6 High Street, the Joseph Ross house (1884)

The Joseph Ross house, 6 High St., Ipswich: The Whittier Porter Funeral Home, a Victorian home built between 1884 and 1887 by Joseph Ross (1822-1903). He was a contractor from Ipswich credited with designing and popularizing the horizontally folding railroad drawbridge.

The Ross family in Ipswich may descend from Killicross Ross, a Scottish soldier captured at the battle of Dunbar by Oliver Cromwell’s army. He was sold to Puritans who needed servants, and never returned to Scotland. He married a woman from Beverly. His son Daniel married into the highly respected Rogers family, and the assimilation of the family into the Puritan social structure was thus accomplished.

In the first half of the 18th Century, this was the site of the home of Col. Dr. Thomas Berry, one of the most unusual characters in Ipswich history.

Joseph Ross

Joseph Ross (1822-1903) began his working life as a house carpenter in Ipswich, his native town. He is best known for designing the first movable span bridge in the country, which he patented in 1849 at the age of 26. According to his obituary, “he has been engaged in some of the largest engineering enterprises in this section of the state.” At the time of his death, his firm was completing the Cooper Street Bridge in Wakefield which still stands today.

The horizontally folding drawbridge designed by Joseph Ross became the most common railroad bridge type in Greater Boston in the 19th Century. The movable span was a truss hinged on one end so that the bridge could be raised slightly before swinging them to one side to clear the marine channel. The 1835 Boston and Lowell’s Charles River bridge built in 1835 was designed on this principle, and the Mystic River drawbridge #7 continued in service through the 20th Century. Ross built several of his bridges for the Eastern Railroad, later acquired by the Boston and Maine Railroad Company, and by 1858, at least ten horizontally folding draws were in service in the immediate Boston vicinity. The design was well adapted to railroad use because it was capable of carrying heavy loads safely.

Joseph Ross was succeeded by his sons Frederick and Joseph Jr. in the business.

Photo of Joseph Ross while serving on the Massachusetts legislature.

The New England Lace Manufacturing Company’s failed factory on High Street was purchased by Joseph Ross in the middle of the 19th Century, and he converted the building into the “Ross Mansion.” In the late 19th Century he built this fine Victorian home across the street, which is now the Whittier-Porter Funeral Home. Ross served as a town selectman, state representative from Ipswich, founder and president of the Ipswich Savings Bank, and trustee of the Ipswich library.

Mystic River Drawbridge No. 7, Spanning Mystic River at Boston & Maine Railroad Eastern Route, Somerville crossing to Everett, photo 1968. The bridge no longer exists.

The County Street bridge in Ipswich was designed and constructed by Joseph Ross in 1861. Photo credit: Nathan Holth and Rick McOmber, 2008

Joseph Ross was a partner in the woolen mill on County Street. It sat just above the bridge that he constructed in 1861.

The Green Street bridge in Ipswich was built in 1894 by Joseph Ross of Ipswich and designed by Charles A. Putnam of Salem.

The Cooper Street Bridge in Wakefield was built in 1903 and is significant as a very early example of reinforced concrete arch construction, notable for its asymmetrical profile and use of deformed rod for reinforcement. It is one of only two concrete-arch bridges of its age spanning more than 50′ that are known to survive in Massachusetts. The contractor was Joseph Ross, Joseph Ross, one of Boston’s leading
builders of wharves and bridges.

The South Union St. bridge in Lawrence was awarded to Joseph Ross & Sons of Boston by the Boston & Maine Railroad, April 27, 1903.

The Rocks Village bridge that connects West Newbury with Haverhill was built in 1883, rebuilt in 1914, and again in 2008. Joseph Ross was contracted for the stone work, dredging and timber work, which included a new circular stone pier and a stone side pier. The builder was Boston Bridge Works.

The Moshassuck River Provider Channel in Providence, RI. The course of the old channel was diverted so that it joined the Woonasquatucket River below the end of the train shed The work underlying the railroad location was done by the railroads under contract with Joseph Ross of Ipswich. The granite wall channel was 14 1/2′ hi, 45′ wide and nearly 700′ long, spanned with steel girders and covered with an iron plate floor upon which tracks were laid.

The New England Lace Manufacturing Company’s failed factory on High Street was purchased by Joseph Ross in the middle of the 19th Century. The converted building was known as the “Ross Mansion.” It was torn down in 1930 and was replaced by the brick home presently at that location.

Sources:

• Mystic River Drawbridge # 7 Library of Congress
• Historic American Engineering Record: patent application with full description, by Joseph Ross
• Historic American Engineering Record, Cooper St. Bridge
• Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Thomas Franklin Waters
• Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society
• Historic Bridges: Essex County, Massachusetts
• Library of Congress: Bellows Falls Arch Bridge
• Bankers Obituary Record
• At the General Assembly of the State of Rhode-Island and Providence, Part 1
• MACRIS (County St. Bridge)
• Bridgehunter: Joseph Ross & Sons
• Historic Bridges: Rocks Village