Hingham Medal of Honor Recipient Honored This Weekend

The Hingham Veterans’ Council will pay tribute to the town’s only Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Seaman Herbert Lewis Foss, Saturday afternoon in front of his grave at the Fort Hill Cemetery.

The ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. on Oct. 12. 

Members of the Foss Family along with Military, State, and Local Officials will be present to recognize Seaman Foss’s service to our Nation, according to the town website. A wreath will be placed, along with the reading of his Medal of Honor Citation. Members of the Old Colony Lodge, A.F & A.M. will conduct a brief ritual to honor their Brother.

The event is open to the public and participation is highly recommended. 

Foss served in the US Navy and fought in the Spanish American War. During the war, in May of 1898, Foss and his shipmates snared the communications cable off the coast of northwest Cuba.  

With great difficulty while under intense enemy fire the men pulled the cable up over the bow of their ship and proceeded to sever it.  Since many of his shipmates were wounded or killed in the process, Foss finished the job by cutting the cable with a hacksaw and was later honored for his acts of braveness.

Foss has been honored in Hingham for the past eight years thanks to Michael Cunningham, the former Hingham Veterans’ services director. Cunningham decided that the town should hold a Memorial Celebration each year on the anniversary of Foss’s birthday, Oct. 12, 1871.