288 History of Hingham. 



tapestries and grand tiled fireplaces, stood some twenty years 

 since upon the present site of the Catholic Church. 



In this house there was a blind passage to which a secret door 

 gave entrance, and here it was that Nathaniel Ray Thomas and 

 other tories from Marshfield were concealed during a search made 

 for them by the Committee of Safety, and from which they were 

 subsequently successfully smuggled, by water, to Boston. It is 

 said that a mob gathered about Leavitt's house at one time for the 

 purpose of doing violence to his person, and that he diverted them 

 by rolling out a barrel of rum and dispensing its contents liber- 

 ally. Be this as it may, there seems to be no doubt that Leavitt 

 was more than passively opposed to the cause of his countrymen, 

 and that he supplied the English with hay and vegetables, and 

 probably cattle. He owned or controlled Grape Island lying a 

 little north of the town, about opposite to Huit's Cove and the 

 point upon which Bradley's phosphate works now stand at the 

 mouth of Weymouth Back River. Upon the island was a large 

 quantity of hay and a number of cattle belonging undoubtedly to 

 Leavitt ; and here on the morning of Sunday, May 21, 1775, came a 

 body of troops from Boston, accompanied and conveyed by two 

 sloops and an armed schooner. The expedition had for its object 

 the hay and other supplies stored there; but its approach created 

 considerable alarm in the towns in the neighborhood, where the 

 fear of a descent caused the hasty loading upon wagons and carts 

 of the furniture and household effects of numbers of the inhabi- 

 tants preparatory to removal to places of safety. In the mean 

 time the bells rang and trims were fired and a general alarm 

 given. The militia rapidly gathered, and General Thomas, who 

 commanded at Roxbury, ordered three companies of the troops in 

 his division to the assistance of the inhabitants. The old people 

 of fifty years ago, used to tell of the march of the military down 

 Broad Cove Lane, now Lincoln Street, on the way to oppose the 

 British landing, then momentarily expected. The troops thus 

 referred to were undoubtedly militia from this and adjoining 

 towns. It is probable, however, that Capt. James Lincoln's com- 

 pany which was enlisted as early as the fifth of the month and 

 whose camp was at or near Crow Point, was the principal organ- 

 ized force on the spot. Companies immediately marched, however, 

 from Weymouth, Abington, and Scituate, in addition to those from 

 Hingham. From the diary of Paul Litchfield, of Scituate, we get 

 the following : " May 21. Just before meeting began in morning, 

 hearing the King's troops were landing near Hingham the people 

 in general dispersed, so no meeting. About 100 Regulars landed 

 at Grape Isl to get hay." From the point nearest the island a 

 fire, which was returned from the schooner, was directed against 

 the English. The distance however was too great for small arms 

 to be effective, and it was not until the flood tide had covered the 

 flats that the Americans were enabled to float a lighter and a 

 sloop and drive off the enemy. Having done this, they landed on 



