21 High Street, the Haskell-Lord House (c. 1750)

The house at 21 High Street is said to be on the site of the home built by early settler Robert Lord, who arrived in late 1634. Robert Lord was born in Sudbury, England, in 1603 and was one of the earliest settlers of Ipswich, arriving in late 1634 or early 1635 with his wife, Mary Waite. He took the Freeman’s oath in Boston on March 3, 1635/6. They had four children with them when they arrived and had five more in Ipswich. Robert Lord served as town clerk from 1636 until his death in 1683. He was also Marshal or Sheriff, succeeded by his son Robert on March 27, 1660.

Mark Haskell (1687-1775) was born in Gloucester to Mark Haskell and Elizabeth Giddings. He married Martha Tuttle (1690-1763) of Ipswich in 1709. Structural evidence suggests that the right side of this house was constructed first, a typical one-over-one “half house” with a chimney stack located just inside the doorway, believed to have been built circa 1750 by Mark Haskell. Mark and Martha Haskell’s daughter, Eunice, married Daniel Lord, a cabinetmaker.

After his first wife died, Mark Haskell married, in 1767, Elizabeth Burnham. Also in 1767, Haskell sold the house and an acre of land to his son-in-law, Daniel Lord, for £80, which is the first registered deed on record (124:224). It is likely that Daniel Lord added the left side, for when he died in 1780, his will bequeathed the southeast half to his widow Eunice, and the northwest half to his nephew Joseph, son of his brother Nathaniel.

The MACRIS site states that the house was updated around 1800, and that much of the Federal trim and other features still remain.

Sources:

Gravestones at the Old North Burying Ground

C-28 – Sacred to the memory of Dea. Mark Haskell, a man of piety and integrity, an exemplary member and judicious officer of the First Church in Ipswich, who deceased March 15, 1825, Aged 81. And his daughter, Sarah Haskell, who died May 25, 1841, aged 65. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints”. (F. S.) M.H. S.H.; Haskell, Deacon Mark

C-60 – Here lyes the body of Mrs. Martha Haskell, wife to Deacon Mark Haskell, who died May 15th, 1763, in the 73rd year of her age, who was the Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother of 79 Children. (F. S.) Mrs. Martha Haskell; Haskell, Martha Tuttle