Hingham - Hull - Scituate 

              Hingham  Hull Marshfield Quincy Scituate Weymouth
first settlers  1630   1622    1632     1625    1627     1623
incorporated    1635   1644    1640     1640    1636     1635
first ancestor  1633   1625    1642     1640    1638     1635
last ancestor   1767   1634    1658     1661    1728     1648
# of ancestors   37      3       3        2      10        3
# of immigrants  20      3       0        2       0        3
# born in town    9      0       0        0       3        0
# died in town   30      0       0        1       4        0
  • The First Generation (Gen-1)
  • JOHN and SARAH LYFORD (1624-1649)
  • EDMUND and MARGARET HOBART (1633-1645/6)
  • REV. PETER and ELIZABETH HOBART (1633-1679)
  • RICHARD and MARGARET IBROOK (1635-1664)
  • CLEMENT and ANN BATES (1635-1671)
  • THOMAS ANDREWS - JOSEPH and ELIZABETH ANDREWS (1635-1688)
  • STEPHEN and ANN GATES (1638-1653)
  • WILLIAM and MRS. RIPLEY (1638-1656)
  • RICHARD LANGER (1636-1661)
  • JOHN and ALICE HOAR (1643-1659)
  • JOHN and ELIZABETH UPHAM (1635-1648)
  • The Second Generation (Gen-2) RIPLEY, LAZEL, LINCOLN, BATES, and GANNET
  • The Third Generation (Gen-3) RIPLEY, LINCOLN and GANNET
  • The Fourth Generation (Gen-4) RIPLEY and KENT
  • The Fifth Generation (Gen-5) RIPLEY

    The town of Hingham, Massachusetts provides us with a good case study of our ancestors during the Massachusetts Great Migration. 46 ancestors lived at some point in Hingham or neighboring Hull, Scituate, Marshfield, and Weymouth. 33 of the 46 were born in England. By the end of the Great Migration, roughly 100 familes lived in Hingham, of which 10 were our ancestors, and at least 5 more were their siblings. Our ancestors were clearly the driving force behind the incorporation of the town, provided town leadership for the first half century, and their descendents still populate the town (my brother-in-law Greg Weisz graduated from Hingham High School in the late 1960s; he had classmates named Hobart, Ripley, and Lincoln, probably 12th-generation cousins of mine). Our ancestors lived in Hingham from 1633 until 1767, a span of 134 years.

    Hull, Scituate, and Weymouth were all settled before Hingham. Hull lies to the northeast of Hingham, while Scituate lies to the southeast and Weymouth to the west. Hull and Scituate are now separated by the town of Cohasset, which was the eastern part of Hingham in colonial times. Hull, or Nantasket as it was originally called, was a trading post for the Plymouth Bay Colony in 1621. The first permanent settlers came in 1622, but it was not incorporated until 1644. Scituate saw its first settlers in 1627, with the town lots laid out in 1633. The border between Scituate and Hingham was also the border between the Plymouth Bay Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was supposed to be a line five miles south of the Charles River. Nobody agreed on where that line was, and the Governors had to be involved several times in specifying exactly where the line ran, and there was friction between the two towns into the 18th century. Our three ancestor families that lived in Scituate lived about a mile apart from each other along the Hingham border. Marshfield was a minor town in our ancestors' history. The Rev. EDWARD BULKLEY and his family lived there 16 years from 1642 to 1658 while he was the pastor of the Church of Marshfield. His parsonage was just south of the church/meeting house, which was by the side of the first burying ground (now Winslow Cemetery). His story is in the chapter about Concord. Weymouth saw its first settlers in 1622, the oldest settlement in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but was just a loose group until the ship Marygould arrived in 1635 with 21 familes, including our ancestors the UPHAMs, and the town was incorporated.

    The land which became Hingham was originally called Bare Cove, perhaps because of the large mud flats in the harbor at low tide. It lies 21 miles south of Charlestown at the southern tip of Boston Harbor. The first handfull of settlers to Bare Cove came in 1630 from the west coast counties of England, via Dorchester, Massachusetts. They were farmers who tended to live scattered, away from towns. But the story of Hingham, Massachusetts, really starts in Hingham, and the neighboring town of Wymondham, Norfolk, England, three years later. Hingham lies 100 miles northeast of London, a small town (around 2,000 people in the year 2000) centered around St. Andrews Church (pictured in photo), while Wymondham is 5 miles further to the east (current population around 13,000). Many of the St. Andrews parishioners were strong Puritan followers of their minister, Rev. Robert Peck. In 1632 the Puritan-friendly Bishop of Norwich died, and his replacer, Bishop Matthew Wren, tightened many Anglican restrictions such as removing English bibles and restoring Latin in religious services. Religious strife, along with an economic depression in the area since the 1620s, led many in Hingham (and eastern England in general) to decide they would be better off leaving England.

    The first of three waves of immigrants from the Hingham area arrived in Bare Cove in 1633 led by Edmund Hobart and three of his sons. The second wave came in 1635 when another of the Hobart sons, Rev. Peter Hobart, arrived with another boat load from Hingham. With his arrival the Mass. General Court incorporated the town and renamed it Hingham Plantation to encourage more emigrants to come from Hingham, England. The final wave came in 1638 when the former minister of St. Andrews Church, Rev. Robert Peck arrived with another 133 including most of the remaining Puritans from the parish. This final departure left old Hingham decimated, and tipped the political balance in Hingham Plantation from an uneasy rivalry between Westcountry non-Puritans and Norfolk Puritans, to a solid Puritan majority, and cemented Hingham Plantation as virtually a transplant of the old culture, with a similar social structure. The people in Hingham Plantation were regarded in one of three social classes: at the top were the clergy, political leaders, and the very wealthy; next came the lesser gentry or yeomen; and at the bottom were the cottage farmer. By the end of the Great Migration, the population of Hingham was around 700 with 47 founding families (in the year 2000 the population was 19,882). At some point in the 1640s, all of the available land was accounted for and the town no longer accepted new settlers, and with the Puritan propensity to having large families, many of the children of the founders left to seek land and opportunities elsewhere. Those children that stayed, intermarried, so that after a few generations most residents of the town could claim ancestors coming from the major families like the Hobarts, Lincolns, and Ripleys.

