80 East Street, the Jacob Perkins House (c. 1700)

The house at 80 East St. was built by Jacob Perkins around 1690 or by his son Elisha about 1720. The present owner is a descendant of the original owner of the lot. Early settler John Perkins was granted a sizable lot at the intersection of East St. and the road to Jeffreys Neck. His son Jacob remained in the homestead and sold his son Jacob three-quarters of an acre for a house lot in 1865. When Jacob Senior sold his dwelling, barn, and orchard to his sons, Jacob and Matthew in 1693, the deed referred to “the new house being northwest.”

Amazingly, this house has never been sold. The house is protected by a preservation agreement between the owners, the town of Ipswich, and the Ipswich Historical Commission. Protected elements include the exterior of the building and the frame, including principal and secondary members. View MACRIS.

The Perkins-Hodgkins house is believed to have been built on the foundation of the earlier home of John Perkins or Jacob Perkins Sr. The First Period house has been expanded and modernized over the years, but the original asymmetrical structure continues to anchor the corner with Jeffreys Neck Road. Notable are the cellar joists, which are laid sideways instead of with the long side up, a construction style found in the early 1600s.

From Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony: “From the Lakeman place to the corner of the Road to Jeffreys Neck, there were two original lots, John Sanders, next to the Lakeman place, and then John Perkins, the elder, but Perkins bought of Sanders, his lot, an acre and three rods, in 1639.

John Perkins, “Taller,” and Matthew Perkins, weaver, the sons of Jacob Perkins 3rd, agreed to divide the paternal estate. Jacob received the “mansion next to widow Hodgkins” in 1695. Jacob Perkins, in his will probated 1705, bequeathed his sons, John and Jacob, and his daughter, Elizabeth, his houses and lands, and his son Elisha is also included. “John Perkins’ will survives to this day, and the 1693 Hodgkins-Lakeman house nearby also still stands.

Jacob Perkins’s occupation was a farmer. His son Jacob married Sarah Treadwell, daughter of Thomas Treadwell, and Sarah Titcomb, granddaughter of Thomas Treadwell and Mary Wilson, early settlers. Jacob continued on the farm and looked after his father in his old age. Ownership of this house has passed through generations of the Perkins-Hodgkins family to the current owners.

Descendants of John and Judith Gator Perkins

Early ownership is traced through probate and deeds of sale. John Perkins had sons, John and Jacob. Jacob had three sons, John, Jacob, and Matthew. Jacob 2nd remained in the homestead and sold his son Jacob three-quarters of an acre for a house lot, with William Hodgkins southwest, March 23, 1685-6. When Jacob Senior sold his dwelling, barn, and orchard to his sons, Jacob and Matthew, March 13, 1693-4 (9: 271), the deed referred to “the new house being northwest.”

In 1695, the large Perkins estate was divided among the sons of Jacob 2 (Jacob, John, and Elisha). Jacob 3rd received the “mansion next to widow Hodgkins” in 1695. He bequeathed his sons, John and Jacob, and his daughter, Elizabeth, his houses and lands. Elisha Perkins, the son of Jacob 3rd born in 1694, came into possession of his father’s estate. He married Mary Newmarch in 1722 at about when Thomas Franklin Waters thought that Elisha “probably built the house.” The house and two acres of land were inherited by his daughter, Abigail Holland in 1781 (Pro. Rec. 355: 33) who is shown as the owner in the 1832 map. At the time of Waters’ writing, the house was owned and occupied by James S. Glover, which is shown in the 1910 map.

Mehitable Braybrook

Another Jabob Perkins, the son of John², was given a hundred-acre farm in Chebacco, the parish of Ipswich that is now the own of Ipswich. Read the story of Mehitable Braybrook, who burned down Jacob and Sarah Perkins’ house in 1668, married John Downing, and was arrested for witchcraft.

John Perkins Outwits the Tarentines

In 1633, Quartermaster John Perkins Jr. owned an island, “Perkins Island” that is today called Treadwell’s Island. The Tarratine or Abenaki Indians were mortal enemies of the native people in Agawam (Ipswich). On the evening of August 8, 1631, the Sagamore Masconomet’s encampment near Castle Hill was attacked by a band of one hundred Tarratine men who had paddled down the coast from Maine.

The Abenaki apparently planned to attack and destroy the small Ipswich colony in the same undertaking. That element of the story was related by the Rev. Thomas Cobbett, the second minister of Ipswich: “A credible man informs me, namely, Quartermaster John Perkins, that the Tarratines or Easterly Indians had a design to cut them off at the first when they had but between 20 and 30 men, old and young, belonging to this place called Ipswich. In that instant, most of the men had gone into the bay about their occasions, not hearing thereof.”

It was thus that Robin, a friendly Indian, came to John Perkins when he was younger, living in a little hut upon his father’s island (Perkins Island) on this side of Jeffreys Neck, and told him that on Thursday morning early, there would come four Indians to draw him to go down the hill to the waterside to trick him and all who went with him so that they could be cut off. They would arrive in 40 birch canoes and would lie out of sight in the brow of the Hill, full of Armed Indians for that purpose.

Of this, Mr. Perkins forthwith acquainted Mr. John Winthrop, who then lived there in a house near the water, who advised him if such Indians came when their backs were turned to strike up the drum he had with him beside his two muskets to alert six or eight young men, who would be in the marshes having their guns ready to charge the invaders. The Indians would perceive their plot was discovered and hasten away to the sea again. This was accordingly so acted and took like effect, for he told me that after this he discovered 40 such canoes being carried from the knoll by the Hill, making as fast as they could to sea. No doubt many godly hearts were lifted up to heaven for deliverance at Ipswich.”

Perkins-Hodgkins House, 80 East St. Preservation Agreement

This house has a preservation agreement with the Ipswich Historical Commission

• East-80-hodgkins-preservation-agreement

Sources:

• The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich Massachusetts
• MACRIS
• Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Thomas Franklin Waters
• Something to Preserve, Ipswich Historical Commission
• The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by Carol F. Karlsen
• In the Shadow of Salem by Donna Gawell
• Records and files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, Vol. IV
• WikiTree
• American Family History