Hingham's and America

In the 1630s many residents of Hingham emigrated to America. The village sign depicts early 17th century parishioners leaving Hingham to sail to the New World. A similar sign stands in Hingham, Massachusetts.

Among the 206 settlers from Norfolk, most of them from Hingham, who founded the settlement of Hingham, Massachusetts was Samuel Lincoln. Samuel, born in Hingham (Norfolk) in 1622, baptised in St. Andrews Church on 24th August 1622, and emigrating to the New World in 1637, was the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America.

St. Andrews, Hingham's parish church, contains a permanent exhibiiton of the continuing link between the settlement of Hingham in Norfolk and its American namesake, and the stone mounting block outside the Hingham Post Office was presented by Hingham, Massachusetts in 1913.

The bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln in St Andrew's Church, Hingham was given by the citizens of the United States of America and unveiled on 15th October 1919 by the American Ambassador, the Hon. John W. Davis.

A more recent connection with America arises from the many US airmen who were based at Norfolk airfields during the Second World War. There's much more information elsewhere on this website about Norfolk's USAAF airfields.

A quarter of the area of the closest to Hingham of the American operated airfields, Deopham Green Airfield, lay in the Parish of Hingham.