History of Scituate, Massachusetts, From Its First Settlement to 1831 by Samuel Deane, first published in 1831, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

In 1814, when their father leaves them in charge of the Scituate lighthouse outside of Boston, two teenaged sisters devise a clever way to avert an attack by a British warship patrolling the Massachusetts coast.

One hundred years ago, the people of Scituate proudly boasted not only of living in the coastal town but also of inhabiting the various villages--among them Greenbush, the West End, North Scituate, the Harbor, Scituate Center, Egypt, and Humarock--that comprised their community. Taming the four cliffs of Scituate, the townsfolk harnessed wind and wave to power their mills, scoured and scraped seafloor rocks to gather valuable moss, and outlasted some of the most powerful storms ever to hit the New England coast. Images of America: Scituate takes us on a tour of Dreamwold, "Copper King" Thomas W. Lawson's beautiful country estate, and through the villages to meet the endless list of interesting people who lived there, from Henry Turner Bailey, the U.S. delegate to six International Art Congresses, to Uncle John Brown, celebrated as "the Oldest Man in Scituate." Along the way, we patrol the beaches with the surfmen of the U.S. Life-Saving Service under the shining beacons of Scituate and Minot's Lights coming across the wrecks of the Columbia and the Etrusco.

A surprising number of nationally recognized suffragist leaders spent summers in seaside Scituate, Massachusetts. This book creates a revealing portrait of their lives in what was arguably the nation's summer suffragist capital, using original research and previously unpublished records. It also offers a highly readable account of their personal and activist lives in Boston, New York, Washington, and elsewhere, fighting for women's right to vote, culminating in the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. It is both local and national history, still relevant to our times, when the right to vote and the right to protest are under assault.

Norwell was originally part of the maritime town Scituate, an area that boasted a thriving shipbuilding industry for over 200 years on the North River. In 1848, taxpayers from the south end of Scituate wanted more control over their finances and voted for secession. This area, originally known as South Scituate, was renamed Norwell in 1888 after the town's generous benefactor Henry Norwell. What remains of this quintessential South Shore community are many charming neighborhoods such as Ridge Hill, which has remnants of a commercial era long since passed, and Norwell Village, with a quaint small-village atmosphere that survives today.

The First Parish Church of Scituate, Massachusetts was gathered in 1634 but the history of the congregation begins in London in 1616. Henry Jacob, a Puritan dissenter, believed the Church of England had not reformed from the Catholic church enough and that people should form churches of their own like the first Christian churches. Jacob gathered a congregation in the Southwark borough of London in 1616, the first Independent (non-conformist) congregation in England. His successor, the Rev. John Lothrop, led the illegal congregation and for that he, along with a number of congregants, was jailed in the notorious prison, the Clink. Upon his release from prison Lothrop left for New England with some members of the Southwark congregation and settled in Scituate. First Parish in Scituate has a long, rich and surprising history. Rev. Lothrop is the ancestor to some of the most prominent American families such as the Roosevelts, the Bushes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Georgia O'Keefe and Benjamin Spock. Two of its early ministers were presidents of Harvard College. One minister's daughter was involved in a love triangle with Henry David Thoreau and his brother, John. Another minister later became a gold miner; another, a pacifist, paid the price for the rest of his life; still another was a Shakespearean troubadour for a time. The history of First Parish is a story of a small congregation continuing over the course of over 375 years despite schisms, financial struggles and a devastating fire. It has continued to serve the town of Scituate due to the hard work of its women, men and children through the years. The Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society gave its first Congregational History prize to Richard M. Stower for A History of the First Parish Church of Scituate, Massachusetts citing it as a remarkably comprehensive study of a 379-year-old congregation that sheds important new light on every age of Puritan, Unitarian, and Unitarian Universalist History. (June 2013)