Quick History Stops: Ipswich, MA, Part 1

During my trips to the North Shore earlier this year, I spent time walking around Ipswich, MA. I really outdid myself with picture-taking in this colonial-era town, and accordingly will present a four-part miniseries of quick history stops. Special thanks to my sister who lives locally and tolerated me finding local history in everything. For the first part, I will share a pair of banks, a post office, murals on a factory building, and a story from the Industrial Revolution.

The massive, colonial revival and neoclassical style red brick bank building on Depot Square in Ipswich is currently home to a branch of Institution for Savings Bank, last described in the first part of my quick history stops in Topsfield. This building is relatively new compared to colonial era architecture found in other parts of the town. The site was home to Ipswich Depot for the Boston & Maine Railroad, hence the name of the square. The depot lasted until at least the 1950s, apparently a time when the town government was having serious issues, but was torn down and replaced by an ugly furniture store until that was torn down and replaced by the current bank. The building was previously known as Ipswich Co-Operative Bank, which was established in 1913, but it merged with Institution for Savings Bank in 2007.

The Ipswich branch of Brookline Bank, formerly First Ipswich Bank, was located just down the road at 31 Market Street. Brookline Bank was established as Brookline Savings Bank in Brookline, MA during 1871 and has acquired other local banks since the 1990s, including First Ipswich Bank in 2020. First Ipswich Bank was established as The First National Bank of Ipswich during 1892. The building is fairly new, as the bank headquarters moved there in 2010. Also worth noting in this area was a plaque dedicated to the Ipswich Millworkers’ Strike, also known as Bloody Tuesday for the violence between police and immigrant workers, which took place on June 10, 1913.

The 1939 Ipswich post office is located between the two banks. Previous post offices were located in a residential house at 38 North Main Street, in a former factory building on the corner of South Main and Market Street, in the Odd Fellows building at 29 North Main Street, in a row of shops around 15 North Main Street that has since been torn down to built the Christian Science Church, and on Central Street. The classic stone post office was constructed as part of the New Deal, a series of government projects created by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration to employee Americans during the Great Depression until World War II. The post office in my current town of residence, Whitinsville, follows a similar blueprint. Another post office from this time and featured on the blog, albeit one with the red brick design, is located in Hyannis, MA.

The current Ipswich Mill Complex, formerly Ipswich Mills Company, is a group of large, red brick buildings that remain of the many mills from the first and second waves of the Industrial Revolution. The area is known as Ipswich Mill Historic District and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1996. 1868 and 1928 were two important years for the area. In 1868, the Ipswich Hosiery Mills opened in a different location but later moved to Ipswich Mill Complex and claimed to be the largest stocking mill in the United States. The Riverside Building, best viewed from a nearby pedestrian bridge to be discussed in my next post, was constructed the same year. In 1928, Ipswich Mills Company closed and sold off its assets, including mill housing still found in the town. Today, the information services company EBSCO Information Services is headquartered in the buildings. The parent company, EBSCO Industries, began in 1944 and acquired the informational services component as a publishing company in 1987. The acronym EBSCO stands for “Elton B. Stephens Company”, as Elton Bryson Stephens, Sr. started a magazine subscription company for selling to the United States Army in 1944 during World War II.

While the history and architecture of the buildings are interesting in themselves, the best part of the buildings are the Ipswich Riverwalk Murals. The statistics for this mural are truly impressive. In 2005, EBSCO hired experienced artist Alan Pearsall to cover 2,700 square feet (250 square meters) of the building in a timeline of Ipswich history with cameos by Anne Bradstreet (misspelled on the informational sign as Brandstreet), George Whitefield, Abraham Lincoln (as a statue), and Teddy Roosevelt. Comprehensive if occasionally incorrect information was given on a sign in front of the mural, but I doubt many people read the sign due to the density of tiny text. An audio tour option would have allowed more people to enjoy the experience.