    Steamboat Springs was founded in a vacuum, with few rules or laws to control the lives of the residents. Hingham, on the other hand, was founded with a strict set of laws forced on it by the Massachusetts General Court. Two areas in particular were vastly different between Colorado and Massachusetts: land ownership and town laws. In Colorado in the 1870s, land was owned by the U.S. Government and could be bought by anybody willing to live on it for five years. A town could be incorporated by a vote of the majority of residents living in that town. In Massachusetts in the 1630s, land was owned by the Mass. Bay Company, and was allotted to individuals only after a town became incorporated by vote of the General Court. Once incorporated, a town could allot its land among the freemen living in the town. To be a freeman, one had to be a member of the local Church and have lived in the town long enough to be considered respectable. In order to provide protection from Dutch pirates, French soldiers, or hostile Indians, every incorporated town had to have a meetinghouse, which served as the Church, town hall, and fort; a militia training ground; a town common; and a school. All homes had to be built within 1/2 mile of the meetinghouse, so towns were built with a dense cluster of homes along the major roads surrounded by the individual fields. Hingham was built south and west from a sheltered cove that provided access to the bay around Boston, and initially most travel and commerce between Hingham and the rest of the colony was by boat. Much of the original farmland was already meadows cleared of trees by the members of the Massachusetts Indian nation, under Chief Chickutabut. Epidemics of probably smallpox, spotted fever, and measles had decimated the Indian population in the decade before the Pilgrims. Those that still lived in the area were friendly to the English and lived as neighboring communities. The Indians traded their furs, did day-labor type jobs in Hingham, and some even came to the weekly Sunday church services. The land was officially bought from the Indians on July 4, 1665, when the tribe's chief, Josiah Wompatuck, presented a detailed legal deed with all of the typical legalese wording of more modern deeds, signed by seven Indians, to Captain Joshua Hobart and John Thaxter.

    The only conflict Hingham had with Indians involved not the friendly local Indians, but the marauding Indians from further south in the conflict known as King Philip's War. Hingham built three separate forts within the town to combat the threat, and probably escaped any serious attack by having a well trained militia. Only one man was killed and five houses burned in a night-time raid on April 19, 1676, while the adjacent town of Scituate to the southeast was completely destroyed. Captain Joshua Hobart led 50 men from Hingham to the battle at King Philip's stronghold in Rhode Island in December 1675. Various Hingham militia participated in fighting throughout the year in many parts of the region.
    The First Generation (Gen-1):
    We will now turn our attention to the individual families of our first ancestors, grouped roughly by generation. If we label the first generation as Gen-1, then Minnie May Welch would be in Gen-10. Three of the families that we will discuss (Hobart, Ibrook, and Andrews) are actually in Gen-0, as they accompanied their married children to the new land and maintained their own separate households. In the following descriptions direct ancestors (not including siblings) are given in capital letters.
    JOHN and SARAH LYFORD
    We start with one of the more interesting, and definitely the most nefarious of our ancestors: JOHN LYFORD. He was unique among our ancestors in several ways. First he was Irish, second he emigrated to Plymouth Plantation, and third he died in Virginia, before the Massachusetts Bay Company even existed. He was the first of our ancestors to set foot on this continent. His wife and children will crop up repeatedly in our discussions of Hingham ancestors and it is appropriate to introduce the Lyford family here.

    JOHN was born about 1590 in Levalleglish, in the parish of Loughgall, county Armagh, Ireland. He was educated as a preacher, perhaps at Trinity College, Dublin, where his oldest son attended, and ordained as an Episcopal minister. He married SARAH about 1617 and they had four children: Obadiah, RUTH (born about 1619), Mordecai, and Martha. After preaching for a few years, JOHN was hired to go to Plymouth Plantation to provide for their religious needs, since there was no ordained leader there. However one faction of the shareholders of the Plymouth Company in England really wanted to use him to either bring the Pilgrims back into the Church of England or to cause them to fail and abandon Plymouth. The Lyford family arrived at Plymouth in March of 1624 on the ship "Charity". William Bradford's "History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647" mentions Lyford extensively. "The Pilgrim Republic" by John A. Goodwin devotes a whole chapter titled "The Puritan Conspiracy - Oldham and Lyford". Both provide many interesting details of an intrique that was probably not Lyford's idea, but which shows that Lyford had alot of poor character traits. Over the summer he became friendly with a group of men led by John Oldham, who had arrived in Plymouth a year earlier to spy for this same faction of stockholders. Governor Bradford became worried about their intentions, and surreptiously opened and read letters Oldham and LYFORD wrote to the stockholders. A few weeks later when JOHN tried to start his own church, Governor Bradford called a court and read some of the letters, which easily showed Oldham and LYFORD's true intentions. They were convicted and expelled from the Colony. Oldham left immediately (he resurfaced as a prominent citizen of Watertown), but JOHN wept and confessed and repented, and Bradford let him stay. However within two months, JOHN was once again caught writing more inflamatory letters to stockholders. At this point SARAH went to the Plymouth deacons and told them that before they were married, she heard rumors that JOHN had fathered a child. He denied it, and even took a solemn oath that it never happened. "Upon which she gave consent and married with him; but afterwards it was found true and the bastard brought home to them" (from Bradford's history). This additional evidence of his lying and seemy character was enough for Bradford to banish him immediately.

