29 North Main Street, the Odd Fellows Building (1817)

The Odd Fellows Hall at 29 North Main Street in Ipswich was built in 1817 as a Probate Court and Registry.

Thomas Franklin Waters recorded the history of this building in Volume II of Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

“Nathaniel Lord,”Squire Lord” as he was familiarly known, came to the office of Register and served from 1815 to 1851. During his term of office, the Probate Court and Registry attained the dignity of a building, erected for its own use. In the year 1817, the County erected a brick building forty feet long, twenty-eight feet wide and one story high, which was occupied December 15, 1817 and at last the Records were deposited in a secure vault.
In the year 1852, the Registry and its records were removed to Salem. The Probate Court continued to sit semi-annually until September 15, 1874, holding its sessions in the Town Hall. During the War of the Rebellion, the vacant Probate building was occupied as the barracks of a military company recruited here by Capt. John A. Hobbs. It was sold to the Lodge of Odd Fellows, December 26, 1867 and was enlarged by the building of an addition on the western end and the addition of a second story.”

Blake's Drug Store, Ipswich MA — Image courtesy of Randy Maggalet

By 1884 a second floor had been added, and it housed the Odd Fellows upstairs, with Blake’s Drug Store (later Savory’s Drug Store) and the Post Office downstairs.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Agawam Lodge, No. 52, was organized 13 November 1844 for the purpose of mutual assistance among its members. The meetings were held in the Odd Fellows’ Hall the first and third evenings each month.

The Daughters of Rebecca, Martha Washington Lodge, No. 5, was organized in December, 1869, for charity’s sake. Meetings were held in the Odd Fellows Hall the first and third evenings each month. (Agawam Manual and Directory by M.V.B. Perley, 1888)

Savory's Drug Store, Ipswich — Photo from Harold Bowen’s Tales of Olde Ipswich. Savory’s Drug Store closed in the 1960s. Bowen noted that the town’s first telephone exchange was located in a back room of the store in 1890, and that Savory also ran a hardware business from the building..

Library, Odd Fellows Building, Methodist Church and the Waite house — The view today is quite similar to this old photograph, with the exception that wings have been added to the Ipswich Public Library.

The old Treadwell house was taken down to build the Library. This sketch from Genealogy of the Willcomb Family shows it next to the Probabte Court, later gained a second floor and is now the Odd Fellows Building. — The old Treadwell house was taken down to build the Library. This sketch from Genealogy of the Willcomb Family shows it next to the Probate Court, which later gained a second floor and is now the Odd Fellows Building.

Odd Fellows and Rebekahs

Odd Fellows lodges were originally formed by 18th Century workingmen for aiding brethren and assisting them to obtain employment. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows in America was officially organized on April 26, 1819 in Baltimore, Maryland, by Thomas Wildey and members of the fraternity from England. Since then, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows had spread throughout the world. In1851, I.O.O.F. became the first fraternity in the United States to accept women when it adopted the Degree of Rebekah. Since 2001, The IOOF has been fully co-ed and all genders can join Odd Fellows Lodges. The first Rebekah Degrees were honorary awards only, conferred on wives and daughters of Odd Fellows at special Lodge meetings, and recipients were known as “Daughters of Rebekah”. The name is taken from the Biblical character of Rebekah.

More about the Odd Fellows

Odd fellowship: its history and manual by Ross, Theodore A
Odd Fellows monitor and guide, containing history of the degree of Rebekah, and its teachings, emblems of the Order
The Rebekahs, also known as the International Association of Rebekah Assemblies (IARA), and originally the Daughters of Rebekah
Odd Fellows site
The Strange History of the Odd Fellows

Preservation Agreement: Probate Court – Odd Fellows building, 29 North Main Street Preservation Agreement (Ipswich Hertitage Trust, assigned to Ipswich Historical Commission)

History of this lot

Edward Eveleth married January, 1704, Elisabeth, daughter of Abraham Perkins. She died early, leaving a son Joseph and a daughter Elisabeth. Their home was on the lot that is now 42 High St. He married second, Elisabeth, daughter of Major Symonds Epes in 1733, and third, Mary Wise, August 1737. Major Symonds Epes was son of Daniel Epes of Castle Hill. The same year that Eveleth married his daughter, Major Epes sold Eveleth his homestead on N. Main St., which included eight acres and was bounded by Saddler Rogers’s land, and Col. Jo. Appleton’s, Dec. 5, 1715 (29:273).

Daniel Eveleth, son of Edward, sold to Nathaniel Treadwell, Nov. 3, 1761 (109: 278). It was inherited by Moses Treadwell. The land reached down to the Cove behind the present Odd Fellows Building , and included a portion of the County property near the present Ipswich Town Hall.

“Moses Treadwell sold the County of Essex, a piece of land 28 ft. square, at the north corner of his homestead. May 27, 1816 (215: 242). The widow Susanna Kendall, sold a plot 23 ft. x 28 ft., May 2S, 1816 (215: 241) and the County proceeded to erect the brick building, used for a Probate Office for many years. It was sold by the County to Agawam Lodge of Odd Fellows, Dec. 26, 1867 (739: 246). The Treadwell heirs sold the house and land to the Trustees of the Public Library, July 11, 1865 (686: 160) and the Library building was built on this lot.” (*Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony)