Elisha Leavitt

In 1771 Leavitt purchased one of Hingham's landmarks, the old Thaxter Mansion built in 1652, which had tapestried walls, elaborate painted murals, decorated door panels and large tiled fireplaces.

[6] Elisha Leavitt also owned land across the region, including substantial acreage at Cohasset, the seaside town carved from Hingham.

[8] Realizing that British officers needed pasturage for their horses during the Siege of Boston in 1775, Leavitt offered them the use of Grape Island.

Shortly afterwards hundreds of militiamen from the South Shore assembled at Weymouth, opposite Grape Island, and began firing on the British.

The angry colonists, in retaliation for Leavitt's actions, burned the wealthy Tory's barn to the ground and confiscated his cattle.

"[10] Following the Grape Island skirmish, enraged citizens turned up on the doorstep of Leavitt's mansion to set it alight or "for the purpose of doing violence to his person", according to the History of the Town of Hingham.

But the avuncular Leavitt averted trouble and defused the mob by rolling out a barrel of rum and "dispensing its contents liberally.

"[10] "The gentlemen aforesaid", says the Hingham history, referring delicately to the assembled mob, "were received by Mrs. Leavitt in elegant dress, and urged to walk in and partake of the wine.

[11] A close friend and Harvard classmate (1773) of Bela Lincoln of Hingham, Martin Leavitt practiced medicine until he died aged thirty on November 27, 1785, when he drowned in the town's mill pond.