History
Cohasset takes its name from the Algonquian word *Quonahasset*, meaning "long rocky place," and a glance at its coast tells you why: a granite shoreline of ledges and tidal pools as severe and beautiful as anywhere south of Maine. Captain John Smith mapped the harbor in 1614, and English fishermen from Hingham broke off to settle here in 1670, drawn by the deep, sheltered anchorage and the cod grounds just offshore. For two centuries Cohasset's economy ran on fishing, coastwise schooners, and the lifeboats that pulled mariners from the ledges of Minot's, the most dangerous reef on the New England coast. Out on those ledges stands Minot's Ledge Light, completed in 1860, its distinctive 1-4-3 flash pattern long romanticized by sailors as spelling out "I love you" across the dark water.