Andrew Burley house, 2020 photo by Bob Watts

Andrew Burley, son of Giles and Elizabeth Burley, was born at Ipswich Sept. 5, 1657. The Andrew Burley House at 12 Green Street was built in 1688, with later Georgian features added. Andrew Burley was a wealthy merchant, justice of the Sessions Court and was elected as representative to the General Court in 1741. He updated the house with fine Georgian features.

The Andrew Burley house in 2014

Andrew Burley’s will left detailed instructions for the care of his widow Hannah. He left her:

“the improvement of the land and buildings where I now live, and to be yearly procured for her, put in her barn, by my executors one load of salt, one load of English hay, also twelve bushels of corn, four of rye, four of malt, two hundred pounds of good pork, as much beef, thirty of butter, fifty of cheese, twenty of flax from the swingle, ten of sheep’s wool, and six cords of wood, to be delivered at her said dwelling house yearly while she remains my widow, and for the same time to find her a horse and a chair to ride to meeting or elsewhere as her occasion requires. I also give her one cow and my household goods.”

Capt. John Smith purchased the  Andrew Burley house in 1760 from the estate of Andrew Burley’s widow Hannah and operated it as Smith’s Tavern. Susanna (How) Smith ran Smith’s Tavern from 1760 to 1790. View MACRIS

Biography

“ANDREW BURLEY b June 14 1694, was a justice of the Sessions Court and represented the town in the General Court in 1741. He inherited the homestead from his father. He was a member of the committee to repair the prison but died before the work was completed. His son Andrew was authorized to complete the work 1753. He married in 1717 Lydia Pengry. She died Aug 25 1736 at 39 yrs. He married second Dec 9 1738, the widow Hannah Boardman. His will was dated Dec. 4, 1753. His widow Hannah lived in the family mansion after her husband’s death and on her decease Andrew Jr sold the estate including 1 acre of land to Captain John Smith. She died in 1759. In addition to the children of her husband mentioned in his will, she mentions daughter Elizabeth Boardman of Stratham NH and son Stephen Boardman of the same place.”

Burley Tavern, Green Street in Ipswich. Photo by the Ipswich Historical Commission, 1980

The Andrew Burley house in 1900, from the book Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Andrew Burley house, Ipswich ma, 1899

Further reading: 

• Descendants of Giles Burley of Ipswich, Massachusetts
• Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society
• Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Vol. 1
• MACRIS