Documentary History of American Water-works

Ipswich

Ipswich, Massachusetts

Ipswich was first settled in 1633.

The Ipswich Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1828 and built a mill on the Ipswich River that began operating in 1830. The company pumped water into a reservoir that supplied the mill and also the Eastern Railroad when it began service to Ipswich in December, 1839. The reservoir and pipes serving the railroad are mentioned in deeds, but no other information has been found about this system.

Essex County constructed an aqueduct in 1844 to deliver water to the county's House of Corrections and Insane Asylum in Ipswich. One of the adjacent landowners, Stephen Stanwood, tapped into the aqueduct and brought suit against the county when it removed the connection, but he lost the case.

The Town of Ipswich built its own water system in 1894, pumping water into a reservoir.

Water is supplied by the Town of Ipswich.

References
1832 Map Of The Town Of Ipswich, County Of Essex

1847 Stephen Stanwood vs. Charles Kimball & others, 13 Met. 526, Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, November Term 1847. Includes the text of the deed dated June 19, 1844.
County commissioners laid an aqueduct from a spring, through the lands of several persons, to the county buildings, and thereby diverted the water which before flowed to the works of S.: At or about the time when the aqueduct was laid, a lateral pipe was inserted in it, and water thereby conveyed to said works; but it did not appear by whose order or at whose expense the pipe was thus inserted: The commissioners afterwards caused the pipe to be cut off, and S. was thereby deprived of the use of the water: S. brought an action against the commissioners, alleging, in one count, that they had diverted the water of the spring, and in another count, that they caused the pipe to be cut off: The commissioners, in their defence, gave in evidence a deed, executed after the aqueduct was laid, by S. and others, through whose land it was laid, in which deed they recited that it had been laid with their consent, and acknowledged that they had received full satisfaction for all damages occasioned to their several lands by laying it, and in which they also granted to the county the liberty of entering upon their several lands, for the purpose of repairing, or relaying, or taking up said aqueduct, whenever the county commissioners, or any authorized agents of the county, might deem it necessary; the county to pay to the owners of said lands such damages as should be thereafter occasioned by entering thereon for said purpose. Held, that this deed was a grant to the county of the entire use of the water of the spring; that the whole damages for such use had been received by S.; that if the pipe was inserted in the aqueduct before the deed was executed, the right to continue it was relinquished by the deed; that if the pipe was inserted after the deed was executed, it was either a trespass, or was done in pursuance of a parol license of the commissioners, which was revocable and had been revoked; and that, in either case, the commissioners had a right to cut off the pipe.

1872 Map of Ipswich

1890 An act to supply the town of Ipswich with water. May 23, 1890.

1897 "Ipswich," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 4.

1905 Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by Thomas Franklin Waters.
Page 327: The main portion of the Safford estate, reaching from the Lindberg house to the house of the widow Bancroft, fell to Simeon Safford, a blacksmith, as his father was. He had a shop near the Street on the land now owned by John J. Sullivan. The site of the original homestead cannot be determined. The administrators of Simeon Safford sold Joseph Farley, Safford's interest in a half acre with buildings, July 25, 1829 (294:160). Farley was the President of the Ipswich Manufacturing Co. and his personal affairs were much involved with the affairs of the Company. He transferred this lot to the Company, Dec. 8 1836 (294:153), and it was conveyed with other assets of the Company to the Dane Manufacturing Co., Sept. 1, 1846 (463: 252), and was sold by that Corporation to Capt. John Lord 3d, Sept. 1, 1846 (396: 236). The old Safford dwelling was still standing. The deed also provided, "that a lot of land on the highest part at or near where the old Reservoir, erected by the E. R. R. stood, be reserved for the purpose of erecting a new reservoir for the same railroad, & for digging for pipes from the Stone Factory of Grantees across said land to the depot." The reason of this was that originally the Mill pumped water from the River into a reservoir on this spot, from which pipes were laid to the station to supply water to the locomotives.
Page 392: The County improved the fine spring on the land and laid a pipe to the House of Correction. A new well was sunk some years since to supplement the springs.

Maps of Ipswich