New Ipswich is home to several notable figures that left their mark not only on the town, but in the wider annals of history. From benefactors, to artisans, to the early settlers that helped to grow the town into what it is today, here are some of their stories.
Samuel Appleton
Samuel Appleton endowed the academy at New Ipswich with a fund which secured its permanence, and founded the professorship of natural philosophy of Dartmouth College, with a gift of $10,000. Appleton was an importer, along with his brother Nathan, buying European dry goods. He later established cotton mills in Waltham and Lowell, Mass. He married Mary Gore at the age of 53, and retired from business in 1823. He devoted much of his fortune to charity, including the endowment for Appleton Academy.
Jonas Chickering
Jonas Chickering was a piano manufacturer born on April 5, 1798, in Mason Village and raised in New Ipswich. His father, Abner Chickering, kept a farm and worked as a blacksmith. Jonas Chickering apprenticed for three years as a cabinetmaker and moved in 1818 to Boston to work for cabinetmaker James Baker. A year later, he began working for pianomaker John Osborn. He later formed a partnership with pianomaker James Stewart, and the pair sold their first piano for $275 in 1823. Stewart and Chickering continued their partnership for four years, and in 1830, Chickering partnered with organ and pianomaker John Mackay. They built a new five-story factory in Boston. Mackay died at sea in 1841, and Chickering bought out Mackey’s shares in the business. The factory burned in 1852, losing not only $250,000 in damages, but the tools, patterns and a grand piano prototype. A new steam-powered factory was started, but Chickering died before the factory’s completion. Over 800 people marched in his funeral procession.
Rev. Stephen Farrar
Stephen Farrar was the pastor of the first church in town. Farrar, born Sept. 8, 1738, was a graduate of Harvard College and began his preaching career as a young man of 20. His first posting was New Ipswich. Farrar married Eunice Farrar, and together they had 12 children, all of whom survived into adulthood, but none of whom remained in New Ipswich, and today, none of his many descendants remain in town. Farrar remained the minister in New Ipswich for 50 years.
Isabella Batchelder James
Isabella Batchelder was born in New Ipswich, the fifth child of a cotton manufacturer. She was educated in Boston, and during her childhood, her family moved to Lowell, Mass. and then to Saco, Maine. She married botanist Thomas Potts James on Dec. 3, 1851. During the outbreak of the Civil War, she offered her house as a hospital to Massachusetts volunteers. At the Great Centennial Fair in Philadelphia in 1864, she was the head of the Department of Relics and Curiosities, which raised money for wounded soldiers. After the war, she headed the Women’s Freedmen’s Commission, which sent teachers to the south, and the Episcopal Freedmen’s Commission. She returned to Cambridge in 1869 to keep house for her father after the death of her mother. She was active in philanthropic and church work, and was an early director of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, and chaired the Cambridge Ladies’ Centennial Committee