    The Lyfords joined Oldham at Nantasket, where in 1621 Plymouth Colony had established a trading post for trade with the Wampanoags. (Nantasket was incorporated in 1644 as the town of Hull, and borders the east end of Hingham.) Lyford, Oldham, and Roger Conant are considered the first three settlers of Nantasket. After less than a year in Nantasket, the Dorchester Company hired Conant to be their governor for a new colony at Cape Ann (Gloucester), with LYFORD as its first minister. They moved to Cape Ann in 1625, but the place was abandonned in 1626 due to its harsh conditions and Conant with at least a dozen others moved the town to what is now Salem, including physically disassembling and moving the meetinghouse. LYFORD thus became the first Episcopal preacher in Salem. At the end of the year, he accepted an invitation to preach in Virginia, and the Lyford family departed New England in 1627. He appears at least twice in the records of Virginia. He became the minister of Martin's Hundred, a settlement on the east side of the James River, about 10 miles downstream from Jamestown. Apparently he had worked out a very good arrangement, because the General Court ordered the settlement's leader, William Harwood, to provide a third of Lyford's pay because the deal was too costly to the settlement. Then on April 9, 1629, the Rev. JOHN LYFORD presented the will of Robert Adams to the General Court. He must have died shortly after that. In October, 1641, his daughter made a statement to a court indicating that when he died his property consisted chiefly of tobacco, which may have been the currency in which the minister tax was collected in Virginia.


    View of Lyfords Lycking River looking northwest toward Hull on the opposite bank. The river flows from Straits Pond 1/2 mile to the east. Lyfords Lyking Park is the marshy area on the left of the photo.


    SARAH LYFORD returned with her children to Nantasket, where they lived at the east end of the beach near Straits Pond, on the river, which was called "Lyford's Lycking River". (There is now a park along the river called "Lyfords Lyking Park".) She might have remarried a man with the surname of "Oakley", because when she marries again in 1634 to EDMUND HOBART, she is described as "Sarah Oakeley widow". EDMUND became the guardian of her three children, and several legal recordings are made dealing with the JOHN LYFORD estate which was probated in Ireland. When she outlived EDMUND by three years, his son PETER took care of her. SARAH's daughter Martha married Samuel Lincoln, the ancester of President Abraham Lincoln. So through SARAH and JOHN LYFORD, we are distant cousins of the President. The photo shows a statue honoring Lincoln at the corner of North St. and Lincoln St.
    EDMUND and MARGARET HOBART
    EDMUND HOBART, who we just met, was the head of the most influential family in the founding of Hingham, and is mentioned in any historical book on Hingham. He was born around 1572 and inherited land and the title Lord of the Manor of Hingham, England in 1598 at age 26 from his father, Thomas Hubbarde. For over 30 years he successfully managed his tenement farmers, skilled tradesmen, and household servants and was adapt at construction and farming. In his early 60s EDMUND led 14 of his family, including children Thomas and his wife, Edmund and his wife, Joshua, Rebecca and Sarah, several of his servants, and seven other wealthy Puritan families to the New World. They sailed on the "Elizabeth Bonaventure" and arrived in Charlestown on June 15, 1633. EDMUND built 3 adjacent houses for his family in Charlestown, became a Freeman March 4, 1634 and was Constable of Charlestown in the same year. Sadly, his wife MARGARET must have also died that year, or perhaps before the ship voyage, and as mentioned above, EDMUND married the widow Mrs. SARAH LYFORD on Oct 10, 1634.

    The Hobarts knew an Englishman who was already settled in Bare Cove, and soon two of his sons, Edmund Jr. and Thomas, show up as living in Bare Cove along with three other Norfolk familes. Over the next two years the rest of the Hingham group moved to Bare Cove, and probably through EDMUND's efforts the General Court agreed to incorporate the town on September 2, 1635, and rename it Hingham. EDMUND was the logical leader of the immigrants from Hingham, England, and was elected as a Deputy to the General Court from Hingham in 1639, 1640, and 1642. He was the patriarch of the Hingham Plantation until his death March 8, 1645/6. There appeared two notices about him in the record: on June 5, 1638, "Edmond Hubberd, Senior, was fined 40s. for leaving a pit open, in which a child was drowned", and in the fall of 1639 he was sued 50s. for trespassing in a neighbor's corn.
    REV. PETER and ELIZABETH HOBART
    Eclipsing EDMUND in importance to the new community was his son REV. PETER HOBART. Each of Edmund's sons had trained for a different profession, with PETER studying for the ministry. He graduated from Magdalen College of Cambridge U. with a degree of Bachelor in 1625, and of Master of Arts in 1629, taught grammar school and preached guest sermons in several parishes in England in the area of Southwold, on the ocean 35 miles east of Hingham. There he met ELIZABETH IBROOK, who he married in 1628 and had four children in England including ELIZABETH HOBART who was born about 1632. PETER led a second group of Puritans from Hingham to Massachusetts in June, 1635. He spent the summer in Charlestown living in one of his father's houses, joined the Congregational Church in Charlestown, became a Freeman on Sept. 2, 1635. On the same date, the General Court incorporated Hingham, and two weeks later PETER joined his parents and siblings in Hingham. The day he arrived, Sept. 18, 1835, 59 families living in the new town drew house lots, numbered starting with #1 at the cove landing and proceeding west along the main road. PETER drew first, and chose lot #19, consisting of 10 acres on the north side of the road about a quarter mile from the cove. His twin brother Joshua chose lot #18, his father lot #17, and brother Edmund Jr. lot #15.

    ....
    First Landing marker .... Peter Hobart's home lot probably included
    everything in the photo on the right plus much more behind the
    white house (built much later in 1750).

