UP TO DA TE. 5 I I 



the Roman Catholic Church fills a large function of the 

 town life. 



The last Christian denomination to get established 

 within our borders is the Protestant Episcopal Church. 

 Many of the summer residents in Cohasset, being Episco- 

 palians, had been compelled to drive to the Hingham 

 Episcopal Church or to attend the churches of other 

 denominations here, or else to attend no service. 



Chapel services were instituted as early as 1894 in the 

 little Grand Army Hall upon the ledge near the center of 

 the village. Two years later, 1896, June 8, at a meeting 

 of twenty-one members, a parish was organized with Rev. 

 J. B. Thomas as rector, called the St. Stephen's Parish. 

 No building has yet been erected for the use of this 

 church, and we see the organization in those same early 

 stages of development which have been successively out- 

 grown by the Unitarian, the Methodist, the Congrega- 

 tional, the Beechwood, and the Catholic churches. 



With six churches established in a town of only twenty- 

 four hundred persons, one might question whether we are 

 not over-established. But they are all self-supporting with 

 the exception of the Beechwood church, and that is in a 

 community so distant from other places of worship that 

 to aid in its support is a necessary benevolence of the 

 denomination to which it belongs. It is true that this 

 self-support of the other five churches depends to a con- 

 siderable extent upon the summer residents ; but many of 

 these are legal citizens of the town and others live here 

 so large a part of the year as to make these churches 

 almost their own church homes. 



There is a third Congregational Church which is sup- 

 ported partially by residents of this town, called the 

 Bethany Church, of Nantasket. This church was organ- 

 ized in 1 89 1, and meets in a hall that stands upon the 

 Hingham side of Hull Street. It cannot be claimed there- 

 fore as belonging to our town, though much of its support 

 comes from our citizens. 



