at the corner of Ward and High Streets. The chapel, which also functioned as a school, was called the Mt. Zion Chapel or Free Christian Mission. Although up to one hundred people attended, official membership was thirty. [Image: Hingham Historical Society]
Massachusetts Governor (and Hingham resident) John Albion Andrew created the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry, the Union Army’s first fighting unit raised among free Black men. Men from Hingham or with Hingham roots who enlisted in the 54th or its sister unit the Massachusetts 55th Volunteer Infantry included Corporal David H. Champlin (1835-1886), Louis Legard Simpson (1841-1918), Jason Prince (1842-1881), Samuel F. Beach (1836-1871), Henry T. Winslow (1846-1871), Richard S. Winslow (1831-1904), Warren F. Freeman (1844-1868), William H. Freeman (1841-1891), and Benjamin F. Lee (1844-1909).
referred to as the “Great Abolitionist Picnic” in Tranquility Grove (known today as Byrnes Park on Hersey Street). Guest speaker Frederick Douglass, arrived in Hingham for the second time and addressed the group at The First Baptist Church where attendees gathered before processing to Tranquility Grove, where signs such as the one featured were hung from trees. Hingham resident Martha Bewick wrote a book about the Great Abolitionist picnic at Tranquility Grove [Image: Hingham Historical Society]
on November 4, 1841, before the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society. Titled “The Church and Prejudice,” it criticized ministers who used the Bible to defend slavery. Image: Wikipedia
Tuttle (ca 1780-1847) was a pillar of the small neighborhood of Tuttleville, which existed at the intersection of High and Ward Streets. His son James King Tuttle (1834-1906) is credited with leading the effort to build a small church in Tuttleville in the 1870s. Watch Harbor Media's interviews with descendants of the Tuttles . Photo courtesy of Hingham Historical Society [can we get a larger or better photo file - maybe one of Brooke's images?]
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled that slavery was inconsistent with the Declaration of Rights in the Commonwealth’s new Constitution of 1780. Prominent attorney Levi Lincoln, Sr., who argued the case for Walker, was born in Hingham. Chief Justice William Cushing, who decided the case, was from Scituate.
included Asher Freeman, Jack Freeman, Joshua Dunbar, Joseph Falmouth, Jubal Freeman, Squire Cushing, Esquire Hook, Winsor Barker, Caesar Scott, and Caesar Blake. Cromwell Barnes of Hingham enlisted in a Boston militia unit in 1779.
Flanders, Domine, and Primus Cobb. Only Cobb survived to return to Hingham.
