CHAPTER VII. 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 



THE waters that press in from the sea through Cohasset 

 Harbor to the mouth of Bound Brook make a natural 

 boundary between Scituate and our town ; but men have 

 refused to abide by this natural division of the land. 



The result is a chapter of discord and contention that 

 has troubled every generation from the first peaceful Pil- 

 grims to the generation just passed. As soon as the 

 Plymouth settlement was made, there went forth explorers, 

 both by sea and by land, searching in every nook for miles 

 around their little frontier. 



Those who turned the bow of their boat northward 

 along the coast found the broad marshes that have since 

 borne the name of Marshfield. 



In two or three hours more they could pull their boat into 

 another harbor with marshes that we now call Scituate. 



There were only a few more miles to another harbor 

 called by the Indians Ouonahassit, and which was fringed 

 on the Plymouth side by many scores of acres of salt grass. 

 There was food for numberless cattle upon these marshes, 

 and consequently they invited settlement to their borders. 

 The pioneers of Scituate could harvest a crop here without 

 any plowing or planting, and, what was more important, 

 there was no clearing of woods necessary nor grubbing of 

 stumps. 



The rights of separate individuals in these virgin hay- 

 fields were not determined closely at first. 



In the year 1633, on the first day of July, the following 

 order was passed by the General Court at Plymouth : — 



"That the whole tract of land between the brook at 



