The Hamlin Reservation at 110 Argilla Rd. in Ipswich is a 135-acre former coastal farmland, with a rocky forested island surrounded by salt marsh, now owned by the Trustees of Reservations. The historic dike connecting the mainland to Eagle Island crosses marshland and was built to give grazing livestock access to the island. Remnants of old stone walls exist and provide a reminder of the property’s agricultural history and early settlement.
The date of construction of the large barn and the house at 106 Argilla Rd. is listed with the Ipswich Historical Commission and the Assessors as 1784, built by John Baker III.
The 1910 Ipswich map shows no house at this location, which sits today about where the property line divided the properties of A. Story and J J. Sullivan. Thomas Franklin Waters wrote that after the death of Deputy Governor Samuel Symonds’ widow, their large farm on Argilla Road was divided among the heirs, but Thomas Baker of Topsfield, who had married Priscilia, one of the Deputy Governor’s daughters, secured a large portion by purchase from the other heirs. His son, Col. John Baker, inherited, and his son, Allen Baker, built the large hip-roofed house known as Argilla Farm early in the nineteenth century. Ephraim Brown bought the farm, which he bequeathed to his son Thomas Brown. Brown’s daughter, Mrs. John J. Sullivan, owned the property at the beginning of the 20th century.
This house was located a little east of the Argilla Farm house and was moved across the road to the present location about 1916-1917, as a late 19th-century photo of Argilla Road seems to affirm. It is unclear whether the house was stucco before or after the move. John J. Sullivan and his wife, Mary, sold the property in 1925 to Jessie G. and Austin Norcross (2643:350), who sold it to Thomas E. Culliton in 1941 (3277:152).
Lot Morrill Hamlin Jr. and his wife, Octavia (Pearson) Hamlin, acquired the property from Thomas E. Culliton and Helen Bowers Culliton on Sept. 18, 1945 (3424:114). Octavia Hamlin donated the house and land to the Trustees of Reservations in 1993. Octavia Pearson Hamlin (1909-1992) was an environmentalist and allowed researchers access to the property, even before she donated it to the Trustees of Reservations. Her name islisted in several articles about coastal ecology. The Philips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum has a collection of her papers, including 19 boxes of notes, letters, diaries, and photographs, and glass plate negatives.
A path begins from the small parking lot just off Argilla Road and takes you over a rocky dike through the marsh, continuing around Eagle Island. At the halfway point, you can view Labor in Vain Creek weaving through the salt marsh grass.
Sources:
- Waters, Thomas Franklin: Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Vol. 2, p. 731.
Historic Ipswich 
Lot M Hamlin is my fathers brother. My uncle