On the Massachusetts North Shore
An estimated 18,000,000 Native Americans lived in North America before the 17th century. The arrival of 102 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and the settlements by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans a decade later were accompanied by the demise of much of the native population of North America.
In 1642, it was ordered that every Ipswich householder shall have a ladder in constant readiness for fire. For the next 150 years, the town relied on the men in town to hurry to the alarm with buckets to save people and goods, and to fight the fires. In 1785, fire wardens were chosen to… Continue reading History of the Ipswich Volunteer Fire Department
The town voted in 1861 to build County Street and its stone arch bridge, connecting Cross and Mill Streets. A Woolen mill, saw mill, blacksmith shop and veneer mill operated near the bridge.
Daniel Denison became Major General of the colonial forces and represented Ipswich in the general court. He was remembered with high esteem by the people of Ipswich well into the 19th Century. You can visit Denison's grave at the Old North Burial Ground.
At about 1:30 am, Police gave the alarm that Central Street was on fire.The citizens of Ipswich tumbled out from their beds and faced as wicked a night as the town has ever seen. Four months later the other end of downtown burned.
Inventory No: IPS.9009: Ipswich Mills Hosiery Manufacturing Company Dam. Survey Form F (structure) submitted to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Recorded by: Ted Dattilo for the Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., May 2024. Received by the Mass. Historical Commission on Nov. 12, 2024 Year Constructed: 1908; Architect: Stickney, Stephen A. Company Recommended for listing in the National… Continue reading Historic Survey of the Ipswich Mills Dam
Notifications were posted in Salem to gather at the Town House to appoint representatives to meet at Ipswich, on September 6, 1774 along with the representatives of the other towns in the county, to consider "to consider and determine on such measures as the late acts of Parliament, and our other grievances render necessary and expedient."
"I feel unutterable anxiety. God grant us wisdom and fortitude! Should the opposition be suppressed, should this country submit, what infamy and ruin! God forbid. Death in any form is less terrible!"
The question of greater and lesser dignity, carrying with it the question of higher or lower seats, became so vexing that the task of “seating the congregation” was laid upon the Selectmen.
Crane Beach and all of Castle Neck are protected by the Trustees of Reservations. Pitch pine and scrub oak rise from the masses of marsh grass, sage green hudsonia and dune lichen lining the trails that wind through the dunes.
The hotel at Ipswich Bluff on the southern tip of Plum Island was a favorite destination of locals in the late 19th Century, who took the steamer Carlotta from the Ipswich wharf with Capt. Nat Burnham.
By the early 1840s, Essex no longer had its own fishing fleet, but had turned to year-round shipbuilding, fostering a symbiotic relationship with the successful fishermen in Gloucester.
Lillian Eden, one of the founders of Olde Ipswich Days recalls the work and effort that went into running the original fairs.
In the fall of 1928, the Shatswell School Fife and Drum Corps was born. About 18 boys were signed up. All that autumn and through the winter the boys rehearsed in earnest. On May 30, 1929, the Shatswell Fife and Drum Corps made its first appearance in the Memorial Day parade.
The Knobbs is a small beach in a stretch of salt marsh on the west side of the Ipswich section of Plum Island. On the Atlantic side was the Kbobbs Beach Life-Saving Station, replaced in 1947 by a camp for children who had been victims of polio.
Recipe For Disaster is a six minute video about the explosion of European Green Crabs in the Great Salt Marsh. The mission of GreenCrab.org is to develop markets and promote consumption of green crabs to mitigate their invasive impact.
Historic Ipswich 