The British attack on Sandy Bay
Rockport experienced one of the oddest invasions in U.S. history during the War of 1812 when the town’s fearless residents stopped the British with rocks and anything they could get their hands on.
The “Dungeons of Ipswich” during the War of 1812
On October 7, 1813, the keeper of the Ipswich jail was given orders by the President “to “receive into his custody and safely keep in dungeons, in the gaol aforesaid, 16 British prisoners of war” as hostages.
The Gerrymander is born in Essex County, February 11, 1812
Marblehead’s Elbridge Gerry served as governor of Massachusetts and vice-president of the United States, but his historic legacy will forever be tied to a political monster dubbed the “Gerrymander.”
Historic Ipswich 