This is an overall view of what one of the earliest incandescent street lights looked like in Hingham, MA and in many other communities in the Boston area. This fixture is either one that the town "inherited" when the townspeople purchased the town's electrical system on April 1, 1894... or it was an addition added after that time. By 1903 these fixtures were becoming problemsome to maintain, mostly on account of electrical connections and aging. A town-wide program was initiated during 1903 which updated these lights to more weatherproof then-modern fixtures, having Edison screw-bases. These offered more reliable circuit continuity since they electrically operated in series, like a loop of series-connected Christmas lights. Click "Previous" or [id=618531909] for a closeup look at this fixture and its carbon "hairpin" shaped filament lightbulb (Bernstein type).

Wallace Corthell, manager of the Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant stated in his year-end 1900 report:

"The past year has been one of progress... seven years ago, when the town purchased the plant, few people realized the rapid growth that would take place in the extension of the lines and the increase of commercial and domestic takers. At that time, the use of electricity for domestic lighting was adopted only by a few courageous persons. Electricity was so little understood, and was deemed of such a dangerous nature, that he was truly a courageous man who in this conservative town dared to install the electric lamp in his dwelling."

He added: "Economically used, it is not an expensive light, and there are few companies or towns in this state where current is sold at as low a rate as Hingham."

In order to relieve the physical stresses of the pine poles that served both the Light Plant as well as the street railway system (commenced in 1897), a meeting between the Light Plant and Railway management, the former's 1900 report stated: "it was decided to commence a joint line of larger and higher poles better adapted by both; and there is at the present time set in cement, a new line of poles, 15 inches square and from 40 to 45 feet in height, extending from the corner of Cottage and North Streets to steamboat wharf (editor's note: this was about a quarter-mile in length and stood until the mid 1920s when the street railway was removed). Many more square chestnut poles were installed in the 1900-1910 period throughout town where the Light Plant and railway company shared space on the new poles, reducing outages from fallen lines of either entity. The cost of the upgrading to the beefier square poles was split by the Street Railway and Light Plant.

If you are familiar with this area this photo was taken in the vicinity of Merrill Street in the scenic Crow Point section of Hingham overlooking the harbor.