the inevitable contest between the white race and the red race neared yearly and daily its culmination. In 1665 the town " Lyd out for powder, bullets, and match, £11," - a very considerable sum for the time, and indeed a very large proportion of the total expenditures for the year. The following quaint order passed July 20, 1668, is interesting because of the glimpse it affords of the customs and vigilance of the period : -
It is ordered by the Selectmen of the town that all such p's's as are appt & warned to watch on the constables watch shall from time to time appear at the meeting house half an hour after sunset to receive their charge ; and the constable is hereby ordered to meet them there at the said time or soon after to give them their charge according to law ; and we do also order that after the new watch is come about as far as the meeting house that then the 2 constables shall take their watches to give the watch in charge, that is, one constable 1 watch & the other another & so by turns till the time is expired which the law sets for the keeping up the sd watch.
A generation had reached manhood since the extermination of the Pequods; the town and the colony alike had attained to strength and confidence born of prosperity, and a feeling of security re- sulting from unceasing vigilance and preparation pervaded the settlements. Nevertheless fear of the French, jealousy of the Dutch, and suspicion of the Indian kept the weapons of prepa- ration bright. A rumor now and again of some forest outrage, an actual barbarity, and possibly a self-consciousness of not being without wrong on their own part, kept the colonists alert and active. The military enactments of the General Court grew more specific, more frequent, and more stern ; the co-operation of the towns and their own watchfulness became more marked. A successful expedition against the French on the Penobscot in 1653, and another to Niantick to suppress a Narragansett conspir-
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acy in 1654, afforded valuable experience, although accompanied by little or no bloodshed. Suddenly the long anticipated conflict opened. An Indian was found drowned in Assawanset Pond near Middleborough. He was a friend of the whites; three Wam- panoags were arrested, tried, and executed for the murder. On the 20th day of June, 1675, several houses were burned at Swansea, and the greatest of New England's native warriors opened the first of the two campaigns which only ended with the death of Philip at Mt. Hope August 12, 1676, sealing on that day the fate of a mighty race, and after the most extreme suffering and cruelty on both sides.
Thirteen towns had been wholly destroyed, and many more sustained severe loss, while six hundred of the colonists lay dead upon the battle-field. On the other hand, the power of the red man was at an end in New England. Their wigwams had been burned, their wives and children sold into slavery, their warriors slain, and the tribes almost swept out of existence. The history is not a pleasant nor a wholly creditable one; its detailed rela- tion fortunately belongs elsewhere. Into the struggle, however, the men of Hingham entered bravely, and within her borders at least one incident in the great tragedy was enacted. Before tell- ing the story of her contributions in men and money, the honor- able part she took, and the loss she sustained, let us make a sketch of the old town as it appeared in the summer of 1675, relocate and repeople at least some of the houses, remap the old roads, glance at the occupations and characteristics and appear- ance of the inhabitants, and catch as we may in the gloaming some tracery of the homes and the lives of our forefathers.
Away back in 1645 a dam had narrowed the entrance to the inner bay, then a beautiful sheet of water, undivided by the street connecting Main Street and the harbor. Tide-gates had finally closed the passage, and the friends Eames and Allen had set in motion the busy wheels which now for two hundred and fifty odd years, in the self-same spot, have sung their music in the starry midnight and the merry sunlight alike, grinding the corn and the grain of the settlers and their descendants for eight generations. Here, then, in this opening year of King Philip's war the little mill stood as now, not far from the public landing-place at the Cove. Built of stout logs and hewn planks, with jolly John Langlee, the miller, in the doorway, the rush of a foaming stream beneath, a gleam of blue waters to the north, and in front the dancing ripples of the glassy pond reflecting in the morning light the giants of the forest which clothed the sur- rounding hills and crept down to the very water's edge, it was indeed a pleasant place ; and here the farmer with the heavy ox- cart or pack-laden horse, the sailor back from some West Indian port, the bright-eyed school-boy, the idler from the town, the squire, the captain, and now and again even Parson Hobart him-
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self, might have been seen watching the hot meal as it poured from the stones, while hearing and telling what each might of news and rumor and gossip. Here the forebodings of the forest, the startling stories of Indian devastation and cruelty, the tales from over seas, the erop prospects, and the latest talk of the vil- lage whiled away many an idle hour, and doubtless, too, lost little in their later relation by the home firesides. To the eastward and westward of the mill stream, and sloping towards each other until meeting beneath its bubbling waters, rose two noble hills, their tops erowned with the oak and the pine, and their ocean- ward sides seantily protected by wind-twisted and stunted cedars. In Cobb's Bank, earlier known as Ward's Hill, we have, bare and unsightly, the little that remains of the first of these, which then, rounded and green, stretched away for several hun- dred feet along the harbor, and gradually descending, finally dis- appeared in Wakeley's meadows. Through these last coursed a tiny run, which emptied into the sea by the " landing-place " of a subsequent period, -now a grass-covered wharf, long since disused for commercial purposes. An easy ford at the town dock ena- bled those having occasion, to reach the beaches along the base of the eminence, and thence, after crossing the run, to ascend the hill near the steamboat landing, and through the fields and woods reach Neek Gate Hill, Martin's Lane, and the planting lots beyond. The hill west of the stream also skirted the harbor for some distance, and then, drifting inland, continued far towards the western extremity of the town; it remains materially unal- tered to this day. Old Town Street, with its name changed to North, follows now as in the early days its graceful, curving course along the base of the hill at whose foot it lies. Here and there its lines have been moved a trifle, this way or that, but from the harbor to West Street it is the same old road, border- ing the pond, the brook, and the swamp, as in the days when the Lincolns, the Andrews, and the Hobarts built their one-storied, thatched huts along its grassy ruts.
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