A BONE OF CONTENTIOiSr, 12 1 



Now this first member of the tribunal, named " Mr. Timo- 

 thy Heatherly," is the Timothy Hatherly of Scituate who 

 was so prominent a freeman of Plymouth Colony, and his 

 colleague " Mr. Tylden " is probably the Joseph Tylden who 

 was a fellow pilgrim with Timothy Hatherly and who had 

 been with him before on a survey.* These men had no 

 commission from their own colony, and their appointment 

 by the Massachusetts court, so irregular, must have been 

 obtained by an urgent appeal of these Scituate men against 

 the enroachments of the Hingham haymakers. 



Our surmise is strengthened by the following order of 

 the Massachusetts court on the twenty-second of May, 

 two years after, in 1639 • — 



Whereas this Court did take order for a meeting to bee had 

 betweene our commissioners and our neighbors of Pliniouth, for 

 seting out the bounds between us, and that nothing hath bene 

 done therein, in regard that their commissioners had not power to 

 conclude anything, and for that it appeareth unto this Court, that 

 our people of Hingham stand in great neede of hay, it is ordered, 

 that they may make use of so much of the ground neere Conihassett 

 as lye on this side the ryver whereupon the bridge is, (which lands 

 are undoubtedly within' the limits of our grant,) untillsome further 

 order bee taken for a final! determination of the difference be- 

 tweene us, and till the Court shall make other disposition thereof. 



This was a very safe procedure indeed for the colony ; 



but it did not mean much hay for Hingham, because it 



was plainly on the farther side of Cohasset Harbor that 



the bone of contention lay in the broad marshes, so visible 



I 

 now and so worthless in these later times. But in those 



days the cattle in the Hingham barns were glad to thrust 



their noses into the bunches of salt hay brought around 



the rocky shore in boats every summer. 



The next public document upon the case was a very 



dignified one bearing the appointment of the two most 



♦See Plym. Rec, Vol. I. p. 81. 



