52 High Street, the Henry Kingsbury – Robert Lord house (1660)

52-54 High Street, the Lord-Harris House (after 1716)

Key features of this house include a hidden room and 10 fireplaces with delicate Federal details, added by the Lords in 1790. Although no elements of the present house date to 1660, the year Henry Kingsbury sold a house and lot to Robert Lord2, reused chamfered timbers are observed in the chimney foundation. The oldest part of the present house, however, probably dates to some time after Robert Lord’s son, John Lord (1659-1736), gained possession in 1716. John married Elizabeth Clarke on 9 Dec 1695, in Ipswich. He and Thomas Lord were hatters.

The west side of this outstanding early Georgian house is said to be the oldest. The lean-to (saltbox) is found in houses throughout the colonial period, and was built integrally in Georgian houses through most of the 18th century. It is unclear when the house was expanded to its present form.

The late Prudence Fish wrote, “A questionable subject for me is the long Harris (Kingsbury-Lord) house on High Street. A previous owner asked me to look at it a long time ago when they were thinking of selling. I know it supposedly has an early date, but I didn’t find anything old in there. It all looked Federal. That was many years ago, but at the time, I was convinced that the house did not retain anything before 1800.”

Thomas Franklin Waters wrote, “On the north corner (of High and Mineral Streets), Henry Kingsbury owned a lot with a house, which he sold to Robert Lord, “the street or lane leading into the Mill St., southeast, August 30, 1660.

John Lord was in possession in 1716, but this elongated house was owned and occupied by several generations of the family. On December 30, 1820, Richard Sutton and his wife, Lucy Lord Sutton, and others, of Portland, Maine, sold to Ephraim B. Harris the house and three-quarters of an acre for $362.00 (233: 148). Captain Richard Sutton was born in the Matthew Perkins House in 1780, and married Lucy Lord in 1802. He sailed a steamboat, the Potomac, to Buenos Aires in 1835. In 1845, while in Buenos Aires, he became paralyzed on one side. He died in Buenos Aires in 1857, and his wife, Lucy, died of yellow fever in Buenos Aires in 1871. Lucy Lord Sutton was the daughter of Dr. Josiah Lord of Marblehead. Her grandfather was Samuel Lord, and his father, also named Samuel Lord, was a son of Nathaniel Lord, the son of Robert Lord2. View her chart on Family Search.

There does not appear to be a direct relationship between the Ipswich Lords and Nathan Lord, who settled in Kittery, Maine, in 1652.

A portion of the house and land was still owned by the heirs of Ephraim B. Harris at the beginning of the 20th century. Major Epes Jewett owned a portion of the house, and Andrew Russell married his daughter and bought the northwest end, while another, Mrs. Woodbury, owned a tenement in the middle of the old mansion.”

The adjoining six and one-half acres to the northwest on High St. were owned by Quartermaster Perkins in the 17th Century. The lots with buildings on them were conveyed to John Harris on July 7, 1795 (164: 236). Col. Nathaniel Harris inherited a portion. In 1858, a fire swept through several buildings in this neighborhood, but this house survived, and newer houses were constructed. The 1832 map shows these houses belonging to various members of the Harris family, with Ephraim Harris as the owner of 52-54 High St. The 1856 map shows this stretch of houses on High St. as the Nathaniel Harris estate.

Kingsbury Lord house, High Street, Ipswich MA
Photo from the MACRIS site, circa 1980

Henry Kingsbury

Henry Kingsbury was a commoner in 1641 and one of Major Denison’s subscribers in 1648. He came with Gov. Winthrop in 1630 and appears to have been one of Winthrop’s family. In writing to his wife, “From aboard the Arbela, riding at the Cowes, March 28, 1630,” Gov. Winthrop says, “Henry Kingsbury hath a child or two in the Talbot sick of the measles, but like to do well.” He sold a farm of thirty acres to Thomas Safford on February 8, 1648, but in the same year, he bought from Daniel Ladd, of Haverhill, a house and land on High St. in Ipswich, in which he was already living. According to “The Ladd Family, a Genealogical and Biographical Memoir,” Daniel Ladd was granted a 6-acre lot in 1637. Eleven years later, he sold the property to Henry Kingsbury.

