Military History. 221 



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 bravelv, and within her borders at 

 least one incident in the great tragedv 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- 



