234 History of Hingham. 



ever, more pretentious, and in one or two cases perhaps, even 

 stately edifices had been erected. Some of these had a second 

 story, overhanging slightly the first, and this added greatly to the 

 power of resisting an attack. A few had glass windows, and here 

 and there a little shop protruded from one end. Besides these 

 the three forts, the garrison houses, and the meeting-house gave 

 a certain diversity and rough picturesqueness to the landscape. 

 Fine tracts of wood covered a large part of the territory, but nu- 

 merous planting fields had been granted from time to time, and 

 the axe of the settler during forty years had made no inconsider- 

 able mark, and the clearings had been industriously cultivated 

 from Otis, or Weary-all-Hill, to World's End. The soil was new 

 and fairly good, and prosperity had lightened the lot of not a few, 

 so that while certainly far from rich as wealth is measured in 

 these days, the appraisal of some estates indicates the accumula- 

 tion of the means of considerable comfort and influence. The 

 people were for the most part sturdy, industrious, English farmers 

 with a fair proportion of carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers, 

 more, probably, than the necessary number of inn-keepers with 

 their free sale of strong-water and malt, a few mariners, several 

 mill owners and millers, two or three brewers, not a larger number 

 of shop-keepers, a tailor, a tanner perhaps, one or two " gentle- 

 men," a schoolmaster, and last, and on many accounts most im- 

 portant of all, the parson. As already said, the inhabitants were 

 for the most part English, but a large proportion of the younger 

 generation was native born, and there was also a small sprinkling 

 of Scotch. In addition there remained a few Indians, whose wig- 

 wams were pitched outside the settlement, besides a small number 

 employed as servants in the houses of several of the whites ; and 

 in the same capacity a negro might here and there have been 

 found. From a people mainly composed at first of the British 

 middle-class, impelled to emigrate and settle rather from an am- 

 bition to improve their worldly lot than from any deep-seated dis- 

 satisfaction, either with the government or institutions of home, 

 or even from especially intense religious aspirations, there had 

 developed a sober, industrious, earnest, self-sustaining community, 

 whose energy was already laying the foundations for the com- 

 merce with the West Indies which afterwards became extensive, 

 and for the varied manufactures which for so many years gave 

 employment to our people. A few small shallops too were 

 owned here, and some of the inhabitants had an interest in one or 

 two vessels of larger size; but fishing, which subsequently became 

 a great industry, had scarcely begun at this period. The real 

 business of the settlement as yet was farming. The families of 

 the day were not small, and year by year added to their propor- 

 tions ; Rev. Peter Hobart himself was father to no less than 

 eighteen children while others were hardlv less numerous. Men 

 and women alike were commonly dressed in homespun, and un- 



