364 



HISTORY OF C OH ASSET. 



gallery ; and " it was voted to sell the ground in the 

 meeting-house formerly occupied by singers." 



It was probably in this period of musical progress that 

 the violin and bass viol were introduced into the worship. 



In 1 77 1 Isaac Lincoln and others who came from a 

 distance were allowed " to set up a horse house near the 

 meeting-house." Horse-blocks to aid the horseback 

 riders in mounting were for many years standing at both 

 corners of the east side of the meeting-house. 



The salary of the pastor always included a gift " for 

 settlement " of several hundred pounds to be paid in the 

 first three or four years. Rev. John Brown's was ^400 

 for settlement, paid in four years, besides an annual 

 salary of ;£350. Both of these were old tenor terms, 

 which meant at this time about one sixth of what was 

 stated.* 



Half of the pay was to be "by Indian Corn and Rye 

 at fifteen shiUings per bushel ; the other half by beef at 

 tenpence per pound." 



The precinct assessors had to state for each year the 

 amount they could raise, and it varied in the course of Mr. 

 Brown's forty-five years from ^^56 3^-. 9^. in the year 

 1754 to £,\o\ 6s. 8d. in the year 1786. 



The stove wood for the pastor was provided annually 

 by the assessors, and it was no small chore, judging by the 

 amount used ; for Mr. Brown demanded for his first three 

 years "twenty cords of merchantable wood annually." 



The tithingman, now made familiar to us by the oddity 

 of the notion, was a town officer to preserve order in the 

 town's pubHc worship. John Orcutt was an appointee from 

 the Hingham town meeting in 1750 and other years, and 



•This depreciation of the old issue of bills made long contracts unfortunate. 



In 1753 the town refused "to grant a further allowance to Isaac Lincoln for 

 maintaining the bridge over Bound Brook for twenty years past — in consideration 

 of the depreciation of the money." 



Also John Joy, for keeping an Indian woman (pauper) in her last illness, was 

 not allowed extra pay on account of the depreciation. 



