THE AUTONOMY OF A PRECINCT. 1 93 



of God," it being the Cohasset share of church and school 

 taxes for the town in the year 17 15. 



The money was ordered paid to John Jacob ; but there 

 is no record that John Jacob ever took it — they were on 

 the track of larger game. Again the Cohasseters went 

 before the General Court, November 8, 17 16, with a peti- 

 tion of twenty-one names, headed by Daniel Lincoln, and 

 again Hingham appointed a committee to checkmate 

 them.* Then the Cohasset men at the town meeting on 

 the following February 1 1 renewed their proposal to the 

 town to be set off as a precinct ; but the monotonous 

 negative was their only reply. 



Relief, however, was at hand. That summer of 1717 

 a committee of the General Court was chosen to view 

 the " lands and dwellings of the inhabitants of Conohas- 

 set, to see if it be convenient to make them a precinct ; " 

 (^ " the petitioners to bear the expense." True to their 

 principles to the very last, the town appointed a committee 

 to intercept this committee from the General Court, and 

 to obstruct the Cohasset movement. But the long strug- 

 gle could not be robbed of its victory. 



On the twenty-first day of the next November, the year 

 1717,1 the General Court granted the inhabitants of 

 Cohasset, alias Little Hingham, a precinct, by setting 

 them off from the rest of the town in the matter of 

 church and school. 



But now came the sober responsibility of maintaining 

 the precinct for which they had so nobly striven. They 

 asked the General Court for directions how to call their 

 first meeting legally. Perhaps this request was made 

 necessary by the Hingham officials refusing to give legal 

 warning for such a meeting. At any rate, the court gave 



* The General Court ordered the Cohasset petition to be shown to Hingham, 

 so that any objections might be heard on Tuesday, tlie twentieth of that month. 



t Rev. Jacob Flint's Century Address errs in putting this event at the date 1715 ; 

 also in several other particulars his account of the struggle for autonomy is in- 

 accurate. 



