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. in . 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 £12,000 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) .