The Stephen Boardman house at the corner of Turkey Shore and Labor in Vain Roads was built between 1720 and 1725. The late First Period home is a 2-story, end-gable house, timber-frame house with clapboard siding. The wide pine board floors in the house are original, and 4 restored fireplaces share a central chimney. Very early in the history of this town, the land on which this house was built belonged to Daniel Hovey, whose house and wharf were a short distance away on the extension of Turkey Shore Road known as Tansey Lane.
Thomas Franklin Waters wrote, “The lot, granted to Stephen Jordan, then owned by Daniel Hovey and Thomas Hovey, was sold to Stephen Boardman. He sold to Benjamin Wheeler the land, six and a half acres and buildings, “which I purchased of Thomas Hovey, reserving a way for Samuel Howard to pass to his land” July 14, 1744 (85: 229). David Wheeler of Harpswell sold the same to Major Woodbury, April 9, 1784 (142:139). Mary, daughter of Major Woodbury, married Thomas MacMahon, Dec. 17, 1826, and inherited the estate. The MacMahon heirs sold the house and ten acres to James Galbraith on Nov. 28, 1864 (678:21). who sold to the present owner, Isaac H. Foss, March 21, 1870 (802:155). The house is of venerable age, and was built probably early in the eighteenth century.”
The Stephen Boardman for whom this house is named is believed to have been born before 1717, the son of Thomas Boardman and Sarah Langley of Rowley. He and his wife, Elizabeth Cogswell, had one child. He moved to Stratham, NH, where he made a name for himself as an opponent of Tory loyalists and a vocal supporter of the expected American Revolution. Stephen Boardman died in 1776 in Stratham. However, if Stephen Boardman was born in 1717, he was not the first owner of this house.)
Subsequent owners of the house included:
- Benjamin Wheeler or Thomas Hovey (85: 229) purchased the house in 1744. Of Wheeler, we know little other than that he was a trader and was fined in 1750 for selling rum without a license. (Although we don’t know of a connection, John Heard established a rum distillery on Turkey Road in 1770, processing barrels of molasses from the West Indies.)
- Mager Woodbury, a Revolutionary War hero, and his wife, Mary Appleton, purchased the house in 1784, the year of their marriage. Mary Appleton, born 1749, daughter of Isaac Appleton and Elizabeth Sawyer, and Mager Woodbury, son of Samuel Woodbury and Sarah Goodwin, had two children, Samuel and Mary.
- On March 18, 1802, their 15-year-old son, Samuel, drowned when he went down to the river and stepped out on the ice.
- Majer Woodbury and several other farmers organized as the Proprietors of the Argilla Enclosure for the purpose of creating a dike in the salt marsh so that they could harvest salt marsh hay.
- James and Mary Galbraith, both born in Ireland, purchased the house in 1864. He died in 1875, she in 1888. They are buried at the South Green Cemetery.
- Isaac H. and Rebecca Foss moved to Ipswich in 1870 from Rockingham, NH, and purchased this house. Foss also owned the elegant Gothic Revival house next door as well as the old Daniel Hovey property on Tansey Lane. It is said that their daughter Becky, whom they adopted in 1899, contracted polio. She married in 1930 and moved to Hamilton.
Stephen Boardman House, 67 Turkey Shore Rd. Preservation Agreement
This house has a preservation agreement with the Ipswich Historical Commission. The house was restored in 1968, including the pilastered chimney and plaster cove cornice. The original paneling and chamfered frame are still intact.
View the post and beam framing in this house
Woodbury-McMahon timeline
- Mager Woodbury, born to Samuel and Sarah Goodwin Woodbury, baptised December 25, 1757, Boxford.
- Mager Woodbury marries Mary Appleton, Nov. 25, 1784, Ipswich.
- Mary Woodbury, born to Mager and Mary Appleton Woodbury, Nov. 20, 1791, Essex.
- Death of Mager & Mary Appleton Woodbury’s son, Samuel, 18 March 1802, drowning.
- Marriage of Mary Woodbury and Thomas McMahon, 18 Nov., 1826, Ipswich, Mass.
- Death of Mary Woodbury‘s mother, Mary Appleton Woodbury, Mar. 10, 1828
- Death of Mary Woodbury’s father, Mager Woodbury, Oct. 3, 1837. Case Number 179, Probate Records, Vol 97-100, 1836- 1860
- Death of Mary Woodbury Mahan, Fitchburg, age 90, of old age, Jan. 7, 1882. (Mary never remarried)
Sources:
Historic Ipswich 