314 



HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



Three were pushed off the stocks in the year 1785. 

 The Bethiah, a sixty-two tonner, for John Lewis, and the 

 Greyhound of thirty-five tons for the same owner, were 

 two. The Hannah, measuring the same tonnage with the 

 Greyhound, was the third. 



The next year, 1786, there came to the town a man 

 whose wealtli and energy and culture had a lasting effect 

 upon this community. It was Elisha Doane,* son of the 

 Elisha Doane who was called " the richest man in New 

 England, with an estate valued at 125,000 pounds ster- 

 mg. 



The Cohasset Elisha Doane was one of five heirs to 

 this estate, and he came here to dwell in a house upon 

 the corner of the present Sohier and Main Streets, where 

 now a little cupola covers the old cellar. His father is 

 said to have owned at one time one hundred vessels upon 

 the sea, doing a world-wide commerce. The fishing 

 industry of this town was an opportunity for this son ; 

 but he began at once to inaugurate also a mill f enter- 

 prise at the mouth of the Gulf River. He secured the 

 interest of Deacon Abel Kent, who owned "Kent's 

 Rocks" on the south side of the Cove, and appealed to 

 the towns of Scituate and Cohasset for the right to build 

 a dam where a tide mill of great power might be erected. 



In the year 1792 the towns both granted to him and 

 his partners in the enterprise the right to build a dam 

 for the use of a gristmill. Flood gates were required for 

 the passage of vessels into the Gulf, for some ship- 

 building was carried on farther up towards the mouth of 

 Bound Brook, and large gondolas of cord wood were fre- 

 quently shipped down the Gulf on their way to Boston, 



It was a sort of stock company divided into sixty-four 

 parts, owned by Elisha Doane, Isaac Smith of Hingham, 



* Grandson of the Captain Elisha Doane in whose company John Wheelwright 

 was a soldier at Louisburg. (See p. 277.) 



tThe town voted, March 12, 1787, " that it is willing to have a Grist Mill set up 

 at the Gulf." 