    Upon arrival in Hingham, PETER immediately formed the first church in Hingham and the 12th in all of Mass (the church became part of the Presbytery with other nearby towns such as Dorchester, Ipswich, and Scituate). Through his ministry, he guided the town as a shepard guides his flock. He was a strong, independent thinker, committed to his faith and to his followers while still being very tolerant of other people's religious views. He tried to include everybody in his church, and was remarkably successfull. By 1640, 90% of the Hingham families were members of his church, compared with 50% for the Boston Congregational churches and 25% for the Colony-wide average. The town obviously respected him, and paid him one of the highest salaries in the Colony: 70 pounds, increased to 100 pounds by a vote in 1651. In the mid 1670s PETER initiated the process of replacing the aging meeting house with a new building. He hired the architect and builder, and undoubtedly influenced the size and design of the building. Unfortunately once the specifications were finished, the trees for the lumber were cut but had to sit three years to completely dry. During this time PETER died, and thus never got to preach in the new building. The building, now called Old Ship Church, still stands and is the oldest continuously used church in America. It's unique shape and age makes it one of the historical gems in Massachusetts.

    ....
    The Old Ship Church was originally the second Hingham Meeting House. The name stems from it's unique architecture: from the inside the rafters and roof look like the hull of a ship turned upside down.

    PETER appears often in the records of Hingham, and is often mentioned in history books for his involvement in a Massachusetts General Court hearing. The affair initially did not involve PETER. The Hingham militia in 1945 voted Anthony Eames, a Westcountryman who had been their lieutenant for about 8 years, to be their Captain, a position regarded as the second highest elected official of a town, and one that required the approval of a Magistrate. However before approval was received, the militiamen became disenchanted with Eames, and held a new election where they elected as Captain Bozoan Allen, a close friend of PETER HOBART and along with Joshua Hobart, Deputy to the General Court from Hingham. Since Eames for years had reported the political situation to Governor Winthrop (some labeled him as Winthrop's spy in Hingham), Winthrop and the Magistrates let it be known that they thought Eames would make a better Captain than Allen, but that it was a matter that the whole Court should consider.

    While waiting for approval, Allen called for a day of training. Eames also showed up, insisting he was the Captain, and both sides called the other side liars. The dispute spilled over into the Hingham Church with more accusations. Winthrop, who was then Deputy Governor, brought several of the militiamen, including PETER's three brothers, to Boston for insubordination, where they were fined and some jailed when they refused to pay the fines. When the General Court finally met, the Hingham militia comprising most of the men in Hingham marched up the hill to the Boston meetinghouse carrying their muskets. PETER carried with him a petition signed by about 90 Hingham settlers accusing Winthrop (with the help of the Magistrates) of overstepping his authority and asking the General Court for redress. This resonated with the Deputies, who feared the Governor was too dictatorial, and 15 of the 31 Deputies immediately supported the petition.

    Eventually both the Magistrates and Deputies agreed that the petition was "false and scandalous", but only the Magistrates called for censure. The proceedings dragged on for two months until the Deputies agreed to compromise with small fines totaling about 300 pounds to various participants, including 2 pounds for PETER, 5 pounds for Eames and 40 pounds for Joshua Hobart. The militia was put under commanders from neighboring towns until Allen was once again elected captain in 1651. PETER was dragged back into court for refusing to pay his fine, and eventually was allowed a trial by jury, which increased his fine by 20 pounds, which he then gladly paid. He was also forbidden to speak at a wedding in Boston, and ceased his public activities outside Hingham.

    Certainly during this time PETER was a thorn in Winthrop's side and most history accounts report Winthrop's viewpoint as told in his journal. But though the Magistrates' initial reaction was to seize more control, they eventually sped up the process of increasing democracy in Massachusetts government. As Samuel Eliot Morison wrote: "In government and law, however, the very people who punished the remonstrants took up their suggestions." As a final note of irony, PETER's brother Joshua was elected as Speaker of the House of Deputies in 1674.

    PETER had 11 children with ELIZABETH before she died in childbirth in 1645. The first four, including our ancestor ELIZABETH HOBART, were born in England. PETER then married Rebecca Peck, daughter of his former minister Rev. Robert Peck, and they had another 6 children, one of them adopted. He sent his sons to Harvard College (Joshua and Jeremiah graduated in the class of 1650), and four of them became ministers. A copy of a diary PETER kept is at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. The first entry in the journal is: "I with my wife and four children came safely to New England June ye 8: 1635: for ever praysed be the god of Heaven my god and king." One historian wrote, "... [on North St.] opposite Goold's Bridge, the Rev. Peter Hobart occupied the parsonage, which for forty years had been the centre of social and intellectual life in the town". He signed his will four days before his death from a protracted illness. He is buried in the Hingham Cemetery in the "Three Ministers' Tomb" which has a monument erected around 1871 to the 1st three ministers in Hingham. Recorded on a memorial tablet is the inscription: 
    IN MEMORY OF

REVr PETER HOBART WHO DIED JANUARY
20th 1679 IN THE 75th YEAR OF HIS
AGE AND 53rd OF HIS MINISTRY 9 YEARS
OF WHICH HE SPENT IN HINGHAM
GREAT BRITAIN & 44 IN HINGHAM
MASSACHUSETHS.
    Cotton Mather, in his classic book about the Puritan exeriences in New England, "Magnalia Christi American" included a chapter on PETER HOBART and wrote this epitaph for him: 
     Beneath this stone his buried ashes lie
  But his freed spirit is beyond the sky.


