Politics & Government

PHOTOS: Memorial Service for Medal of Honor Recipient

The Hingham Veterans’ Council along with Military, State, and Local Officials paid tribute to the town’s only Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Seaman Herbert Lewis Foss Wednesday afternoon in front of his grave at the Fort Hill Cemetery.

Hingham Veterans’ Council  Director Keith Jermyn along with a US Navy veteran laid a wreath in front of his grave and members of the Old Colony Lodge, A.F & A.M. conducted a ritual and gave him a three gun salute to honor their brother.

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.

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Foss has been honored in Hingham for the past six 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, October 12, 1871.

“It’s just something I think we should be doing,” said Cunningham who attended Wednesday’s service. “This is something that should have been done a long  time ago.”

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