Over the last four centuries Haverhill MA has changed out of all recognition. If the first settlers could see it today they would be amazed at the way it has grown and prospered.
Today Haverhill MA has 60,000 residents and three airports. The early settlers would be proud of the way the quiet farming community they founded has grown into a modern and vibrant city.

George Washington visited Haverhill on November 4th, 1789, as part of his ‘triumphal tour’ of New England. His impression of the town was: “The pleasantest village I have passed through….it has commercial advantages and beauty of location”. After his departure, the townspeople named their main meeting square in his honour.

Haverhill Massachusetts USA.....

The early years cont. A Life Feature  by Ian Hornsey

A contemporary account relates: “Haverhill was sold by two sachems [chiefs], Passaquoi and Saggahew, and for the princely sum of £3.10s!
In 1645 the plantation of Haverhill was incorporated as a town, and the first church was established there. At that time, the plantation contained about 32 landholders, and was, with the exception of open fields upon the river, a dense and unbroken forest On  13th February 1647 John Ward Jr.  became the first minister of the new community. He was described as: “A man of robust constitution and an excellent divine”, and in 1652 his salary was set at £50 per annum.

In 1645, Ward’s parishioners built him a small house – which survives until this day, and is regarded as a classic piece of early colonial architecture. Ward continued as pastor until his death in 1693, and was succeeded by the Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, whose much shorter tenure came to an end when he was killed by Indians in an attack upon the town on 29th August, 1708. The early settlers now set about making their own laws and one of the more colourful ones was meant to combat the “intolerable excess and bravery of dress”.

The law stated that:
“No person whose estate did not exceed £200 was permitted to wear any gold or silver lace or buttons, great boots, silk hoods, ribbons, or scarfs, under penalty of 10 shillings”.

Not all of the original pioneers were evidently as pious as the Wards as can be demonstrated from the case of Tristram Coffin and his wife. In 1645. the couple were accused of “selling beere at 3d a quarte” which was contrary to the law, which required that beer should be brewed at “four bushels of malt to the hogshead” and that it should be sold at “2d per quart”. Mrs Coffin told the court she had, in fact, put six bushels into a hogshead, and the Court duly acquitted her!

As it is now, the City of Haverhill, was until 1999, administratively in northern Essex County with the state of New Hampshire on the north. Haverhill covers an area of almost 36 square miles. It gained ‘city’ status in 1870. Boston is some 30-odd miles to the south, whilst New York is just over 200 miles to the south-westerly.

John Winthrop (1588-1649), often referred to as ‘America’s forgotten founding father’, was another Suffolk man, being born in the parish of Edwardstone.  Winthrop was an interesting character who was granted a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony and arrived with 700 settlers in 1630. Winthrop served as Governor of Massachusetts for twelve terms, and was considered to be a good, if strict, leader. His strong Puritan beliefs (he thought that the Church of England should abolish bishops, and other relics of Roman Catholicism, such as kneeling and the use of vestments and altars) led him to fall out of favour with the Established Church.

In 1645 Winthrop became the first president of the Confederation of New England.During the early years of settlement, the community was largely agricultural, and with the Atlantic Ocean only sixteen miles away, fishing soon became an important industry as well. Proximity to the sea also encouraged shipbuilding to flourish, and these three areas of employment provided an economic base well into the 19th century.

During the early 19th century, a strong cattle market, and several tanneries developed, and, as a spin-off from this, Haverhill became an important shoemaking centre (just as its Suffolk counterpart had been renowned for woolens centuries before). The situation was to change when the railway came to Haverhill in 1839, some twenty-one years before her Suffolk sister.

John Ward’s House.  Photo by Steve Le Bel

George Washington

HAVERHILL & THE WARDS

The Ward family from Haverhill, Suffolk played an important pioneering role in the development of the colony of Massachusetts, with two generations being hugely responsible for the spiritual well-being of the early settlers.
Nathaniel Ward (1578-1652) was born in Haverhill, Suffolk, where his father John (who died in 1598) was vicar. He was educated at Emmanuel College Cambridge, where he graduated in 1599, before taking Holy Orders in 1618. Ward was originally trained for the law, at Lincoln’s Inn, London, and admitted as an outer barrister. After practising in England, he accompanied some merchants to the Continent, where he travelled extensively.

At Heidelberg he met the celebrated writer David Pareus, who persuaded him to quit the law and enter the ministry. This he did, and in 1626-28, he became rector of the Essex parish of Stonham Massey and one of the leading Puritan preachers in Essex.

Inevitably, his non-conformity led him into conflict with others in the Church, and eventually he fell foul of the Archbishop of Canterbury and was deprived of his position in 1633. The following year, he emigrated to Massachusetts with his wife and some of his children. Once there, he was installed as the first pastor of a small settlement called Ipswich (originally called Agawam), which position he resigned in 1636 through ill-health.
 In June 1639, the deputies of the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Company, asked Ward to draw up a legal code. This code was adopted by the Court in December 1641, under the title of the ‘Massachusetts Body of Liberties’. As a reward he was granted rights to six hundred acres of land near Pentucket.
 A citation of 27th March, 1643 reads: “A tract of land containing six hundred acres was granted by the Colony to Mr Nathaniel  Ward near Pentuckett, or as near as conveniently maybe”.
 In 1645, Ward was appointed to a committee set up to revise the laws, and, in 1648, the ‘Body of Liberties’ was replaced by the ‘Book of the Massachusetts General Laws and Libertyes’ for which Nathaniel Ward was largely responsible.
Ward’s book, ‘Body of Liberties’, was the first modern legal code in the Western world, and pointed the way to democratic, social, and political institutions, which were to be gradually incorporated into the legal structure of other ‘colonies’ (including Connecticut), and other nations.
On 15th November 1642 the "Haverhill Deed of Township" was finally signed, and a title to the land was legally purchased from the native Indians. John Ward (Nathanial Ward’s son) together with Robert Clements, Tristram Coffyn, Hugh Sherratt, William White and Thomas Davis signed for the settlers.

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