    left: Three Ministers' Tomb
    middle: inscription on Three Ministers' Tomb
    right: 1st Settlers monument (tall obelisk) with monument to Clement and Ann Bates in the foreground. During the first 50 years of Hingham, settlers were buried behind the first meeting house. Eventually the meeting house was torn down, and the graves were moved to this location. The monument says "To the First Settlers of Hingham" and "Erected by the Town 1839" on the west and east sides. Undoubtedly several of our ancestors are in this mass grave.
    RICHARD and MARGARET IBROOK
    PETER's first wife ELIZABETH was the daughter of RICHARD and MARGARET IBROOK, They lived in Southwold, England, where he worked as bailiff (churchwarden) and had six children. They also emigrated to Hingham Plantation in 1635 with their two unmarried daughters, perhaps on the same boat with ELIZABETH and the Hobarts. They obtained a 4 acre lot on "Broad Cove", now called Lincoln St, northeast of the Hobarts. One daughter soon married Joshua Hobart, while the other married John Tower. Another daughter was married to William Cotherum, who lived on the adjacent land to the north. We do not know what occupation RICHARD IBROOK endeavored, although he must have been reasonably well off to be able to arrange two weddings with the upper class Hobart family. He also was granted an island in Hingham Harbor that is now called Langley Island, but originally called Ibrook's Island. It is the northern most of four islands in the Harbor, and is about 200 meters long. On March 5, 1638/9, "Richard Ibrooke, for tempting 2 or more maids to uncleanness, was fined 5 pounds to the coutry, & 20s. apiece to the 2 maids".

    left: looking east toward Ibrooks Island. Note windmill just to right of Ibrooks Island; this is the same windmill in a previous photo showing Lyfords Lycking River.
    right: aerial view of Ibrooks Island.
    CLEMENT and ANN BATES
    Also arriving at Hingham Plantation in 1635 was CLEMENT BATES, a tailor from Biddenden, Kent, England. He, his wife ANN DALRUMPLE and children JAMES, Clement, Rachell, Joseph, and Benjamin, left Ipswich, England in late April 1635 on the ship "Elizabeth". He became a freeman in March of 1635/6 and was given the 5th lot on South St. He amassed a fair amount of property in his lifetime, and when he died in 1671 his estate totalled 215 pounds 12s. His     will bequethed his house lot to JAMES, and indicated that it was adjacent to son Joseph's house lot. The house was later turned into or replaced by Anchor Tavern, which was on the southeast corner of Lafayette Ave and South St. Perhaps Joseph's lot was to the west stretching from Lafayette Ave to Bates Way. The inventory of Clement Bate's estate totaled £215.12.0 most of which value came from 5 parcels of land. ANN died in 1669. A memorial stone to them in the Hingham Cemetery says: 
      BATES
  In Memory of
  Clement and Ann Bates
  Immigrant Ancestors
  1635
  This memorial is placed by
  The Bates Association
  1927
    THOMAS ANDREWS - JOSEPH and ELIZABETH ANDREWS
    One other family arrived in Hingham by 1635: THOMAS ANDREWS and his son JOSEPH ANDREWS, from Devonshire, England. The father was old and probably had no young children when he immigrated. The son was born about 1597 and immigrated with his wife ELIZABETH. Half of their eight children were born in England including HANNAH, about 1622. Both father and son drew lots on the same day as the Hobarts: THOMAS got lot 8 and JOSEPH lot 9, both 2 acres on the north side of North St. with an additional 3 acres boardering Bare Cove. These lots were probably 1/4 mile east of the Hobart lots, near the current intersection with Lincoln St. THOMAS also received various acerage for farming, wood, etc., including "one half of a little island that is compassed about with the Home Meadow" [this is an island in the Mill Pond or it's stream]. THOMAS died in 1643, and nothing more is known about him. JOSEPH was the first Town Constable, being sworn July 8, 1635, the first Town Clerk of Hingham, and was Deputy to the General Court in 1636, 1637, and 1638. In 1641 JOSEPH was one of six men appointed to fix the prices of laborers' wages and commodities in Hingham. The working day was eight hours long. A common laborer received about 37 cents a day; a carpenter 45 cents; a wheelwright 50 cents; and mowing per day 50 cents. By 1654 he became a resident of Duxbury where he was surveyor of highways in 1654 and 1655, and constable in 1664. In 1665 he gave his house in Hingham to his son Thomas, but later in life he returned to Hingham and died there January 1, 1679/80. His will is lengthy and gives his possessions to 20 different people, including a sword to one of his sons, a cow to a grandson, and "unto my Daughter hannah ganitt one peauter platter".

    left: Bates Way off of South Street. Clement lived in a house where the brick building is now. His son lived adjacent to the west, probably where the gray house is now. Bates Way is the small side street running to the right of the gray house.
    middle and right: Corner of Fearing Rd and North Street, where Thomas and Joseph Andrews each had a home lot, probably where a church and Post Office now are.
    STEPHEN and ANN GATES
    Rev. Robert Peck arrived in 1638 on the ship "Diligent" along with three more of our ancestor families: the Gates, Ripleys, and Lincolns. THOMAS LINCOLN was young and unmarried and properly belongs in Gen-2 so we will describe him later. STEPHEN GATES was born in Hingham, England about 1600, the son of Thomas and Ann Gates of Hingham, Norfolk, England. He married ANN HILL, born in 1603 in England, and they had 2 children born in England, ELIZABETH and Mary, and five more in Hingham Plantation including STEPHEN, born in 1640. We know little about his time in Hingham other than that he owned some meadow land. In 1653 the Gates family moved to Cambridge, and had no more ties to Hingham (see the document on the Welch ancestors in Cambridge to learn more about the Gates). Just as the Lyford family entangled our ancestors with a web of connections, so did the Gates family: ANN late in life married our ancestor RICHARD WOODWARD of Watertown, and ELIZABETH's great-great-great-grandson married STEPHEN's great-great-great-granddaughter two centuries later.
    WILLIAM and MRS. RIPLEY
    WILLIAM RIPLEY also came from Hingham, England on the "Diligent" with his wife and four children including JOHN, born in 1621. He was granted land in 1638 on Main St. by the training field in Hingham Centre. His house remained in the Ripley family for 300 years before it was torn down in 1940 and replaced by a fire house. He was a "glover" in England, a "weaver" in Hingham Plantation. He became a Freeman May 18 1642, remarried Mrs. Elizabeth Thaxter in 1654, and died shortly after in July 1656, the first of 4 generations of our Ripley ancestors to die in Hingham.

