Join Ipswich Town Historian for a tour of the South Green, the East End, Meeting House Green, and the Ipswich River, sharing the stories of the town’s historic houses and the people who lived in them.
This shorter walking tour starts in front of the Ipswich Public Library and visits Meeting House Green, North Main, Summer Street, East St., and takes about 1 – 1.5 hrs.
Flo Filion Meiler from Shelburne, Vermont is competing in the World Masters Athletics Championship Indoor in Poland, including the long jump, 60-meter hurdles, 800-meter run, pentathlon and pole vault, for which she’s the only contestant in her age group!
Sarah Dillingham Caldwell was born in 1634, the daughter of John and Sarah (Caly) Dillingham. Her father died less than a year after she was born, and her mother two years later. At nineteen years of age she married John Caldwell. The years entrusted them with eight children, countless descendants, and their home on High Street still stands.
The Ipswich Town Landing is one of several locations along the River where wharves were located over the centuries.
When Chebacco Parish (now Essex) began building their own meeting house, Ipswich authorities obtained an order that “No man shall build a meeting house at Chebacco.” Abigail Proctor saw a glaring legal loophole…
Mark Quilter was a cow-keeper on the north side of town with a reputation for drinking. When Goodwife Shatswell visited Goodwife Quilter and insulted both of them, Quilter lost his temper.
An epidemic of “throat distemper,” believed to be diptheria, raged in New England between 1735 and 1740. Some Ipswich households were left without a single child surviving.
In the late eighteenth century, Ipswich had 600 women and girls producing more than 40,000 yards of lace annually. In the 1820’s Ipswich industrialists opened a factory and imported machines from England to mechanize and speed up the operation, which destroyed the hand-made lace industry.
At the foot of Hovey Street along the Ipswich River is a plaque dedicated to the memory of Ipswich settler Daniel Hovey, whose home and wharf were across the river on what is now Tansey Lane.
In 1737, Captain Nathaniel Treadwell opened an inn in the house still standing at 12 N. Main St. Nathaniel Treadwell of the next generation built the second Treadwell’s Inn at 26 N. Main St. For over one hundred years it was the town’s first-class hotel. Guests at the two inns included John Adams, President Monroe, Daniel Webster and the Marquis de LaFayette.
Rebecca Rawson of Newbury became one of the most popular young ladies in Boston society. She married a charming but cunning young man who left her desolate in London. On her return to America, the ship was swallowed by a tsunami.
The Great White Hurricane of 1888 struck on the night of March 11 and continued furiously for two days, dumping 60 inches of snow on parts of the Northeast.
The second jail in the Colony was erected in Ipswich in 1656. Sixteen British prisoners were kept hostage in the cold and cruel stone jail during the War of 1812. A large brick House of Corrections was constructed in 1828 at the site of the present Town Hall on Green Street.
Before a nationwide television audience, Joseph Welch of Waltham replied to Joseph McCarthy, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”
Google Maps used to show “Nancy’s Corner” at the intersection of Highland Street and Cutler Road in Hamilton. I wondered who Nancy was and discovered an amazing story.
The frame of a 1692 house that once stood at the intersection of Manning and High Streets in Ipswich is on display in the “Art of the Americas” wing at the Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
