.4 BONE OF CONTENTION. I 29 



Creek upon the west and south — a very convenient loca- 

 tion for the boats of the Hingham haymakers. As we 

 shall see presently, the four commissioners did not deter- 

 mine the bounds of this "three score acre" concession 

 from Plymouth. The Hingham settlers asked for "three 

 score acres," meaning that particular marsh, and the 

 award was just as definite as the request; but it left room 

 for trouble. Who should say where the Hingham men 

 trenched upon the land up to threescore and one acres .'' 

 Or who would restrain a Scituate farmer from scrimping it 

 to fifty-nine .■' 



Two years later, in 1642, the exact boundary was not yet 

 settled, and consequently the Plymouth court, in defining 

 the bounds of Scituate, March 7, 1642-43, said that the 

 line should run from Accord Pond " by the lyne that is 

 the bound betwixt Massachusetts & Plymouth."* 



Eight years more of harvesting salt hay passed by with 

 out any official marking out of the Threescore Acres. 



But these were not years of undisputed rights. The 

 haymakers from Hingham had an additional reason by 

 this time for knowing exactly their own acres. It was the 

 division of all the meadows and salt marshes on the 

 Hingham side of the harbor on February 28, 1647. This 

 division assigned lands of certain dimensions, as we shall 

 see in the next chapter, to individuals, so that there could 

 no longer be an indiscriminate cutting of the nearest or 

 best grass in sight by any one who might come. But this 

 division upon the Hingham side must soon be followed by 

 a similar division of the Threescore Acres that lay upon 

 the Scituate side. Probably it was an appeal by them to 

 their colonial court at Boston which evoked the following 

 order : — 



There being a difference betweene the inhabitants of Hingham 

 & of Scituate about sixty acors of meddow on the other side of 



• Flym. Rec, Vol. II. p. 54. 