    The Ripley Homestead on Main St. There were originally several homes here built by Ripleys. The remaining house on the left was originally built in 1692 as two distinct houses, which later were joined into one. William Ripley's house was located where the firestation is now on the right.
    RICHARD LANGER
    RICHARD LANGER is listed as coming to Hingham in 1636. In his     will written in 1659/60 one year before he died, he mentions three daughters including MARGARET, married to THOMAS LINCOLN. He gave all of his land to MARGARET's eldest son Joshua including his home lot that he bought from his son-in-law THOMAS. Probably when THOMAS and MARGARET married, THOMAS split his home lot and sold part of it to his father-in-law so the two families could live adjacent to each other. The inventory of RICHARD LANGER's estate was appraised at £21.02s.
    JOHN and ALICE HOAR
    The progenitors of the Hoar family were CHARLES HOAR, sheriff of Glouscester, England, and his wife JOANNA (HINKMAN) HOAR. About 1640, soon after CHARLES died, JOANNA came to Massachusetts with at least five sons and two daughters, and settled in Braintree (later became Quincy), a town about four miles along the coast to the northwest of Hingham. JOANNA later become known as "the Great Mother" because so many of her descendents became famous. Foremost among them were Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Her son Leonard became the third president of Harvard College between 1672-1675. Joanna died in Braintree in 1661, and is buried in the Old Burying Ground in a common grave with her son Leonard and his wife. The epitaph uses the phrase "A great mother". 
    Joanna Hoar
Died in Braintree
December 21st, 1661
She was widow of
Charles Hoar
sheriff of
Gloucester England
who died 1638
She came to
New England
with five children
about 1640

Epitaph wrote for the Tomb of
Leonard Hoar Doctour of
Phisicke who departed this life
In Boston the 28 November,
Was interred here the 6 December
And was aged 45 years,
Anno Dom, 1675.

Three precious friends under this tombstone lie
Pattern to aged, youth, and infancy,
A great mother, her learned son, with child,
The first and least went free, he was exil'd.
In love to Christ, this Country, and dear friends,
He left his own, cross'd seas, and for amends
Was here extoll'd, envy'd, all in a breath,
His noble consort leaves, is drawn to death.
Stranger changes may befall us ere we die,
Blest they who well arrive eternity.
God grant some names, O thou New England's friend,
Don't sooner fade than thine, if times don't mend.

    left: Gate to the Old Burying Ground in Quincy
    middle: The grave of Joanna Hoar and her son Leonard Hoar
    right: The Hoar grave looking east, with J. Quincy Adams tomb in the background
    (his body is now in the church across the street)

    Our ancestor was the youngest of her sons, JOHN HOAR, born in 1623. He must have lived in Braintree for a while with his mother, but does not appear in any Braintree records. He first shows up in Scituate in 1643 where he is listed as bearing arms. He practiced law, and was always engaged while in Scituate in the business of the Town, and draftsman of deeds, bonds, etc. He was an Ensign in the expedition to New York againt the Dutch in 1654. His farm was on the west side of Musquashcut pond, less than a mile from the Gannets. He was one of the "Conihassett partners" who in 1646 paid 180 pounds each for one of 30 shares in a three mile square tract of land near Accord Pond, now part of Abington and Hanover. He married ALICE and had ELIZABETH born about 1650. In 1659 he moved to Concord, where he owned over 300 acres beyond the Assabet River near Annursnuc in the western part of town. He participated in King Philip's War by helping to negotiate the release of Mary Rowlandson. JOHN died in Concord on April 2, 1704.


