SEPARATION FROM HINGIIAM. 



249 



building grow, as well as furnishing a commerce direct 

 with Boston instead of being tied to the Hingham stores. 



Besides cod and mackerel and other small fish, even 

 whales were captured by our fishermen. As early as 1738 

 one of our young men, John Marble, was recorded by the 

 first pastor* as a whaler who died suddenly at Cape Cod 

 while on one of these whaling trips. 



How many more whalers there might have been whose 

 good fortune kept their names out of the "death" list 

 cannot be told. They cruised upon the banks along the 

 shore of Cape Cod, " putting in " at any convenient place 

 to "try out" the oil of such marine monsters as they 

 might catch. 



Year by year this fishing business gained in importance. 

 From eight vessels in 1737 the fleet increased to thirty 

 vessels in 1768;! and it will be readily seen that thirty 

 vessels, requiring from two to five seamen each, must have 

 accumulated some wealth in this little precinct. The 

 building of these vessels by Cohasset shipwrights out of 

 Cohasset timber meant a great deal of summer and winter 

 hauling for farmers' oxen, as well as the daily toil of a 

 score or more men at the shipyards in Little Harbor and 

 the Cove. Our coopers also were in no small demand to 

 make barrels and casks for packing fish, and these all in 

 turn made a market for farmers and millers. 



The mention of millers calls to mind the items of 

 sawmill and corn mill occurring in the tax list of 1737. 

 A half of a sawmill was taxed to Joshua Bates for that 

 year ; but we know that he owned only seven sixteenths 

 of it, for he sold out to Aaron Pratt four years afterwards 

 for twenty pounds his seven sixteenths. This mill was 

 on Turtle Island, where the old iron works had been ; but 



* See Nehemiah Hobart's Diary, p. 26, or History of Hingham, Vol. I, Pt. H, 



P- 173- 



t" In 1768 there were 30 vessels owned in the second precinct aggregating 305 

 tons — the smallest of these was 4 tons, the largest was 35 tons burden." — George 

 Lincolii, History of Hingham, Vol. I, Pt. II, p. 171. 



