Number 11. Meetinghouse Green. The North Green has always been the religious and governmental heart of Ipswich. A meeting house was built here by 1636. The original church was surrounded by a high wall to protect them from the ever present danger from Indian attacks. Nearby were the stocks and whipping post. In 1636, a court was located here. The early sessions were held in an inn on the present site of the Public Library. When court was in session, lawyers, jurors, accused and witnesses gathered from as far away as Hampton, NH. Later, the famous lawyers of the day pled their cases in the Ipswich Court and stayed at the Treadwell Inn across the Green.
The leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony located their second jail in Ipswich in 1652. For most of the early years the jail was located on or near the site of the Kimball House, 6 Meetinghouse Green. In 1808, the site was sold to the Reverend David Tenny Kimball, the old jail, or gaol, was moved down High St., and he built the house that is located there. He was highly respected for his ministry and for his character. He was a staunch abolitionist, so it isn't surprising that many important people were entertained there, including, Lyman Beecher, Daniel Webster, and leaders of the Female Seminary Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon.The photo to the left is of the Old North Church after it was destroyed by fire in 1965. Click the photo to read the story from Harold Bowen's tales of olde ipswich. 
The photo to the right is of the rooster that stands atop the Old North Church. It also stood atop the church that stood on the Town Hill from 1847 until 1965. The rooster's eyes are pennies. One is from the year it was first put up, about 1847, and the other is from the last time it was serviced. The tradition is that the eye is changed each time that the rooster is taken down. (Rooster information from Bruce Lord.) |