Along The Ipswich River

Along The Ipswich River. ca. 1860. , The Lower Falls , Here at Falls Island and Sawmill Point stood some of Ipswich’s earliest mills, powered by the Lower Falls of the Ipswich River. A fulling mill built by John Whipple in 1673 was followed by hemp mills, grist mills, and saw mills. All were small and operated fitfully, compromised by ocean tides. , Sawmill Point , This map of 1860 shows the Lower Falls, Falls Island, and Sawmill Point. The County Street Bridge did not exist, and County Street terminated at Sawmill Point. A sawmill spanned across the sluiceway separating Sawmill Point from Falls Island, and Sawmill Point itself was a lumber yard piled high with logs and sawn lumber. This plaque stands adjacent to the south face of the sawmill. As you read the plaque you are looking north across the sluiceway toward Falls Island. The sawmill operation continued into the 1880’s. Remains of the dam, seawalls, and sluiceway are visible today., Great Cove , Great Cove is a widened bend of the Ipswich River some two miles from the sea. It formed a natural home for shipping and its related trades. Wharves were built in the late 1600’s, and shipbuilding sprang up on the marshy southern shore. Gradually a soapworks, tannery, distillery, hosiery, cooperage, cordwainer, and other small water-based industries appeared around Great Cove. Of Time and the River , Fishing, shopcrafts, trade, and agriculture made Ipswich an economic powerhouse in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Wharves, mills, shops, and shipyards lined the banks of the Ipswich River upstream and downstream from the Great Cove. After the American Revolution, Great Cove and the Ipswich River – shallow and tidal – could no longer compete with the deep-water ports of Salem and Boston, and Ipswich declined in economic importance. , ( photo captions ) , , View of Sawmill Point looking north, showingthe Damon Sawmill of 1870 and the stone seawall. (Courtesy of Bill George.) , , The construction of the County Street Bridge in 1861 geneated a brief spurt of industry across the street from Sawmill Point: the Ipswich Woolen Mills, two wheelwright shops, and the blacksmith shop pictured here. (Ipswich Historical Society.)