i6o 



HISTORY OF C OH AS SET. 



about Cohasset Harbor can never be ascertained, for the 

 valuation lists of Hingham for those years have been lost, 

 and whatever enumeration of taxable homes at Cohasset 

 might have been made in those lists cannot be known. 



However, it is sure that young couples, sons and daugh- 

 ters of the first Hingham planters, settled here soon after 

 1671 upon lands granted to them or to their parents, or 

 purchased for small sums of money from grantees that 

 had no use for Cohasset. Some of them came on horse- 

 back over the cattle trails and cart tracks. 



Materials for building could easily be boated around 



from Hingham 

 Harbor; and 

 they were at 

 least upon land 

 which was with- 

 in their means 

 to own. 



The terrible 

 massacres of the 

 year 1675, when 

 the aborigines 

 under the des- 

 perate King- 

 Philip tried to 

 annihilate the invading Anglo-Saxons, did not harm Cohas- 

 set.* Captain Michael Pearsc, however, who owned all the 

 land from Whitehead to the Cove, was a Scituate man at 

 this time and fought gallantly in the Narragansett battle 

 of December, 1675. John Jacob, on Hingham Plain, was 

 shot by an Indian, AjDril 19, 1676. Furthermore, Ibrook 



*'rhe following suggestive record is in the Hingham archives dated October i8, 

 1675: " At a meeting of the freemen of Hingham, upon complaint made against 

 Joseph, the Indian, and his family who are in this town contrary to the mind of 

 most of the inhabitants and on suspicion that he will run away to the enemy to 

 our prejudice; therefore the freemen of the said town meeting passed a clear vote 

 that the constable forthwith seize the said Indian and his family and carry them up 

 to Boston to be disposed of by the Governor and council as they shall see cause." 



Old Souther Home, Pond Street. 

 Supposed to be a sample of many of the first homes. 



