Gordon Harris is the town historian for Ipswich Massachusetts.
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.” The paranoid believe in conspiracies 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?
After Dorothy demanded that the State conduct an investigation, the “Report on Insanity and Idiocy in Massachusetts” found that 68 insane or demented persons were being housed in the Ipswich jail.
Known in Colonial times as Mile Brook, the Miles River is a major tributary of the Ipswich River but has been diminished in volume by upstream use as a water supply. Evidence of the old Potter and Appleton mills can still be found near County Rd.
At a public meeting of the Ipswich Conservation Commission on March 4, 2020, the Commission declined to consider requests by Ipswich residents that they not approve a proposal for Jeffreys Neck Road that does not include adequate accommodation for pedestrians and cyclists.
CBS “Sunday Morning” takes us to Plum Island in Massachusetts, a winter home for owls.
In 1843, the Hamilton meetinghouse was turned 90 degrees to face the Bay Road, and the present bell was installed in the belfry. In 1888 a clock manufactured by E. Howard & Company of Boston was added to accompany the bell.
“What words have an emphasis sufficient to express the gratitude we owe to God for the gift of a Washington, and the anguish and lamentation of our country that its illustrious Friend and Father is no more? His memory shall flow down the current of future generations, till they are lost in the ocean of eternity.”
The five-part series explores the design and construction of traditional wooden boats. Participants will have hands-on practices at several traditional boatyards within the Essex National Heritage Area.
In 1962, Jack Helfant’s houseboat wrecked on Sandy Point. He created a shack using driftwood, canvas and parts of his houseboat. Jack and his dog Prince were permanent fixtures on the island until the State burned down his shack in 1967.
In 1844, John Sawyer sold to Josiah Caldwell an undeveloped tract known as “Knowlton’s Close.” Caldwell sold the land in house lots, where houses constructed in the popular vernacular Greek Revival style still stand today.
On Dec. 26, 1700, a resolve was made that the disorder that had disturbed the public worship for some years owing to the wanton and perverse behavior of the boys and young men should be effectually quelled.
In 1967, Ipswich was proposed as a site for an anti-ballistic missile base, and in 1970 opponents prevented construction of a nuclear power plant on Town Farm Road that eventually was built in Seabrook.
“Millend” was located about the Saltonstall Mill. The ground has become historic. There planted the first Samuel Appleton, John Whipple, and Richard Saltonstall; there the river was first dammed for grist and saw mills.”
Henry F. Dunnels was the first Ipswich man to serve in the Civil War. Later in life he became a follower of Mary Baker Eddy and was called on to testify in her lawsuits against Daniel Spofford and Calvin Frye.
When Parliament laid a tax on tea, the British locked all the tea that had arrived in Newburyport into the powder house. Eleazer Johnson led a group of men who shattered the door and burned the tea in Market Square.
The Ipswich Public Safety Facility Committee has reached an agreement with the Boston Catholic diocese to purchase four to five acres of church-owned land at the intersection of Pine Swamp and Linebrook roads that was originally a hay field across from the old Eben Lord farm.
Madame Shatswell loved her cup of tea, and as a large store had been stored for family use before the hated tax was imposed, she saw no harm in using it as usual. News of the treason spread throughout the town.
The Town of Ipswich is an investor in Berkshire Wind, an array of wind turbines on Brodie Mountain in the Berkshires. Two turbines added this summer increased the generating capacity to 19.6 megawatts, enough for almost 9000 homes.
“The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion.”
Baseball’s popularity grew quickly after the Civil War, and Bialek Park was once the town’s semi-professional ballpark, In 1912 the town purchased the two private lots that had been the ballpark, constructed a public playground, and removed the fence.
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