South Hingham Historic District

South Hingham Historic District covers about 1.1 miles of Main Street in Hingham, Massachusetts, running from 528 to 781 Main Street across the Glad Tidings Plain. Its most distinctive feature is the broad street, laid out in the 17th century at twelve rods wide and now lined with frontage roads and mature shade trees. The district counts 158 contributing resources, including 143 buildings. Houses range from the 1650 Edward Wilder House to Colonial Revival homes of the 1940s. Seventy-five buildings from 1650 to 1850 show Colonial, Federal and Greek Revival styles, and local builders kept traditional details well into the later 19th century. Other resources include the 1742 Second Parish Church, a 1905 cemetery chapel, an 1878 memorial building, a 1754 milestone and a 17th-century dam at Cushing Pond. Mills, toy making, shoemaking, clockmaking and the building trades shaped the neighborhood's economy and appear in its history.