286 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



January 5, 1775, to be paid, not to the king's treasurer, but 

 to the patriots' provincial treasurer, Henry Gardner, Esq., 

 of Stow, a little town west of Concord. At Concord the 

 provincial congress was to be held on the twenty-second 

 day of March, and Cohasset with Hingham appointed 

 Col. Benjamin Lincoln to represent them. This man 

 afterwards became a famous general of the American army 

 under Washington, and received the sword of Cornwallis 

 at Yorktown at the close of the war. 



The battle of Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775, 

 exploded the pent-up fury of a myriad of yeomen through- 

 out the colonies. 



When the news reached Cohasset nearly every* man in 

 the town able to bear arms was ready to spring into battle. 

 Thomas Lothrop, who had already served in the province 

 wars with a lieutenant's rank, hastened to the scene of 

 bloodshed, where he was soon commissioned a major. 



Of others who seized this first opportunity for martial 

 promotion was probably James Hall, who afterwards be- 

 came an aid to General Washington. 



There were doubtless other young men who did not 

 wait for the formation of a company to march, but started 

 at once for the seat of war, because they had no family 

 responsibilities to keep them at home. 



The whole town was trembling with excitement, and a 

 town meeting was immediately called to convene on the 

 twenty-eighth day of the month. They voted to lay in 

 a stock of corn — five hundred bushels — because food 

 might soon be sadly needed if the war should rage. They 

 also voted to buy one hundredweight of gunpowder, and 

 five hundred flints for the old flintlock guns which had 

 been used by the militia of the town since the beginning. 



The men who swarmed about the church that day on 

 the Common may be imagined from the muster roll of 

 men enlisted within a few days. 



* The total number of white jiersons in the town that year was 754. 



