Ipswich, Massachusetts was founded in 1634 in an area the Native Americans called “Agawam,” The historic neighborhoods of Meeting House Green, High Street, the East End, and the South Green offer well-preserved streetscapes of 17th to 19th-century residences. Resistance by the citizens of Ipswich to a tax imposed by the Crown in 1687 is commemorated in the town’s seal, which bears the motto, “The Birthplace of American Independence 1687.”

After electoral defeat, neither Adams President attended his successor’s inauguration - John Adams, our second President, and his eldest son John Quincy Adams, our sixth President, both quietly departed Washington on the eve of their opponent’s inauguration. Each did so in good conscience, leaving their successors, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson respectively, to enjoy two terms in office.

The Choate Bridge - The American Society of Civil Engineers cites the Choate Bridge in Ipswich as the oldest documented two-span masonry arch bridge in the U.S., and the oldest extant bridge in Massachusetts. 

The dunes at Castle Neck - Crane Beach and all of Castle Neck are protected by the Trustees of Reservations. Pitch pine and scrub oak rise from the masses of marsh grass, sage green hudsonia and dune lichen lining the trails that wind through the dunes.

Central Street in ashes, January 13, 1894 - Early in the morning of Jan. 13, 1894, several businesses on Central Street went up in flames. Three months later the other end of Market St. burned, and the town finally voted to build a water system.

Life in the summer of polio - Polio killed 3,145 people in the United States in 1952 and crippled tens of thousands. Children were kept inside, and public health officials imposed quarantines. From 1956 - 57 over 6000 Ipswich children and adults received the new Salk polio vaccine, and in 1962, Ipswich residents received the oral Sabin vaccine. Since 1979, no cases of polio have originated in the United States. David Lindgren tells what it was like in 1949, "the Summer of Polio."

The “Commonwealth” - "Commonwealth" is defined as a state in which authority is vested in the citizenry. In the 17th Century it was the radical philosophy the work and the proceeds thereof should be shared by the people.

The shipwrecks at Ipswich Bar - The Ipswich Bar has a long history of tragic shipwrecks. Its swift currents and shallow waters are especially dangerous during storms, and many ships have gone aground. The hull of the Ada K. Damon sits on Steep Hill Beach.

Anne Dudley Bradstreet, the colony’s first published poet - Often alone in Ipswich while her husband Simon was engaged in government, Anne Bradstreet wrote a collection of poems published in London in 1650 titled, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America...by a Gentlewoman in these Parts."

Old North Burying Ground - Established in 1634, the Old North Burying Ground in Ipswich, Massachusetts is one of the oldest cemeteries in North America.

Native Americans of the North shore - The Puritan settlers of Ipswich established the town in 1634 in an area the Native American inhabitants called "Agawam."

Ipswich First Period houses (before 1725) - The First Period of colonial American architecture was approximately 1626 through 1725. There are more remaining first Period houses in Ipswich than anywhere else in the country.