History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts

Lists among Thomas Barnes’s children “Elizabeth, Dec. 8, 1644. m. Murfea, or Murfett,” very likely a mis-rendering of Mulford. Thomas Barnes was granted a house lot on Bachelor (now Main) Street in 1637; farmer and weaver; will 29 Apr 1671 (not seen). His wife Anna died 5 Apr 1691.

The 1893 edition’s list of early settlers (vol. 1, transcribed at https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~blackwell/books/ma/Hingham1893/h1settlers.html) counts 133 passengers by the ship Diligent of Ipswich, John Martin master, in 1638 who settled at Hingham, among them Joseph Peck and his brother Rev. Robert Peck, rector of Hingham, Norfolk. Printed sources spell the ship “Diligent”, not “Diligence”.

More on Thomas Barnes (vol. 2, Barnes p. 23; https://archive.org/details/historyoftownofh0203hing): “said to have been a s. of Roland,” with no record given; his three-acre house lot of 1637 on Bachelor Street was bounded north by Thomas Hett and south by Ralph Smith, and was later the site of the house Rev. Joseph Richardson built in 1816; his first children were twins, Thomas and John, baptized 21 May 1643; his inventory lists 12 horned cattle, 9 swine, produce and weaving material. The colonial tree reads Elizabeth’s date, 8 Dec 1644, as a baptism.