In 1842 in company with his brothers James and Sandford, Joseph Peatfield built a brick mill on Washington Street at Depot Square near the Boston and Maine Railroad Station. In 1846 he bought about seven acres bounded by Topsfield Road and the Ipswich River and planted a nursery in a part of this purchase. After leaving the building of machinery and the manufacture of woolens in 1877, he devoted himself to the care of his nursery and the developing of his lands.
Sources:
- Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Thomas Franklin Waters
- 1884 Ipswich map