Gordon Harris is the town historian for Ipswich Massachusetts.
Deep in Willowdale State Forest is a bog which in the 1832 Ipswich map is the “Peat Meadows.” “Turf” as it was also called, became a commonly-used fuel when local forests were depleted and until anthracite coal became widely available.
The manner in which residents of Ipswich celebrated the end of hostilities was recorded in “The Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler.”
The Ipswich Historical Commission Mary Conley Award for 2020 is awarded to Ingrid and Stephen Miles, owners of the historic Captain Richard Rogers house at 58 N. Main St.
Legendary Ipswich native Jake Burridge had a century of sailing stories to share with you.
During the 19th Century, many Ipswich Streets lost their original names, but a few streets gained them back.
Ezekiel Cheever was the first Ipswich schoolmaster, followed in 1660 by Schoolmaster Andrews. An unfortunate but mischievous lad was the nemesis of the esteemed Mr. Andrews.
On the last Tuesday of August, 1786 some 1500 armed insurgents took possession of the Northampton Court House, initiating a brief war known as Shay’s Rebellion.
Drone tours of four Ipswich Open Space conservation properties, created with Ipswich ICAM and Open Space Program intern David Bitler.
2020 may have been lousy, but it was a good year for researching history. This year the site had 461,493 page views and 70,000 more visitors than last year.
Bruce Laing will be missed. He was one of the first people to offer articles for the Historic Ipswich website, and was instrumental in creating the inventories of internments at the oldest burying grounds in Ipswich..
This page has moved to https://historicmassachusetts.org/first-period/
“”In this my last good night to you as your President-I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.”
Join Paul Valcour and Gordon Harris on a walk along the river from the Green St. Bridge to the town wharf as we compare today’s view with dozens of photos taken in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
“I feel unutterable anxiety. God grant us wisdom and fortitude! Should the opposition be suppressed, should this country submit, what infamy and ruin! God forbid. Death in any form is less terrible!”
The 34th Annual Ipswich Art Show and Sale is online and open for viewing at the Ipswich Cultural Council website, ipswichculturalcouncil.org
Mary Baker, producer of the Newburyport Blog, created an interactive map telling the stories of historic places in Newburyport.
Ipswich has several Cape-style houses constructed with second floor kneewalls, found especially in the Ipswich Village and Linebrook neighborhoods. “High post Capes” in the 19th Century incorporated popular decorative elements of the Greek Revival, Italianate, Victorian and Colonial Revival eras.
A series of portraits celebrating people who stuck their necks out is back in Ipswich for the month of October 2020. Called “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” the work will be on display in Zumi’s and the schools for the month of October.
The Historical Commission recommended changing the Demolition Review Bylaw to apply to buildings constructed prior to 1915, and changing the demolition delay period for significant historic buildings to 18 months.
Large allotments of land in today’s Topsfield were granted in the early 17th Century by the colony’s leaders, comprising more than one-half of the town’s present acreage. The persons who were awarded the lots, sometimes referred to as “king’s grants” were merchants and men of influence and power who had joined the Massachusetts Bay Company during the Puritan migration.
The hotel at Ipswich Bluff on the southern tip of Plum Island was a favorite destination of locals in the late 19th Century, who took the steamer Carlotta from the Ipswich wharf with Capt. Nat Burnham.
Puritans founded Ipswich during the “Great Migration” of the early 17th Century. Many residents of the town descend from immigrants who arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to work in the mills.
A heat wave during the summer of 1896 produced 1500 deaths from the Midwest to New England. Fifteen years later the record for heat-related fatalities was broken.
The Knobbs is a small beach in a stretch of salt marsh on the west side of the Ipswich section of Plum Island. On the Atlantic side was the Kbobbs Beach Life-Saving Station, replaced in 1947 by a camp for children who had been victims of polio.
The State Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, September 1, 2020 from 7:00 am – 8:00 pm at the YMCA, 110 County Rd.
Cotton Mather wrote that “New Englanders are a People of God” who had conquered “the Devil’s Territories.” Paranoia persists in today’s political political battle between truth and deceit.
The Ipswich Middle/Highschool GreenTeam is a green-fueled group of 35 bright individuals ready to take on the big fights like climate change. They aim to engage the community in taking a stand with nature, and inspiring by example.
It was with great sadness that we learned today about the sudden passing of Ruth Strachan, a member of the Ipswich Historical Commission and the Architectural Preservation District Commission for several years.
During WWI, Americans contributed to the European war effort by planting vegetable gardens so that crops from farms could be exported to our allies. The concept reemerged during WWII, and by 1944 over 20 million families were planting victory gardens.
Recipe For Disaster is a six minute video about the explosion of European Green Crabs in the Great Salt Marsh. The mission of GreenCrab.org is to develop markets and promote consumption of green crabs to mitigate their invasive impact.
In March 1934, Congress passed the Civilian Conservation bill, creating the Works Progress Administration and the Civil Conservation Corps which accomplished several projects in Ipswich.
Born in the Hart House, Miss Kimball was a graduate of the Manning High School, class of 1894. She died in 1980 at the age of 105, after teaching first grade for 45 years.
At noon, a “midnight darkness” had fallen on Essex County. Candles were lighted, and fowls went to roost. By the next morning, dark ash lay four or five inches thick.
In the first half century of the automotive age, a weekend trip to the country for Boston folks often meant driving a few miles north on the Newburyport Turnpike and renting a cabin not too far from the shore. The Douglass Evergreen Village, above, was on Rt. 1 […]
It’s been 14 years now since the 2006 Mother’s Day storm rammed the Ipswich River into the Mill Road Bridge,almost collapsing one of its three brick arches and closing the bridge for three years. Fences were erected at either end, effectively making the bridge feel like a demilitarized […]
The locality became very unsightly and in 1906, the land and buildings were laid out the lot as an attractive park and garden, maintained by the subscriptions of the proprietors.
Symonds Epes bought a large tract in 1726 and built a substantial farm and orchards at Wigwam Hill, named for a group of destitute Indians who briefly camped there. The protecting pitch pines were later cut for lumber, and the farm became a large dune.
The Crane Estate has been closed by the Trustees because of Covid-19, but Crane Beach, Steep Hill Beach and Castle Neck are open to residents of Ipswich with a Crane Beach sticker Friday – Sunday.
In 1347, Officials in Ragusa kept newly arrived sailors in isolation for a “quartino” (40 days), the origin of the word quarantine. In 1800, Dr. Thomas Manning of Ipswich broke Benjamin Waterhouse’s monopoly on the smallpox vaccine created by Edward Jenner. Transfusion of blood plasma from survivors of the 1918 Spanish Flu reduced mortality in patients. In 2020, people learned that Science is real.
The Hum is an unexplained low frequency rumbling sound heard by about 2% of the population from inside their homes during the late evening hours. I began noticing the Hum when I moved to Ipswich. Do you hear it?
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