Military History. 289 



the island, burned the barn and about eighty tons of hay, and 

 brought off the cattle. Mrs. John Adams, writing to her husband, 

 then in the Continental Congress, of the affair says : " You in- 

 quire of me who were at the engagement at Grape Island. I may 

 say with truth, all of Weymouth, Braintree, Hingham, who were 

 able to bear arms, and hundreds from other towns within twenty, 

 thirty, forty miles of Weymouth." She adds high praise of sev- 

 eral of her husband's family who were participants. This skir- 

 mish may perhaps fairly give to Hingham the coveted distinction 

 of beino: one of the battle-grounds of the Revolution ; for although 

 the island itself lies within the jurisdiction of Weymouth, a part 

 of the shores opposite, from which much of the firing undoubt- 

 edly came, are in Hingham. There can be no difficulty in recog- 

 nizing the beautiful point at Huit's Cove just at the mouth of 

 Weymouth Back River, as the place of assembly and seat of oper- 

 ations for our forefathers on that Sabbath morning in the spring 

 of 1775, almost exactly a month after the fight at Lexington, 

 toward which the same company under the same' commander had 

 so promptly marched. It is more than likely that the main 

 attack upon the English was by Hingham and Weymouth com- 

 panies operating in Hingham. it is said that the Weymouth and 

 Abington companies compelled Leavitt to provide entertainment 

 for them during the day ; had his connection with the enemy been 

 fully known at the time, it is quite certain that he would have 

 fared far worse. 



If our small bit of the war was insignificant compared to the 

 greater events, it still furnished one of the incidents of no little 

 importance at the time in the valuable experience of meeting the 

 enemy and of gaining a victory, the size of which was not suffered 

 to diminish in the current reports , and it is of value to us now 

 for its service in bringing our town and our people into closer 

 touch with their fellow-citizens of the Revolution. There were, 

 however, comparatively few of the striking events of the Revolu- 

 tion, without participants from Hingham. 



It has already been said that when Colonel Prescott and his 

 brave men beat back, until their powder was gone, the red ranks 

 on Bunker Hill that memorable 17th of June, the chaplain of his 

 regiment was our fighting parson of the engagement at Concord 

 Bridge, Joseph Thaxter. But he was not the town's sole repre- 

 sentative at the battle, for Jairus Lincoln and Joseph Bates also 

 bore a part and shared in the glory of the day, the latter laying 

 down his life upon the field, in the honored company of General 

 Warren and many another hero of the great fight. 



Besides the names of men already given as serving in 1775, 

 there are the following: William Owens, — a member of Capt. 

 Freedom Chamberlin's Pembroke company in Gen. John Thomas's 

 regiment, and who was transferred to Capt. Ezra Badlam's com- 

 pany in Col. Richard Gridley's regiment of "Train," June II, — 

 Benjamin Lincoln, also of Captain Chamberlin's company, and 



VOL. I. — 19 



