230 History of Hingham. 



To the Constable of Hingham. You are hereby required iu his ma- 

 jestys name forthwith at the sight hereof to destraine upon the goods or 

 chattels of Nathaniell Baker of this Town to the value of twenty shillings 

 for his entertaining a Indian or Indians contrary to a Town order which 

 fine is to be delivered to the selectmen for the use of the Town. Hereof 

 you are not to fail. Benjamin Bate in the name of & by the order of 

 the rest of the Selectmen of Hingham. 



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

 Hingham. 



The line imposed upon Mr. Baker was in consequence of his 

 disobedience of an order passed by the town forbidding the em- 

 ployment or entertainment of an Indian by any person. It was 

 almost immediately followed by petitions from Baker, John Jacobs, 

 and others to the General Court asking that they be permitted to 

 retain their Indian servants, and it appears from the State Ar- 

 chives that the following similar request had already been granted. 

 It is of added interest for its illustration of the conduct of the 

 war and the standard of the times. 



John Thaxter petitions the Hon. Gov. and Council now sitting in 

 Boston &c. that his son Thomas Thaxter was in service under the com- 

 mand of Capt. Benj m Church at Martha's Vineyard and Islands adjoining 

 where they made many captives and brought them to Plymouth ; and 

 Captain Church gave ye petitioner's son an Indian boy of abt nine years 

 old and the selectmen having made an order that no Inhabitant shall keep 

 anv Indians in his family, &c. — hence the petition — Granted Jan. 11, 

 1676. 



From the residence of Nathaniel Baker, going east, there were 

 few, if any, houses until reaching the vicinity of Weir river on 

 East Street, then a little travelled lane. Here, however, we should 

 have come upon the farm of John Farrow with whom lived his 

 sons John and Nathan, while beyond and near if not upon the 

 very spot where the Misses Beale now live, was the last residence 

 of Sergeant Jeremiah Beale ; and near him his friend and neigh- 

 bor Purthee McFarlin, the Scotchman, found himself blessed with 

 nine bonny lassies and three sturdy laddies. Beyond, in what is 

 now Cohasset, then known as the Second Precinct, there were a 

 few settlements whose story seems properly to belong to that of 

 our sister town. On the farther side of the common before referred 

 to, Simon Burr the farmer, and his son Simon, a cooper, located on 

 a lane which has since become School Street ; and not far off, 

 Cornelius Cantleberry, John Mansfield, and his son John, and 

 perhaps a few others made homes for themselves. On the corner 

 of Union Street Captain Fames had lived, and it was in that part 

 of the town known then as now as " over the river," and where 

 Israel Whitcomb grows his beautiful asters in such profusion, that 

 Millicent Eames, daughter of Capt. Anthony, went to live with her 

 husband William Sprague, the first of a long line of descendants 