    left: view looking east at Musquashcut Pond; the Atlantic Ocean is just beyond the sandbar on the horizon. middle: view looking west from Musquashcut Pond. This was probably John Hoar's farm. right: view looking north at the brook that flows from Musquashcut Pond west, then north into the ocean.
    JOHN and ELIZABETH UPHAM
    JOHN and ELIZABETH UPHAM arrived in Weymouth on the ship Marygould in May of 1635 along with their three children including ELIZABETH, born in 1632. The 21 families on the ship, under the direction of Rev. Joseph Hull, landed on the Fore River at the mouth of Mill Creek. They proceeded to lay out the town south of Burying Hill and west of King Oak Hill. JOHN was made a freeman later that year on September 2. He was an important citizen of the town right from the start, being elected deputy for Weymouth to the Mass. Bay General Court from 1636 to 1639. He was granted 30 acres of land in 1636 ("Thirty acres in the greate lottes the pond on the East the commones on the west Steephen ffrench on the north"), and by 1643 he had acquired another 8 acres. Around 1648 the family left Weymouth and moved to Malden, where JOHN was elected selectman from 1651 through 1660, and town moderator for three years. He also became a deacon of the Malden church on June 25, 1658. See the Charlestown chapter for more on the UPHAMs.
    This concludes all of our Gen-1 ancestors who came to Hingham, Hull, or Scituate. If we look at a map of where they lived, we find the Hobarts in the center, with Ibrook to their north, Langer and Lincoln to their west, Andrews to their east, and Bates and Ripleys to the south. Only the location of the Gates family is a mystery.
    The Second Generation (Gen-2):
    All of our Hingham ancestors in Gen-2 were born in England; all of those in later generations were born in the Colony. We have already mentioned most of them as being children of the first generation, but we must introduce four additional families: Lazell, Lincoln, Gannet, and Kent. We will progress through the families in roughly the order they appear in the genealogy chart in the Introduction chapter, top to bottom, right to left.
    JOHN and ELIZABETH (HOBART) RIPLEY
    JOHN RIPLEY, son of WILLIAM RIPLEY, married ELIZABETH HOBART, the daughter of Rev. PETER HOBART around 1655. He bacame a Freeman in 1656, and they lived in the Ripley homestead on Main St. They had 7 children, including PETER, born Oct 21, 1668.
    JOHN and ELIZABETH (GATES) LAZELL
    We know nothing about JOHN LAZELL before his marriage with ELIZABETH GATES in 1647 in Hingham. They had 11 children, including SARAH born Nov 29, 1666. He was drafted into the army during King Philip's War, but may not have fought. He was a Constable in 1677, became a freeman in 1678, wrote his will in 1695, and died 16 Jan 1700/1. He resided at Hingham Center "over the river", perhaps at the northern end of what is now called Lazell St., shown in the photo.
    THOMAS and MARGARET (LANGER) LINCOLN
    The Lincoln surname runs rampant in Hingham: eight men with the surname appear in the early records, four of them named Thomas. Fortunately, all of the old records differentiate them by their occupation: weaver, cooper, Sargeant, and husbandman. Three were brothers from Hingham, England, named Daniel, Samuel (ancestor of President Abraham Lincoln), and Thomas the weaver. Two more Lincoln men were brothers from Wymondham, England, named Stephen and our ancestor, THOMAS LINCOLN, husbandman. They arrived on the "Diligent", and THOMAS was granted a house lot on the north side of Fort Hill St. (about where brown house is in photo) and within five years married MARGARET LANGER, daughter of RICHARD LANGER. They had 11 children including CALEB, born a twin May 3, 1645. THOMAS was a town selectman in 1662, 1669, and 1672, wrote his will in 1681 listing eight of his children, and died in 1692. THOMAS' grandfather in England had three sons: one was THOMAS' father, one was the ancestor of President Lincoln, and the third was the ancestor of General Benjamin Lincoln, a famous Revolutionary War hero.
    JAMES and RUTH (LYFORD) BATES
    JAMES BATES, son of CLEMENT BATES, married RUTH LYFORD, daughter of JOHN and SARAH LYFORD and the step-daughter of EDMUND HOBART. JAMES and RUTH lived practically within sight of each other across Town Brook. They married April 16, 1643, were in Scituate for several years, but returned to live on South St. probably next to his father and brother. They had 11 children, including RACHEL, born Sept. 6, 1659.
    MATTHEW and HANNAH (ANDREWS) GANNET
    MATTHEW GANNET, born about 1618, arrived in Hingham sometime before 1651, but we know nothing of his life in Hingham except that he married HANNAH ANDREWS and had at least one of their six children in Hingham: JOSEPH, born in 1648. By 1651 they moved to Scituate. where he purchased a house at the west end of the dam at Lincoln's mills. This is by Border Brook, which is the current border between Scituate and Cohasset (originally part of Hingham). The house was probably near the intersection of the current Gannet Rd and Mordecai Lincoln Rd. He was listed as becoming a freeman and assigned a portion of common lands in 1673. MATTHEW died in 1694, and HANNAH died in 1700. The three Gannet ancestors are all buried in the Men Of Kent Cemetery in Scituate.

    The Gannets lived just to the west of the Mordecai Lincoln Mill. The original mill was built before the Gannets moved here, whereas the current mill was built in 1691, while the Gannets still lived nearby.
    The Third Generation (Gen-3):
    PETER and SARAH (LAZELL) RIPLEY
    PETER RIPLEY, son of JOHN RIPLEY, married SARAH LAZELL on Apr 17, 1693. He was "cooper", town constable in 1708, and selectman in 1725. They likewise resided on the Ripley homestead on Main St. and had 6 children including another PETER, born Nov. 7, 1695. SARAH died in 1736 while the elder PETER died in 1742. 
     
Peter Ripley        Sarah Ripley 
     Hingham Center Cemetery     

Here  Lyes  ye     HERE LYES BURIED
Body   of   mr     YE  BODY  OF MRS
Peter    Riply     SARAH  RIPLY  YE
who dyed April     WIFE    OF    MR
ye 22, 1742 in     PETE RIPLY  AGED
ye 74     year     69    YEARS    &
of   his   Age     9 MONTHS   &  19
                   DAYS.   DYED SEP
                   TEMBER 19,  1736
    CALEB and RACHAEL (BATES) LINCOLN
    CALEB LINCOLN married RACHAEL BATES on May 8, 1684. He was a carpenter and lived near his father on Fort Hill St. at the corner of West St. (where the white house is in photo). They had 6 children including SILENCE, born Dec. 26, 1692. RACHAEL died young on Nov 10, 1696, and Caleb remarried two years later. His second wife also died after only 8 years, and Caleb lived alone another 9 years until he died on Dec 9, 1715. 
     
Site of Caleb's house        Caleb Lincoln    
Fort Hill St & West St      Hingham Cemetery    

                        HERE LYES YE BODY
                        OF Mr CALEB
                        LINCOLNE DECd
                        DECMr 9, 1715
                        IN ye 72 YEAR
                        OF HIS AGE.
    JOSEPH and DEBORAH (COOMBS) GANNET
    JOSEPH GANNET, son of MATTHEW and HANNAH GANNET, never lived in Hingham, but since his parents and daughter did, we include him also. In 1682 he married DEBORAH COOMBS in Marblehead, and they had five children including HANNAH on Aug 4, 1684. JOSEPH died of yellow feaver shortly before his father in 1693, while DEBORAH remarried Joseph House in 1703 and died in Scituate in 1728. DEBORAH was the daughter of HENRY and ELIZABETH COOMBS. HENRY was a proprietor in Salem in 1635, way-warden at Marblehead in 1656, and may have been French. 
      
