154 HISTORY 0.F COH ASSET. 



the other two divisions lying in the region of " the Beech- 

 woods." Accordingly, on the tenth day of March, 1670, 

 three months later than the First Division, they had this 

 Third Division measured off. About half of it is now in 

 Hingham, but its western boundary was at that time de- 

 termined by the timber grants before mentioned. 



This Third Division had a very rocky region for the 

 western part of it, and the fertile Beechwood district for 

 the eastern part. Each man, therefore, was given a part 

 of each, the bitter with the sweet. 



The most of the rough, unarable lands are now a part 

 of Hingham, and the lots which concern us are the first 

 fifty-four lots of the Beechwood district with only about 

 twenty lots of the rocky district ; because the fifty-fourth 

 lot was the limit designated when Cohasset was set off 

 from Hingham in the following century. These lots lay 

 in long strips like all the Cohasset lots, but their south- 

 east ends headed against the colony line. 



There was no direct outlet for these lots to the harbor, 

 but the condition of the grant was that every owner should 

 have the right of way through the rest. 



Fifty-five years later, April 21,1 ^26, when the fertile lands 

 of Beechwood were settled, those proprietors granted a 

 perpetual open way across their lots, leading out to what 

 is now Beechwood Street, thus making a nearly straight 

 way to the harbor. 



Thus in the fall of 1670 and the spring of the next year, 

 when the leaves were off the trees, Lieut. Joshua Fisher,* 

 of Dedham, measured off the real estate and determined 



*From Hingham Records: "At a Town meeting holden at Hingham on the 

 first day of December 1670 it is ordered and agreed upon by the inhabitants of the 

 sayd town of Hingham that all such persons as shall neglect or refuse to make 

 payment of their proportion of the charge for surveying their lands and measuring 

 out their lots according to the agreement made by the selectmen of the town, with 

 Lieut. Joshua Fisher, the selectmen of the town shall have power to sell, and are 

 hereby impowered to sell so much of the wood and timber off any of their lots 

 as shall pay their proportion of the charges about laying out their lands." 



