27 Summer Street, the Thomas Knowlton House (1688)

Thomas Franklin Waters wrote, “The lot on the corner of Summer St. and County St. was granted to Humphrey Hradstreet. He sold his house and land bounded by Andrew Hodges southwest, and Stephen Jordan southeast, to Deacon Thomas Knowlton, shoemaker, 1646 (Ips. Deeds 1: 20; Deacon Thomas sold his house, barn, and two acres of land, bounded by Andrew Burley, Jacob Foster, etc., to Nathaniel Knowlton, Dec. 6, 1688 (Ips. Deeds 5: 338).”

The lot on the corner of Summer St. and County St. was granted to Humphrey Bradstreet in 1635, but he moved to upper High Street, bordering Rowley. His neighbor, Steven Jordan, immigrated to New England in 1634 on the Mary and John and settled initially in Ipswich by 1636. The town granted him “a house-lot of three rods of ground lying in Stony Street leading to the river (today’s Summer Street).” The town also granted Jordan a planting lot on Turkey Shore Rd. Some time after 1655, Stephen Jordan married the widow, Susanna Merrill, and moved to her home in Newbury.

Deacon Thomas Knowlton Sr. was born in 1607 in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, and arrived in Ipswich in 1639 with his older brothers John and William. Deacon Knowlton owned several properties. The oldest section of the house at 5-7 Poplar Street was originally located on South Main Street, constructed after 1671 for Deacon Thomas Knowlton.

In 1688, a month after his second wife died, and having no children, Thomas Knowlton granted part of his estate to his nephew Thomas (1662-1750) and deeded his house with two acres of land to Thomas’s brother Nathaniel (1658-1726), who had been living with the family. Deacon Thomas died in 1692. The younger Thomas, a carpenter, probably built the existing house for his brother Nathaniel, who sold the “upper dwelling” to Abraham Knowlton in 1725.

This timber frame private residence has a substantial framed overhang and hewn facade overhangs on the gables. “Jettied” upper floors date to Elizabethan England and were a means to enlarge peasants’ houses without encumbering the narrow lanes on which they were built. In America, they are found primarily in Eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut. Houses with overhangs were once believed to have been constructed by the early settlers, but architectural historian Abbott Lowell Cummings determined that they were constructed during a “post-medieval revival” from about 1680 to 1710. Other houses constructed in this style include the Whipple House, the Capt. Matthew Perkins house, and the William Howard house on Turkey Shore.

The Knowlton house at 27 Summer Street is one of over 50 First Period houses still standing in Ipswich and was built about 1688. The 2-story timber frame home has traditional English overhangs on the front and sides that were popular during New England’s post-medieval revival from about 1680 to 1710.

Deacon Thomas Knowlton Sr. (1607-1692) was a cordwainer who arrived in Ipswich about 1639 during the Great Migration from Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, near London, accompanying his older brothers John and William. John Knowlton, also a cordwainer, died in 1654 and left his house and land to his wife, Margery. Their children were John, Abraham, and Elizabeth. William’s occupation was “bricklayer,” and he died one year after John, in 1655. The children of William and Elizabeth Knowlton were Mary, Thomas, William, John, Samuel, Benjamin, and Joseph.

Deacon Thomas Knowlton’s first wife was named Susannah, the family name unknown. He married second, Mary Kimball, daughter of Richard and Ursula Scott Kimball, who lived until 1686, but had no children by either marriage. Consequently, the latter Knowltons in Ipswich are descendants of one of Thomas Sr.’s brothers.

Deacon Thomas Knowlton was an educated man who, well into old age, was deeply involved in the early civic affairs of the town of Ipswich. He served as constable, tithingman, committee man, and administrator of many estates. An ecclesiastical history of Deacon Nathaniel Knowlton of Ipswich describes him as “a man of great distinction.”

This house was the home of Deacon Thomas Knowlton Sr. during the last four years of his life. A lot measuring three-quarters of an acre on South Main Street was sold by old Goodman Younglove to Deacon Thomas Knowlton Sr. on Dec. 26, 1671 (Ips. Deeds 3: 200). He built a house, which is where he lived until December 3, 1688, when he transferred the house on S. Main St. to Thomas Knowlton cordwainer, “ye now dwelling house of said Thomas Senior.” (Vol. 1 of Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony). Also in 1688, Thomas Knowlton Sr. passed a house and land at 27 Summer St. to his grand-nephew Nathaniel Knowlton (1658-1726), who was also a cordwainer and a deacon, with the provision that Nathaniel and his wife care for him for the rest of his life, which they did until his death in 1692.

During the time that Deacon Thomas Knowlton was planning and carrying out provisions for his old age, he had a house erected on the Summer St. property, and it is this house that survives today. Nathaniel and his family were already living with Thomas when the bond was made. The builder of this house was probably Deacon Nathaniel Knowlton’s nephew (also named Thomas Knowlton, 1662-1750), a skilled carpenter.

Upon his death in 1726, Nathaniel’s home at 27 Summer St. went to his widow, Deborah, and his youngest son, David (1707-1737). Deacon Nathaniel Knowlton is buried in the Ipswich Old North Burying Ground. In 1725, Deacon Nathaniel had gift-deeded part of his property to his son Abraham (1698-1751), on which the latter built his house, still standing on County Street.

Sources:

• Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
• The Hammatt Papers: Early Inhabitants of Ipswich, Massachusetts
• The Christening Records of St. Margaret Parish, Uxbridge, Middlesex, England
• Vital Records to 1850
• Records and files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, Volume 1-8
• A Sketch of the Ecclesiastical History of Ipswich
• The Will, Bond, and Agreement of Deacon Thomas Knowlton dated December 5, 1688
• The Will of Deacon Nathaniel Knowlton dated July 25, 1726
• The History and Genealogy of the Knowltons of England and America by Charles H. Stocking, 1897
• Errata And Addenda to The History and Genealogy of the Knowltons by George H. Knowlton, 1903.
• Elizabeth Knowlton
• The Knowltons

The Knowlton houses of Ipswich