   Men of Kent Cemetery          Gannet graves       Matthew Gannet's footstone

 
      Hanna Gannet             Matthew Gannet

    Here lys ye Body          Here lys ye Body  
     of Hanna Gannet             of Matthew     
   Who Died July ye             Gannet Who      
        10 1700                Died 1 October   
        Aged 78                 1695 Aged 77    
         Years                     Years
    The Fourth Generation (Gen-4):
    PETER and SILENCE (LINCOLN) RIPLEY
    PETER RIPLEY, son of PETER RIPLEY, married SILENCE LINCOLN on Jan 5, 1720/21. Like his father, he also was a "cooper", a town constable in 1735, a selectman in 1738 and 1741, and resided on the Ripley homestead. They had 7 children, including their oldest son NOAH born Sept 18, 1721. SILENCE died in 1760, PETER had a second wife Elizabeth, and died in 1765. 
     
Peter Ripley        Silence Ripley 
     Hingham Center Cemetery     

  Here  Lies          Here lyes the 
Buried ye Body         Body of mrs  
 of mr  Peter         Silance Ripley
  Ripley who            Wife of mr  
Died April 28th        Peter Ripley 
  1765 in ye          Who Died March
   70th Year           the 11th 1760
    of his             Aged 67 years
      Age
    EBENEZER and HANNAH (GANNET) KENT
    EBENEZER KENT was the last of our relatives to move to Hingham. He was born August 18, 1680 in Charlestown, the eighth of nine children of JOHN KENT and HANNAH GRISOLD. On Dec 8, 1703 EBENEZER married HANNAH GANNET and moved to Hingham, where they lived on what is now Beechwood St., and built the first dwelling erected on the west side of the Conahasset River. [There is currently no Conahasset River; it could be either Bound River or Aaron River, both of which the current Beechwood St crosses. There are currently alot of houses where Beechwood crosses Bound R., but Aaron River has been dammed. In the photo, the River is on the right edge and the street would have crossed where the dam now is, and his land is probably underwater.] He became a member of the Second Parish in Hingham at its formation in 1721 and was constable in 1727 and 1736. They had 11 children including LYDIA, born Apr 24, 1725. EBENEZER died in 1752 leaving 1/7 of his estate to each of his four sons and 1/14 to each of his six daughters. HANNAH lived another 15 years and died Mar 27, 1767, the last of our ancestors to live in Hingham.
    The Fifth Generation (Gen-5):
    NOAH and LYDIA (KENT) RIPLEY
    Finally we come to the last generation of Hingham ancestors, and after proceeding through a pretty quiet century when life must have been pretty nice for Hingham residents but a little dull for us to read about (just look at how similar the two PETER RIPLEYs were), we finally get to some more adventure. NOAH RIPLEY married LYDIA KENT in Hingham on Dec 22, 1743, had two children born in Hingham, but then moved to Woodstock, Connecticut, which is in the northeastern corner of Connecticut. At the time they moved there, probably around 1747, Woodstock was still a part of Massachusetts since it was given to Connecticut in 1749. Joshua Ripley, the brother of our first PETER RIPLEY, had moved near there, and NOAH probably had cousins there. After another 11 children were born (including Dr. Ezra Ripley, famous in the history of Concord, and LYDIA, born in 1757), they moved by 1763 to Barre, Massachusetts, where the last 6 children were born - an astounding 19 children! The last child was born Oct 18, 1772 when LYDIA was 47 years old. She lived another 44 years and when she died June 17, 1816, aged 91, she had 97 grandchildren and 106 great grandchildren!!

    Barre was first settled in 1720 and called the Northwest District of Rutland, later called just the Rutland District. It was incorporated as the town of Hutchinson on June 14, 1774 after the former royal governor, but the townspeople complained and the name was changed to Barre in June of 1776 to honor Isaac Barre, a British Member of Parliament who was a champion of the American cause and coined the phrase "Sons of Liberty". At this time it had about 750 people. When the Revolution started at the "Lexington Alarm", NOAH RIPLEY, at age 53, marched from Barre in Capt. John Black's company. He later served under Col. Nathan Sparhawk to reinforce the army at Bennington, VT., where the American militia decisively defeated British General Burgoyne in August of 1777. The Seventh Worcester continued to serve until October.

    The Hingham Cemetery is the oldest and largest in Hingham. and is situated behind the Old Ship Church. The bell tower was built on the highest hill in the cemetery to honor the original settlers of Hingham. There are three markers for our ancestors.


    The Hingham Center Cemetery is off of Main Street, a mile south of the Hingham Cemetery. There are lots of markers for Ripleys, Lincolns, Hobarts, and Lazells, including four markers for our ancestors.
    There are several old houses still standing along North St.in Hingham. Here are nine of them that were built while our ancestors still lived in Hingham. None of our ancestors lived in them, but the 1650 Samuel Lincoln House was built by a son-in-law of SARAH LYFORD, the Samuel Hobart 1687 house was built by a grandson of EDMUND HOBART, and the John Beal 1699 house was built by a great-grandson of EDMUND HOBART.

    Albert Fearing House 1640 . . . . . . . . Samuel Lincoln House 1721 . . . . . . . . Benjamin Lincoln House 1667

    Samuel Lincoln House 1650 . . . . . . . William Lincoln House 1673 . . . . . . . . Simon Gross House 1698

    Samuel Hobart House 1687 . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Beal House 1699 . . . . . . . . . . . . Old Ordinary 1680 . . . 
    Streets in Hingham:
Bates Way
Hobart St
Lazell St
Lincoln St

Streets in Scituate:
Bates Ln
Gannet Rd
Gannet Pasture Ln

Streets in Cohasset:
Ripley Rd
    Bibliography (some of these books can be downloaded and read from Google Books):