ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



BY FRANCIS H. LINCOLN. 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE, HINGHAMo (ERECTED 1681.) 



FIRST PARISH. 



The first church in Hingham was formed in September, 1635. 

 Rev. Peter Hobart, of Hingham, in Norfolk, England, came to 

 Charlestown in June, 1635. Mr. Hobart was educated at Mag- 

 dalene College, Cambridge, where he was graduated in 1625. 

 He declined the invitations of several settlements to become their 

 pastor, preferring to join that at Bare Cove, where many of his 

 fellow-townsmen in the old country were already established. 

 On the second of September, 1635, the name of Bare Cove was 

 changed to Hingham ; and on the eighteenth of the same month 

 Mr. Hobart and twenty-nine others drew for house-lots. Here 

 Mr. Hobart gathered the church which was the twelfth in order 

 of time in Massachusetts proper. 



VOL. I. 1* 



