A statue of President Lincoln adorns the area adjacent to downtown Hingham Square.

Many of the original founders were forced to flee their native town in Norfolk with both their vicars, Rev.

[10][11] Hobart, born in Hingham, Norfolk, in 1604 and, like Peck, a graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge,[12] sought shelter from the prevailing discipline of the high church among his fellow Puritans.

They "sold their possessions for half their value," noted a contemporary account, "and named the place of their settlement after their natal town."

[15][16] Prominent East Anglian Puritans like the Hobarts and the Cushings, for instance, were used to holding sway in matters of governance.

[17] Eventually the controversy became so heated that John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley were drawn into the fray; minister Hobart threatened to excommunicate Eames.

[19] Eventually a weary Eames, who was in his mid-fifties when the controversy began and who had served Hingham as first militia captain, a selectman, and Deputy in the General Court, threw in the towel and moved to nearby Marshfield where he again served as Deputy and emerged as a leading citizen, despite his brush with the Hingham powers-that-be.

[citation needed] Although the town was incorporated in 1635, the colonists did not get around to negotiating purchase from the Wampanoag, the Native American tribe in the region, until three decades later.

On July 4, 1665, the tribe's chief sachem, Josiah Wompatuck, sold the township to Capt.

The bay leads to a harbor, which cuts a U-shaped indentation into the northern shore of the town.

The town is separated from Hull by the Weir River and its tributary, which leads to the Straits Pond.

The town is represented in the Massachusetts Senate as a part of the Plymouth and Norfolk district, by Patrick O'Connor.

The district also includes the towns of Cohasset, Duxbury, Hull, Marshfield, Norwell, Scituate and Weymouth.

[39] The town is patrolled on a secondary basis by the First (Norwell) Barracks of Troop D of the Massachusetts State Police.

The members of the board of selectmen are William Ramsey, Liz Klein, and Joe Fisher.

The town hall is located in the former Central Junior High School building, which it moved into in 1995.

Public transportation is currently served by the commuter boat ferry service from the Hingham Shipyard to Rowes Wharf in downtown Boston, the MBTA's Bus Route 220, with Route 222 also passing through a small section of town, and the MBTA Commuter Rail to Boston South Station.

Ferries also run from Hingham Shipyard to several islands in Boston Harbor during the summer as well as to Pemberton Point, Hull.

[52] A bridge in Hingham over Route 3, the Southeast Expressway, is named after American Revolutionary War General Benjamin Lincoln of the Swanton branch.

General Lincoln is best remembered for accepting Cornwallis's sword of surrender at the Siege of Yorktown.