On April 6, 1635, Clement, Anna and their five children embarked from Hingham, England, near London, on board the Elizabeth bound for New England and, specifically, for the town of Hingham, Massachusetts. There were 77 passengers on the Elizabeth, all bound for Hingham. One must wonder what it was that caused 77 Englishmen and women to leave their homes and travel several thousand miles across a hostile ocean for an uncertain life in a savage land. Of course there was the growing political crisis in England that I have described above. There was also the rising religious clash between King and Country. Charles the First was determined that England should once again embrace Catholicism, or at least abandon radical Puritan Anglicanism. In Hingham, Norfolk, England, the Reverend Peter Hobart ministered to a congregation of devout Puritans. Convinced that England was slipping into chaos, Hobart led his followers from England to the haven of New England. The good Reverend joined his father, Edmund Hobart, in Barecove. It is not clear when the first Englishmen settled in the area that would become the town of Hingham but, by 1633, settlers were calling the area Barecove because of the exposure of the floor of its harbor at low tide. In July, 1635, eleven families settled in the area and, on the second of September, 1635, petitioned the general court of Bay Colony to change the name of Barecove to Hingham and incorporate it as a town. On the 18th of September, 1635, Clement Bates was granted five acres on Town Street in Hingham. Here Clement would live out his life; the property would remain in the Bates family for nearly 250 years.

John Tower was one of 22 additional settlers in Hingham, Massachusetts. He had a house near Tower's Bridge in Hingham. Tower was a resolute man, who determined to take advantage of his position and defend his home untrammelled by the behests of the town authorities. To this end he petitioned as follows:-- To the Honored Gov. & Council convened in Boston, March 10, 1675, John Tower Senior of Hingham is bold to inform your Honors that he hath at his own proper charge fortified his house & to begg your ffavor that his four sonns & one or two persons more that he may hire at his own cost may be allowed to him for garrisoning his house; and may not be called off by the Comittee of the Town for to come into any other garrison, my sonns having deserted their own dwellings and brought their goods into my fortification. I shall thankfully acknowledge your Honors ffavor herein & be thereby further obliged to pray for a blessing on your Counsels. Your humble Servant J. Tower, Senior.