The intersection of Market, Central, North & South Main Streets was traditionally known as “Market Square” but more recently as “Five Corners.” Today it also hosts Routes 1A and 133. Visitors to our town are inevitably fascinated by how traffic negotiates this unusual intersection with its own unwritten rules, and without a traffic light.
The Bay Road
The first settlers of Ipswich forded the river near the present-day dam, just as native Americans had done for millennia. In November 1639, the General Court in Boston ordered that a road be laid out from Boston to Portsmouth. In January 1647, forty pounds sterling were appropriated to build the first wooden bridge at the site of Choate Bridge. By March, construction had begun, and it was “Ordered that the Surveyors shall take care to make good the passage at both ends of the Cart Bridge, sufficient for passages of horse and carts so soon as Carpenters have made it capable.” Thomas Clark and Thomas Wells, whose house lots were now in the path of the new road, were granted replacement lots elsewhere in town.
The “Bay Road“, also known as the Eastern Post Road, was to be constructed by each town along the way, and milestones carved in stone were installed to indicate distances. Sections of the Bay Road are today’s Route 1A. The route went through Ipswich, making it an important stagecoach stop along the way in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Several inns flourished on North Main Street near Market Square, including Spark’s Tavern, where the Salem witch trials ended, and Treadwell’s Inn, where Essex County voted to create the Provincial Congress. On the right side were the Ipswich Female Seminary and beside it, the Dr. Thomas Manning House, a stop on the Underground Railroad, still stands.
John Stacey’s House
In 1733, John Stacey, “being incapable of labor,” petitioned the town that, “there is a convenience on the northerly side of the rock by Ebenezer Smith’s for setting a house upon…for selling cakes and ale for my livelihood.” Stacey’s petition was granted, and the house was constructed on the left side of the rocky ledge on the lower North Green, across from the former Spark’s Tavern, which was owned at that time by Ebenezer Smith. Stacey’s widow sold the property to John Wood, who sold it to Samuel Ross, a blacksmith, in April 1737. Ross added a blacksmith shop on the site to service the constant stream of horses and wagons heading up and down the hill.
It became increasingly obvious that the wooden cart bridge over the river was insufficient. and the County agreed to bear half the expense of constructing the Choate Bridge in 1764 at a total cost of £996. The blacksmith business thrived for Samuel Ross, and the next owners, Samuel Ross Jr. and Joseph Lakeman Ross.
In March 1829, the Town and County began to consider plans for widening the Choate Bridge, which was now again too narrow for the great volume of stagecoaches passing through the Town. Joseph Wait and 194 others proposed that, in addition to widening the bridge, the Town should widen the road up the hill. The County Commissioners paid $800.00 to Joseph L. Ross, who removed the barn and blacksmith shop, and relocated the Stacey-Ross House to Market Street, where it stands today. After multiple delays by the town, the state ordered it to widen the Choate Bridge in 1837.
Images & Maps of Market Square
Historic Ipswich 