Ipswich was inhabited for thousands of years prior to
European colonization of the Americas. The Bull Brook archaeological site in Ipswich provided among the oldest signs of human habitation in New England, dated to between 9000 and 11,000 years before present. Later stone tools and
shell mounds found in Ipswich attest to continued human occupation in Ipswich in the intervening 10,000 years. The English settlement of Ipswich was founded by
John Winthrop the Younger, son of
John Winthrop, one of the founders of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and its first governor, elected in England in 1629. Several hundred colonists sailed from England in 1630 in a fleet of 11 ships, including Winthrop's flagship, the
Arbella. Investigating the region of
Salem and
Cape Ann, they entertained aboard the
Arbella for a day, June 12, 1630, a native chief of the lands to the north,
Chief Masconomet. The event was recorded in Winthrop's journal on the 13th, but Winthrop did not say how they overcame the language barrier. The name they heard from Masconomet concerning the country over which he ruled has been reconstructed as
Wonnesquamsauke, which the English rendered as
"Agawam". The colonists, however, sailed to the south where some buildings had already been prepared for them at a place newly named
Charlestown. That winter they lost a few hundred colonists to malnutrition and disease. They also experienced their first
nor'easter, which cost them some fingers and toes, as well as houses destroyed by the fires they kept burning day and night. Just as Winthrop was handing out the last handful of grain, the supply ship
Lyon entered Boston Harbor. John sent for his family in England, but his then wife, Margaret, her children, and his eldest son, John, whose mother was the elder John's first wife, Mary Forth, did not arrive until November, on the
Lyon. John the Younger resided with his father and stepmother until 1633, when he resolved to settle in Agawam, with the permission of the
General Court of Massachusetts. John the Younger and 12 men aboard a
shallop sailed into Ipswich harbor and took up residence there. The first settlers with Winthrop were William Clerk,
Robert Coles, Thomas Howlet, John Biggs, John Gage, Thomas Hardy, William Perkins,
John Thorndike, William Sargent, and three others whose names are uncertain. Two men continued up the river (now River Road) to a large meadow, which they called New Meadows, now
Topsfield. Agawam was incorporated on August 5, 1634, as Ipswich, after
Ipswich in the county of
Suffolk,
England. The name "Ipswich" was taken "in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to our people which took shipping there."
Nathaniel Ward, an assistant pastor in town from 1634 to 1636, wrote the first code of laws for Massachusetts and later published the religious/political work
The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America in England. In 1638, Masconomet entered into a contract with John Winthrop the Younger for the purchase of Ipswich for "wampampeage, & other things: and ... also for the sume [sic] of twenty pounds." There is no record of any Native resistance to the colonization either at Charlestown or at Agawam, though there is documentation of devastating
virgin soil epidemics among indigenous people in the area around 1617 and again in 1633, and contemporary reports attest to
ghost towns encountered by early English settlers. Pioneers became
farmers,
fishermen,
shipbuilders or traders. The tidal
Ipswich River provided
water power for mills, and
salt marshes supplied hay for
livestock. But in 1687, Ipswich residents, led by the Reverend
John Wise, protested a tax imposed by the governor, Sir
Edmund Andros. As Englishmen, they argued,
taxation without representation was unacceptable. Citizens were jailed, but then Andros was recalled to England in 1689, and the new British sovereigns,
William III and
Mary II, issued colonists another charter. The rebellion is the reason the town calls itself the "Birthplace of American Independence". A
cottage industry in
lace-making developed.
Ipswich Lace is a unique style, and the only known hand-made
bobbin lace produced commercially in the U.S. Great
clipper ships of the 19th century bypassed Ipswich in favor of the deep-water seaports at
Salem,
Newburyport,
Quincy, and
Boston. The town remained primarily a fishing and farming community, its residents living in older homes they could not afford to replace—leaving Ipswich with a considerable inventory of early architecture. In 1822, a
stocking manufacturing machine that had been smuggled out of England arrived at Ipswich, violating a British ban on exporting such technology, and the community developed as a
mill town. In 1828, the
Ipswich Female Seminary was founded. In 1868, Amos A. Lawrence established the Ipswich Hosiery Mills beside the river. It became the nation's largest stocking mill by the turn of the 20th century. In 1913, the mill experienced
a labor strike led by the
Industrial Workers of the World. What may be the last witchcraft trial in North America was held in Ipswich in 1878. In the
Ipswich witchcraft trial, a member of the
Christian Science religion was accused of using his mental powers to harm others, including a spinster living in the town. In 1910, Richard T. Crane Jr. of Chicago, the
business magnate owner of Crane Plumbing, bought
Castle Hill, a
drumlin on Ipswich Bay. He hired
Olmsted Brothers, successors to
Frederick Law Olmsted, to landscape his estate, and engaged the Boston architectural firm of
Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge to design an
Italian Renaissance-Revival style
villa on the summit. A grande
allée, wide and lined with
statuary, would run the half mile from house to sea. In 1924, the old Italian villa was razed due to structural issues, and 4 years later, a new 59-room mansion, designed by Chicago architect
David Adler in the English
Stuart style, stood in the site, called the Great House. At Mrs. Crane's death in 1949, the entire property was bequeathed to
The Trustees of Reservations, which uses it as a venue for concerts and weddings. The town government was reformed in 1950 with the acceptance of the Town Manager Charter. This charter was rescinded by the voters, regained, and lost again. Voters adopted the present Town Manager-Selectmen Charter in 1967. In 2012 Ipswich hired its first female Town Manager, Robin Crosbie, who served until her retirement in 2018. ==Geography==