page_title: New Ipswich, New Hampshire
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: New Ipswich, New Hampshire / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Baptist Church, New Ipswich, NH; from a c. 1912 postcard.
context_page_description: New Ipswich is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,099 at the 2010 census. New Ipswich, situated on the Massachusetts border, includes the villages of Bank, Davis, Gibson Four Corners, Highbridge, New Ipswich Center, Smithville, and Wilder, though these village designations no longer hold the importance they did in the past. The Wapack Trail passes through the community.
context_section_description: New Ipswich was granted in 1735 to 60 inhabitants of Ipswich, Massachusetts, from whence the name is derived, by Colonial Governor Jonathan Belcher and the General Court (Assembly) of Massachusetts.  Settlement began in 1738, when Abijah Foster arrived with his wife and infant daughter.  In 1762, Governor Benning Wentworth incorporated the town as "Ipswich", and then in 1766 as "New Ipswich".  New Ipswich Academy, later renamed Appleton Academy after benefactor Samuel Appleton, was chartered in 1789, the second oldest in New Hampshire after Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter. It would also serve as high school for the nearby communities of Mason and Greenville. Appleton Academy closed in 2012, due to the dangerous conditions of occupying it. In 1969, construction of Mascenic Regional High School was completed, rendering high school teaching in Appleton no more, although the building was still used to teach elementary schoolers and middle schoolers. In 1989 Boynton Middle school completed construction, so Appleton was from then to 2012 a elementary school.
  The Souhegan River provided water power for mills, and in 1801, the first woolen mill in the state was established at New Ipswich, followed in 1804 by the first cotton mill.  Other early factories produced glass, potash and linseed oil.  Cabinet making craftsmen produced elegant furniture.  The town's affluence would be expressed in fine architecture, an example of which is the Barrett House, used as a setting for the 1979 Merchant Ivory film of The Europeans by Henry James.  Bypassed by the railroad, the early mill town was preserved.
  In the past half century, a notable influx of peoples of Finnish descent, particularly of the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America, have settled in New Ipswich. Additionally, migrants from nearby Massachusetts make up a large percentage of new residents.
caption: Baptist Church c. 1912
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