114 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



business was the logging * that some pioneers had already 

 inaugurated. 



On the same seventeenth of July, 1640, it was ordered 

 that men should no longer fell the pines and swamp cedars 

 and hemlocks of the common lands to transport out of the 

 town without paying for them. 



Twelvepence for every thousand feet of boards cut 

 from these trees was an export tariff to the town. 



But for exporting oak trees a heavier price was charged. 

 Ten shillings for each tree Edmond Hobart and Nicholas 

 Jacob were instructed to collect, one half of it to be their 

 own fee. These ordinances were for the common lands in 

 Cohasset as well as in other parts of Hingham ; but for the 

 common lands nearer to the settlement, within three miles 

 of the meeting-house, no oaks at all were allowed to be 

 cut for transportation after September 4, 1641. 



The rapidly growing settlements about Boston were 

 making altogether too rapid a market for our timber, so 

 that the virgin forests were being robbed. 



The extent of a year's logging may be inferred from the 

 fact that on September 4, 1641, twelve loggers were re- 

 ported to the officials as having taken eighty-nine trees 

 from the commons, for which a tariff of eightpence a tree 

 was charged. From money which came out of this a town 

 drum was purchased for the militia. 



And this was probably the drum which passed through 

 the bloodless Hingham rebellion. 



This military fracas among our pioneers began in the 

 year 1644, when Lieutenant Anthony Eames, provoked by 

 some awkwardness of the Hingham militia company, re- 

 fused angrily to drill such a set of men. Eames had been 

 recently reelected captain of the company, but the author- 

 ities at Boston had not yet confirmed the choice by ap- 

 pointing him. In order to punish him for his hasty anger, 



* February I, 1638-39, Ralph Smith bargained to give 500 merchantable cedar 

 boards, delivered out nf the swamp, for three acres of planting ground. 



