Hingham, Massachusetts

“ Bowser was called to the pastorate of the Third Congregational (Unitarian) Church of Hingham, Massachusetts, one of the oldest and most influential Societies in New England, numbering among its members General Lincoln, who was secretary of war under Washington; John Albion Andrew, who was Governor of Massachusetts during the civil war, and ex-Governor John D. Long, who is now (1888) member of Congress for that district. This important position Mr. Bowser held for three years, winning the respect and love not only of his own parish, but of the community at large ”

“ He was a member of the convention which formed the constitution of Massachusetts, and of that which adopted the constitution of the United States.
The Third Congregational Society (Unitarian) was organized in 1807. There is also within the town a religious society of each of the following denominations, viz.: Evangelical Congregational, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Universalist, Protestant Episcopal, Second Advent, and Roman Catholic. It would seem as if there need be no hungering for the "bread of life."
The military record of Hingham is worthy of notice. ”

“ His family before long held among them more land, it is probable, than any other. He served many years as deputy in the General Court, first from Hingham and then from Salem. He is spoken of in the colonial records of Massachusetts as "of good repute for piety, integrity, and estate." The Barneys, Leaches, and others went eastwardly towards Bass River. ”

“ We commend to our readers as the best literary journal in this country, the To Day, recently established in Boston by Charles Hale, a thoroughly educated and judicious editor.
Recent Deaths
William Ware was born at Hingham, in Massachusetts, on the third of August, 1797. He was a descendant in the fifth generation from Robert Ware, one of the earliest settlers of the colony, who came from England about the year 1644. ”

“ Captain, Joseph J. Cooper; first lieutenant, Isaac D. Paul; second lieutenant, John D. Reed.
[19]
COMPANY G. Boston, Hingham, Scituate and the South Shore.
From information furnished chiefly by Lieut. J. H. Prouty it seems that Hingham was about as liberal a contributor to Company G as any single place, having thirty-seven men in the ranks of "G" and another in "D." It was the only company in the regiment that started without some local head or centre. When the call came, Hingham took action at once, and on the 5th held a town meeting at four o'clock p. ”

“ We love human nature; we love to get back to it in New York and Boston,—for a day, for six months in the winter even,—but we need to get back to the hills at night. We are a conventional, gregarious, herding folk. Let an American get rich and he builds a grand house in the city. Let an Englishman get rich and he moves straight into the country—out to such a spot as Bradley Hill in Hingham. ”

“ Not that we hate Boston, nor that we pass by on the other side in Hingham. We gladly pick our neighbors up and set them in our motor car and bring them to the foot of the hill. We people of the hills do not hate either crowds or neighbors. We are neighbors ourselves and parts of the city crowds too ”

“ It is not what a man does, but what he lives through doing it. Life may be safer, easier, longer, and fuller of possessions in one place than another. But possessions do not measure life, nor years, nor ease, nor safety. Life in the Hingham hills in winter is wretchedly remote at times, but nothing happens to me all day long in Boston to be compared for a moment with this experience here in the night and snow. I never feel the largeness of the sky there, nor the wideness of the world, nor the loveliness of night, nor the fearful majesty of such a winter storm. ”

“ The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and contains the villages of Hingham, West Hingham, Hingham Center, and South Hingham. Derby Academy, a co-educational school founded and endowed with about £12,000 in 1784 by Sarah Derby (1714–1790) , was opened in 1791. Hingham has a public library (1868) , with 12,000 volumes in 1908. The Old Meeting House, erected in 1681, is one of the oldest church buildings in the country used continuously. Manufactures were relatively much more important in the 17th and 18th centuries than since. ”

“ Sewall, was a cherished friend and classmate.
Mrs. Grace Denny, Mrs. Prince’s mother, in her letters to “daughter Prince,” regretted that she was to be subject to the temptations of a city life, fearing it would be a snare and hindrance to her growth in grace, and advocated the choice of Hingham as a residence. In 1719 Boston was a goodly town of only twelve thousand inhabitants, governed with strict Puritan laws, some of which were even oppressive, giving small opportunity to indulge in the frivolities of life, even if one desired, and least of all to a pastoress of the Old South Church. ”

“ This was the main road from Hingham for many years, and it took full three hours of barbarous jolting in two-wheeled, springless ox carts to make the trip. Even if a man had a horse the journey was cruelly tedious, for there were only a few stretches where the horse could go faster than a walk—and the way was pock-marked with boulders and mudholes. With no stage-coach before 1815, and being off the highway between Plymouth and Boston, it is small wonder that the early Cohasset folk either walked or went by sea to Hingham and thence to Boston. ”

“ Hingham, its Main Street—alas for the original name of "Bachelors Rowe"—arched by a double row of superb elms on either side, is incalculably rich in old houses, old traditions, old families. Even motoring through, too quickly as motorists must, one cannot help being struck by the substantial dignity of the place, by the well-kept prosperity of the houses, large and small, which fringe the fine old highway. ”

“ I felt his glare like a gimlet in the back; but Pat more loudly than needful expressed her delight in seeing Hingham a second time. "It is exactly like Cranford," she said. "New England seems to be full of Cranfords, but Hingham is the most Cranfordy of all. And I don't [Pg 276] believe even the Old England Cranford could have such elms in such a wonderful street. They are like tall, transparent green wine glasses set for a dinner party of Titans."
"You get these exaggerated ideas from Mrs. Winston," came another mutter from behind, but no reply was vouchsafed. ”

“ They knew that there was a deep-seated antagonism between the “natural aristocracy” and the “turbulent democracy” which was giving the government of Massachusetts trouble. Such an analysis of the difficulty is set forth by Stephen Higginson, a leading Federalist of Boston, in March, 1787: “The people of the interior parts of these states [New England] have by far too much political knowledge and too strong a relish for unrestrained freedom, to be governed by our feeble system, and too little acquaintance with real sound policy or rational freedom and too little virtue to govern themselves. ”

