East End Historic District

East End is a largely residential district of roughly 53 acres on the west bank of the Ipswich River, forming the seafaring part of Ipswich's original village. Early settlers built near what is now Town Wharf, and the river served as the town's route to the Atlantic. Wharves, warehouses, a customs house, a pottery, a tannery, a brew house and shipyards lined the water, and staves, clapboards, masts, pre-cut house timbers and fish were shipped abroad. Development came in waves, with houses dating from the 1670s through the 1870s. Building slowed in the late 1700s during economic hardship, then revived in the 1830s with the textile mills. Surviving buildings include timber-frame houses with center chimneys and overhangs, the home of cabinetmaker Thomas Dennis, Greek Revival capes, a former knitting factory, and a twin-arch granite bridge on Green Street. Five Victorian houses on lower County Street, built for merchants after a new bridge opened in 1861, mark the last stage of growth.