On the Massachusetts North Shore
Many a pleasant sail down the river are in the memories of William J. Barton. "These were the names of the places and flats along the Ipswich River before my time, and familiar to me during my time. They were used by the fishermen and clammers. I know. I was one of them. It was the happiest time of my life."
Despite the failure of the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, the British Parliament responded to the "Boston Tea Party" by passing even more restrictive acts to punish the American extremists.
"It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr, To bear him company."
In 1765, Jenny Slew, a slave in Ipswich, successfully sued John Whipple Jr. for her freedom. In the mid-19th Century, divisions between ardent abolitionists, moderate anti-slavery people and those who avoided the discussion divided families, churches and the town of Ipswich.
Lucretia Brown, an invalid living on the South Green in Ipswich was a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy,. When she suffered a “relapse” in 1875, Mrs. Eddy convinced her that Daniel Spofford was exercising mesmeric powers upon her.
In 17th Century Ipswich, funeral services were without eulogies, but extravagant outlays were often made for mourning garments, gloves, rings, wine, refreshments and the coffin. In the 18th Century, public opinion turned against such excesses.
In early December, volunteers visit hundreds of Ipswich senior citizens over the age of 80 and distribute Christmas presents for approximately 100 Ipswich families.
The Ipswich Public Safety Facility Committee has reached an agreement with the Boston Catholic diocese to purchase four to five acres of church-owned land at the intersection of Pine Swamp and Linebrook roads that was originally a hay field across from the old Eben Lord farm.
A grassy strip near the intersection of Topsfield and Mill Roads belonged to Crocker Snow, an aviation pioneer. He received Massachusetts Pilot License No. 5 in 1927, signed by Orville Wright.
In 1660, a group of Ipswich families settled in Quaboag which they renamed Brookfield. Indian attacks in 1675 resulted in its destruction.
Within three years of the arrival of the Winthrop fleet to New England, so many immigrants had arrived in Massachusetts Bay that Boston Neck could not hold them all. Perceiving a threat from the French, thirteen men arrived in 1633 to establish the town that would be named Ipswich a year later.
In1968, Mass DPW proposed an additional beltway around Boston that would have cut through the Ipswich River Sanctuary, Bradley Palmer State Park, Appleton Farms, the Pingree Reservation and Manchester-Essex Woods. Plans were eventually abandoned because of resistance from communities that would have been affected.
Hannah Duston was born in Ipswich in 1657 while her mother was visiting her relatives the Shatswells. A bronze statue in Haverhill honors her daring escape, killing and scalping a dozen Abanaki captors.
John Perkins, who identified himself as "the Elder," and his wife Judith Gator were the immigrant ancestors of the Ipswich Perkins family from the mother country.
In 1660, Henry Kingsbury, who arrived with John Winthrop in 1630 on the ship Arbella, sold a house lot at today’s 52 High Street to Robert Lord, the son of early Ipswich settlers Robert and Mary Waite Lord. Architectural details indicate, however, that the oldest part of this double house dates to after 1716, when… Continue reading The Lord-Harris House, 52 High Street
William Howard was born in 1634 and is believed to have married Tabitha, the daughter of his neighbor Robert Kinsman, about 1673. Nothing more is known about him, other than that his profession was making felt and felt hats. In 1679, he bought this lot from Daniel Rindge, with the 1638 home of Thomas Emerson… Continue reading 41 Turkey Shore, the William Howard House
Historic Ipswich 