Old Ship Church

Historic church in Massachusetts, United States
the Old Ship Meetinghouse in Massachusetts

The Old Ship Church (also known as the Old Ship Meetinghouse) is a Puritan church built in 1681 in Hingham, Massachusetts. It is the only surviving 17th century Puritan meetinghouse in the United States. Its congregation, gathered in 1635 and officially known as First Parish in Hingham, occupies the oldest church building in continuous ecclesiastical use in the country. On October 9, 1960, it was designated a National Historic Landmark, and on November 15, 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Old Ship Church is, according to The New York Times, "the oldest continuously worshiped in church in North America and the only surviving example in this country of the English Gothic style of the 17th century. The more familiar delicately spired white Colonial churches of New England would not be built for more than half a century." Within the church, "the ceiling, made of great oak beams, looks like the inverted frame of a ship", notes The Washington Post. "Built in 1681, it is the oldest church in continuous use as a house of worship in North America." The most distinctive feature of the structure is its hammerbeam roof, a Gothic open timber construction, the most well known example being that of Westminster Hall. Some of those working on the soaring structure were no doubt ship carpenters; others were East Anglians familiar with the method of constructing a hammerbeam roof.

Old Ship Church is abutted by a large colonial graveyard to the rear of the church. The graveyard, Hingham Cemetery, is sometimes called the First Settlers cemetery. It is independent of the Old Ship Church and is owned and managed by the Hingham Cemetery Corporation. It was originally part of a tract of land granted by the town to Thomas Gill, one of Hingham's earliest settlers. (It now comprises , and is the oldest cemetery in Hingham.) Buried within its precincts are many of Hingham's earliest settlers and their descendants, including members of the Cushing, Hersey, Otis, Chaffee, Lane, Andrews, Hobart, Loring, Bates, Leavitt, Thaxter, Tower, Beal, Lincoln, Fearing and other prominent early families. Among the prominent individuals buried in the graveyard are: Thomas Joy (1618–1678), builder of the first statehouse in Boston (the building was built of timber) and designer of the Old Ship Church; Rev. Peter Hobart (1604–1679), pastor of Old Ship Church, ancestor of Senator John Kerry; Edmund Hobart, father of Rev. Peter, instrumental in founding Hingham, ancestor of John Henry Hobart; William Hersey, one of Hingham's first settlers, ancestor of writer John Hersey; Col. Samuel Thaxter (1665–1740), one of "His Majesty's Council and Col. of His Regiment," delegate to the General Court and Hingham selectman; Col. Benjamin Lincoln (1699–1771), member of "His Majesty's Council," town selectman, town clerk, husband of Elizabeth Thaxter (daughter of Col. Samuel Thaxter), and father of Major General Benjamin Lincoln; Mrs. Sarah Langley Hersey Derby (1714–1790), founder of Derby Academy in Hingham, widow of Dr. Ezekiel Hersey and of Salem merchant Richard Derby, father of Elias Hasket Derby; Mary Revere Lincoln (1770–1853), daughter of Paul Revere; Governor John Albion Andrew (1818–1867), Civil War governor of Massachusetts, instrumental in founding the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments, the first regiments of black infantry in the Civil War; John Davis Long (1838 1915), 32nd Governor of Massachusetts and Secretary of the Navy;(Wilmon Brewer (1895–1998), author/poet, philanthropist (major donations: Old Ordinary tavern to the town of Hingham, More Brewer Conservation Area, World's End Park); Solomon Lincoln (1804–1881), Hingham attorney, author of first history of Hingham (1827), state senator, president of Boston's Webster Bank, and president of the Hingham Cemetery Corporation. The oldest burials date from at least 1672, before the building of the current meeting house. The Settlers' Monument in Old Ship burying ground marks the place where the remains of Hingham's earliest settlers were moved after their initial burying place along modern day Main Street, in front of Old Ship Church, was excavated for the passage of horse drawn trolleys about 1835.

Also in the grounds, situated close to the church, is the Hingham Memorial Bell Tower, erected in 1912 to commemorate the 275th anniversary of the founding of Hingham, and in memory of the town's founders. The tower contains ten bells hung for change ringing, also made in 1912 by Mears & Stainbank, of Whitechapel, London. The bells were cast specifically in order to be similar to the bells hung in St Andrew's Church in Hingham, Norfolk, which the town's founders would have heard while living in England, and are tuned to the same key of E.