HINGHAM

hingham, a township of plymouth county, massachusetts, u.s.a., on massachusetts bay. pop (1890) 4564; (1900) 5059 (969 being foreign-born); (1905, state census) 4819; (1910) 4965. area, about 30 sq. m. the township is traversed by the new york, new haven & hartford railway, and contains the villages of hingham, west hingham, hingham center, and south hingham. derby academy, a co-educational school founded and endowed with about l12,000 in 1784 by sarah derby (1714-1790), was opened in 1791. hingham has a public library (1868), with 12,000 volumes in 1908. the old meeting house, erected in 1681, is one of the oldest church buildings in the country used continuously. manufactures were relatively much more important in the 17th and 18th centuries than since. there were settlers here as early as 1633, some of them--notably edmund hobart, ancestor of bishop john henry hobart,--being natives of hingham, norfolk, england, whence the name; and in 1635 common land called barecove became the township of hingham. see _history of the town of hingham_ (4 vols., hingham, 1893).