“ On the 30th of October, 1867, he died suddenly of apoplexy, after tea, at his own home on Charles street, Boston. The body was laid in Mount Auburn Cemetery, but was afterwards removed to the old burial-place in Hingham, where a fine statue has since been erected over his grave.
Governor Andrew was married Christmas evening, December, 1848, to Miss Eliza Jane, daughter of Charles Hersey, of Hingham. They had four children living at the time of his death,—John Forrester, born Nov. 26, 1850; Elizabeth Loring, born July 29, 1852; Edith, born April 5, 1854; Henry Hersey, born April 28, 1858. ”

“ Life may be no busier at forty than at thirty, but it is certainly more expensive. Work may not be so hard, but the facts of life are a great deal harder, the hardest, barest of them being the here-and-now of all things, the dead levelness of forty—an irrigated plain that has no hill of vision, no valley of dream. But it may have its hill in Hingham with a bit of meadow down below.
Mullein Hill is the least of all hills, even with the added stump; but looking down through the trees I can see the gray road, and an occasional touring car, like a dream, go by ”

“ Another landmark is the venerable meeting-house of the Unitarian society in Hingham, popularly known as the "Old Ship." Built in 1681, it was a Congregational place of worship for nearly a century and a half. Its sturdiness and rude beauty form a striking illustration of the lasting quality of good, sound wooden beams as material for the sanctuary. Preparations have already been undertaken for celebrating the second centennial of the ancient building. ”

“ Hayne had so derided, or the tones of deep pathos in which her defense was pronounced:—
"Mr. President: I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. There she is—behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history, the world knows it by heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons falling in the great struggle for independence now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia, and there they will remain forever. ”

“ Their refusal, however, by no means met with unanimous approval among the influential elements in the colony. A petition was presented to the Court, signed by a hundred and seventy-one individuals, including such names as Winslow, Brattle, Gerrish, Hale, Coffin, Perkins, Hubbard, and others of note in Boston, Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, while most of the people of Hingham were said to have signed also, although their deputy refused to deliver their 337petition. [832] The signers pleaded that nothing further be done justly to offend the home government, and that the agents asked for be sent. ”

“ Thomas Andrews and soldiers met on board ship to go to Canada" in the expedition under command of Sir William Phips. Capt. Andrews and most of the soldiers belonging to Hingham died in the expedition.
In the French and Indian wars many Hingham citizens enlisted, and Capt. Joshua Barker was in the expedition to the West Indies in 1740, and in the wars of later years.
In the war of the Revolution there was no lack of patriotism in Hingham, "The records indicate that nowhere did patriotism put forth in a greater degree the fulness of its efforts and the energy of its whole soul and spirit." ”

“ But for the busy man, say of forty, are the hills of Hingham with their adventure possible? Why, there is nothing ailing the man of forty except that he now is neither young nor old, nor rich, the chances are ”

“ Higginson was strongly impressed with the advantages New England offered to persecuted nonconformists, and, on learning that proceedings were commenced against him in the court of high commission, offered himself as a minister to the Massachusetts Bay Company in March 1628 (Young, p. 65) . In 1629 the governors of the company appointed him minister to one of their settlements in New England at a liberal salary, with a promise of sufficient provision for his family in case of his death ”

“ Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 12, 1822—May 9, 1911, Cambridge. He graduated from Harvard College in 1841 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1847. Entering the Unitarian ministry he served churches in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1847-1850, and in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1852-1858. He was an ardent Abolitionist and when the Civil War came he entered the Union Army, in which he rose to the command of a Negro regiment. ”

“ Brave Winthrop, marching with the city elegants, seems to have been a little startled to find how wonderfully human were the hard-handed men of the Eighth Massachusetts. It takes all the nonsense out of everybody, or ought to do it, to see how fairly the real manhood of a country is distributed over its surface. And then, just as we are beginning to think our own soil has a monopoly of heroes as well as of cotton, up turns a regiment of gallant Irishmen, like the Sixty-ninth, to show us that continental provincialism is as bad as that of Coos County, New Hampshire, or of Broadway, New York. ”

“ Thomas Hcyhoe of Hingham gave 35s. per annum in land, the minister is to have 10s. (out of which, the clerk is to have 1s.) on condition he preaches a sermon on St. Thomas's day, the remainder to be then distributed to the poor in bread, he gave also a salver of 3l. value, in 1688. 1724, Mr. William Thurrold of Hingham gave 3l. per annum in land, the rent to be given every Sunday after sermon, to such poor only as frequently attend divine service. 1734, Mr. Edward Payne intended to have given by will, and Mr. John Payne voluntarily conveyed land worth 52s. ”

“ William Hibbins was a merchant in Boston, and one of the most prominent and honored citizens of Massachusetts. He was admitted a freeman in 1640; was deputy in the [i.421] General Court in that and the following year; was elected an assistant for twelve successive years,—from 1643 to 1654; represented the Colony, for a time, as its agent in England, and received the thanks of the General Court for his valuable service there. No one appears to have had more influence, or to have enjoyed more honorable distinction, during his long legislative career. ”

“ Well, once againe farewell mine Hoast at Rockland. After all these farewels, I am sure to Hingham I found a foule way, as before I had done from Thetford to Rockland.
Yet, besides the deep way, I was much hindred by the desire people had to see me. For euen as our Shop-keepers will hayle and pull a man with “Lack ye? what do you lack, Gentlemen?” “My ware is best,” cryes one, “Mine best in England,” sayes an other, “Heere shall you haue choyse,” saith the third ”