THE " QUONAHASSIT'' PIONEERS. 109 



It was a proper stroke of public business to institute 

 this body of selectmen, because they had already found it 

 hard to get the whole number of the settlers together for 

 their business meetings held in their little old log meeting- 

 house. On the fourteenth of May preceding this election 

 they had voted a fine of one peck of Indian corn to be 

 paid by every one who willfully absented himself from 

 their meetings. 



The year 1638 was a fair sized boom for the new town. 

 Carpenters, weavers, shoemakers, and other workmen 

 with kits of tools were strong additions to the industrial 

 capital of the settlement. 



One public industry promising a large food supply had 

 been already inaugurated. It was a fish weir at the 

 stream over towards Cohasset which thereafter was called 

 Weir River.* Thomas Loring, Clement Bates, Nicholas 

 Jacob, and Joseph Andrews were granted the herring f 

 monopoly of that stream, April 19, 1637, on condition that 

 they build at once and sell their fish at no more than ten 

 shillings and sixpence per thousand. 



The newcomers, with their cattle and hogs and sheep 

 and goats, began to hew and to eat their way farther into 

 the forest upon every side. 



The clearing fires became too indiscriminate and care- 

 less, so that in the following February men were forbidden 

 to set any fire to the woods on ungranted lands, upon 

 penalty of twenty shillings and payment of damages. 

 No man, furthermore, should fell any tree upon the 



* These men were granted the " river called Lyford's Liking to build a weare to 

 take fish." Since the river became Weir River, the name Lyford's Liking has 

 been applied to the marshy waterway between the mouth of Weir River and 

 Straits Pond. The Lyford whose name is thus perpetuated was a preacher from 

 Ireland who came to Plymouth in 1624, but was dismissed on account of his 

 treachery. He was a settler at Hull (Nantasket) in 1625, before Hingham was 

 planted, and the name Liking may refer to his preference of this river mouth for a 

 settlement. 



tThe Indians called this fish alwoof, which became readily upon English tongues 

 alewife. 



