Ipswich Manning house at the MFA
The frame of a 1692 house that once stood at the intersection of Manning and High Streets in Ipswich is on display in the “Art of the Americas” wing at the Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Homes of the Appletons
Appleton Farms was gifted to the Trustees of Reservations by Francis and Joan Appleton in 1998. Originally granted to Ipswich settler Samuel Appleton, it is the oldest continuously operating farm in America. The farm continued in family ownership for seven generations, and the extended family built homes along Waldingfield Rd. and the nearby vicinity.
Choate Island and Rufus Choate
Choate Island was originally known as Hog Island, and is the largest island in the Crane Wildlife Refuge and is the site of the Choate family homestead, the Proctor Barn, the White Cottage, and the final resting place of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Crane. There are great views from the island summit of the Castle Neck dunes and Plum Island Mount Agamenticus in Maine.
Ipswich houses that were moved
Ipswich has over 40 houses or other buildings that were moved, or have sections that were moved from a different location. Many other small outbuildings in town were also moved decades ago and are still standing.
The “new” houses on East Street
We have been researching the identities of five small houses on East Street on the south side, between North Main and County Streets, constructed after 1856. The Google Maps screenshot below is above. The identities of most of the houses on these pages are tentative, based on the […]
The APD: A balance between the community and the individual
By Ipswich Historical Commission chairman John Fiske: Don’t we all get a slightly guilty thrill at peeking into someone else’s room? It’s a bit like listening to their secrets. Now here’s a room that is actually meant to be peeked into – you can tell that by how […]
The Old Tann Flats
John Fiske is chairman of the Ipswich Historical Commissionand lives in the Glazier-Sweet house on Water Street in Ipswich. This article first appeared in the September 2013 Antiques Journal. We have a dear friend who has moved three or four times since we’ve known her. And each time, […]
Abbott Lowell Cummings, author of “The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay”
Featured image: Abbott Lowell Cummings, photo courtesy of Historic New England. From Antiques and the Arts Weekly: Abbott Lowell Cummings, 94: Abbott Lowell Cummings, the leading authority of Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Century (“First Period”) architecture in the American Northeast and author of The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay […]
Homes of the Jewetts
Deacon Maximilian Jewett was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, baptized Oct. 4th, 1607. He with his wife Ann, and his brother Joseph sailed from Hull, England in 1638 in the ship John, with a colony under the leadership of Rev. Ezekiel Rogers. They arrived at […]
Homes of the Lords
Featured image: The Thomas Lord house on High Street in Ipswich dates to 1658. Robert Lord arrived with the first settlers of Ipswich in late 1634 or early 1635, probably from Sudbury, Suffolk, England, where he was born in 1603. Soon after his arrival, Robert Lord was appointed Ipswich Town […]
Colonial houses of Boxford
Houses built during the Colonial era in Boxford, Massachusetts. Listings and images provided by the MACRIS site of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and by Vision Properties for the Town of Boxford, with additional historical information from The Dwellings of Boxford, by Sidney Perley BOX.48, Dr. William Hale, Rev. William P. […]
Bungalows of Ipswich
The Eastern Bungalow style was popular between 1910-1940, which included the Depression years. They are an affordable and practical adaptation of California’s Arts and Crafts movement. Full second floors are not a feature of this style, but finished attics are common. The style shares features with traditional well-ventilated folk houses in the warmer U.S. […]
Groveland Colonial-era houses
Groveland, MA was settled asthe East Parish of Bradford, a part of the town of Rowley in the early Colonial era. Before Bradford was separated from Rowley in 1672, it was called “Rowley on the Merrimack”, or just “Merrimack”. Bradford in turn was annexed by Haverhill in 1897 after […]
Colonial houses of West Newbury MA
The town of West Newbury provides the following history: West Newbury’s history as a town began in 1635 when 23 men and their families, all from England, sailed through Plum Island Sound and up the Parker River, landing in Newbury. As more settlers arrived and families increased, land […]
Colonial-era houses of Merrimac Massachusetts
Merrimac sits on the Merrimack river abutting the southeastern border of New Hampshire. Settled by the English in 1638 as a part of Salisbury and later as a part of Amesbury around the village of Merrimacport, it was known throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as an agricultural and […]
A folly and a barn for free
In the early 20th Century, a small building that can best be described as a “folly” was built on Labor in Vain Road past Gould’s Creek, and an old post and beam barn was moved across the road. The salt marsh rises almost to the rear of the barn, […]
