155 Argilla Road, the Holman-Ilsley house, c 1790 (moved here in 1951)

The house at 155 Argilla Rd. is from the former Isley Farm Newbury that was moved to Ipswich and completely restored under the ownership of Alice Gilbert Smith Bourgoin (1897-1984), who purchased the lot from the Goodales in 1951, where the early 18th Century house was placed on a modern poured concrete foundation.

The Ilsley Farm on Ilsley Hill in West Newbury was previously the Solomon Holman Farm, and it was called Holman’s Lane. The Thurlow’s/Cherry Hill Nurseries bought the land and the house was dismantled in the the 50s and moved to this location on Argilla Road in Ipswich.

Alice Gilbert Smith, who moved the house from its original location in West Newbury, was born in Salem, MA in 1897 and graduated from Smith College as part of the class of 1918. She married Jean Lucien Bourgoin (1897-1977). The couple had no children, and divorced in 1950. Alice never remarried, and was involved with the Ipswich Garden Society and the Society of Mayflower Descendants. She died in her home in Hopkinton, New Hampshire on 4 June, 1984.

Alice Bourgoin purchased the lot from the Goodale estate, which included Goodale Orchard next door, (now Russell Orchard.) They purchased the property from E. Newton Brown in 1920, and he purchased from Aaron Kinsman in 1914.

Ipswich maps from the second half of the 19th Century, including the 1910 Ipswich map show a house at this location, owned by Asa P. Stone. It is not clear if a house appears here in the 1832 map. The fate of the earlier structure is not recorded.

Franklin Waters wrote in Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that in 1731, the heirs of Richard Saltonstall sold his farm on Argilla Road to the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers for £1850. Two years later, Rogers sold 84 acres with a dwelling and an earlier barn to John Day. After several generations of ownership by the Day family, Asa P. Stone acquired possession and built a barn on the property in 1839. That barn was recently moved to Northgate Road and restored.

In 1897 the famous artist Theodore Wendel married Philena Stone, and they spent their summers at the farm on Argilla Road that she inherited from her family. The heirs of Asa Stone sold to Roger Sherman Warner in Nov. 1915.

Sources:

• Salem Deeds: Sale of parcel by Robert and Susan Goodale to Alice S. Bourgoin, January 1, 1951, Book 3800, Page 371. Has reference to plan showing land of Alice S. Borgouoin, W. S. Little, engineer.
• Kenneth McLeod, 1950 to Robert Goodale, Salem Deeds Book 3786, page 297
• Geoffrey Goodale to Kenneth Mcleod,Salem Deeds 3731, 465
• E. Newton Brown to Joseph Goodale, Dec. 1920 (Salem Deeds, 2472, 210)
• Estate of Aaron Kinsman to E. Newton Brown, Aug. 25, 1914 ( 2283, 569)
• Alice Gilbert Smith Bourgoin Papers