Kingsbury sold his properties in Ipswich in 1660 and resettled in Haverhill. He possessed a six-acre lot, which he sold to Edmund Bridges, who sold the same to Anthony Potter and Elder John Whipple on April 4, 1660. In the same year, he sold this lot, with a house on it, to Robert Lord for two oxen in hand plus 5 pounds to be paid to Robert Paine, and 40 shillings to Edmund Bridges, the total equivalent of about £20.

From The Descendants of Henry Kingsbury of Ipswich and Haverhill: “Henry Kingsbury was at Ipswich in 1638, according to Felt’s History. The Hammatt Papers do not give his residence so early, but state that he was a commoner in Ipswich in 1641. He subscribed to the Major Denison fund on Dec. 19, 1648. The same year, 1648, Feb. 8, he sold his farm in Ipswich, 2 acres, for £5 to Thomas Safford, but this does not mean that he left Ipswich then, for the same year he bought of Daniel Ladd, of Haverhill, “house and land on High St. in Ipswich,” and twelve years later, Aug. 30, 1660, Henry Kingsbury and Susan his wife, of Ipswich, sold to Robert Lord their House and Land on High Street for two Oxen in hand — £5 to be paid Robert Paine and 40′ to Edmund Bridges. The same year, Henry Kingsbury of Rowley, late of Ipswich, and Susan, his wife, sold six acres to Reginold Foster. Henry Kingsbury was one of the inhabitants of Ipswich who signed a petition on May 17, 1658, stating that they had all taken the oath of fidelity, but were not freemen. They claimed the right to vote in town affairs, which had been questioned in a town meeting. (Mass. Archives, 112, fol. 104). In 1661, he was the overseer “for Pentucket side,” for fences and highways in Rowley.”

Robert Lord I

Robert Lord Sr., the progenitor of the extensive Lord family in Ipswich, settled here by 1635 with his wife, Mary Waite, whom he married in 1630. His home was on the east side of High Street, at or near the location of the Thomas Lord House, which is still standing. He was the town clerk, a selectman, and served as a representative to the General Court. As the town clerk, he also served as registrar of probate for forty-seven years. He died in 1683. Many later members of the Ipswich Lord family were given the name Robert.

Robert Lord II

Robert 2, the son of Robert1, married Hannah Day. Many legends surrounded the enigmatic Robert Lord Junior. Like many Ipswich men, he served in the Indian wars. Although he was short in stature, he was one of the strongest and most fearless men in the military service, and in fact, became so accustomed to camp life that he could never afterwards sleep upon a feather bed.

There is a tradition in the Lord family that a group of Indians was confronted by Robert Lord’s unit, and the Indians proposed that the dispute be settled by the champions of the two parties. Robert Lord walked to the front as the champion of the colonists. The Indians selected the tallest and strongest of their tribe, nearly seven feet in stature. Lord and the Indian were to meet at a full run and wrestle with the “Indian hug”, which the Indians anticipated would be an easy victory. They ran toward each other, and in an instant the Indian lay stretched upon the earth. Shouts of encouragement by the colonists could be heard throughout the forest. The Indians demanded a rematch, and in this second encounter, Lord used the “hip-lock” on his antagonist and threw him with such force that a blood vessel was ruptured in the fall. The Indians carried him from the arena, fully acknowledging defeat.

Robert Lord2 was a blacksmith and presented his bill in July 1692 for making four pairs of iron fetters and two pairs of handcuffs and “putting them on to ye legs and hands of Goodwife Cloys, Estes, Bromidg and Green,” who had been arrested and charged with witchcraft.

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