The two-pin crossarm on the top might have been for the town's fire alarm call box service. The lines beneath belonged to the Hingham Light Plant. A small transformer seen here provided about 100 volts secondary to one or two customers from 1,100 volts primary.

Within the Light Plant's 1896 annual report, the general manager made a tabulation of the various outages that took place, with when and why during the year. At the conclusion of this list he said: "In some instances mentioned above, it is impossible to say what caused the breaking of the wires. They may have become strained during some storm, there may have been a flaw in the wire, or the heat and cold may have affected them. These are accidents that are liable to occur at any time to any plant, and when we take into consideration the fact that we have about 110 miles of wire on different circuits throughout the town, and the small number of accidents enumerated above, the cause for which cannot be explained, it will seem that our lines are in good condition. In those cases where lamps and fixtures have been detached by trolley ropes, had such been reported at once, the break in the connection would have been repaired and the lights would have been out but a short time. Arrangements have been completed with the Superintendent of the railway, so that in the future I do not forsee any trouble on this account."

"I have frequently taken the voltage of the commercial accounts (aka the lighting customers at the time) and amperage of the street (lighting) circuits, and the following is the record for the past year (1896). Our contract calls for 6.8 amperes on the street (lighting) circuits and 50 and 100 volts for the commercial circuits. "In summary the readings taken during the year were satisfactory with the only exception that one of the street lighting circuits registered 6.75 amperes in November and the other series loop showed a reading of 6.5 amperes in October." These issues were promptly corrected according to the Light Plant's general manager, Wallace Corthell.