181 



tites, ample justice was done to the collation. At half past two an 

 adjournment was had to the vestry of the Methodist Church, where a 

 large number of citizens, and young ladies from the seminary, joined 

 the audience. The meeting was called to order by 



Vice President A. C. Goodell, jr., 



who explained the objects of the society and briefly recounted its 

 history. Alluding to the present meeting, he said it was the first held 

 in Ipswich for many years, though there were many objects of in- 

 terest in the town relating to several of the subjects to which the 

 Essex Institute devoted itself. 



F. W. PuTXAM was elected Seci'etary j;ro tern., and announced the 

 donations and correspondence. 



The chair called upon the Eev. George D. Wildes, of Salem, to 

 make some remarks upon the historj^ of the town. 



Mr. Wildes, after a facetious allusion to the manner in whicli his 

 historical speech at Kittery had been shortened, remarked upon the an- 

 tiquity of this town of Ipswich. Its very appearance, he said, stamps 

 both its age and its origin. In all the country he had never seen any 

 village which so much resembles an English country town. Its long 

 wide English street, which probably had its terminus at the church, 

 the style of the houses, and everything that is old, convey the impres- 

 sion of a genuine English hamlet. The names, too, suggest the same 

 thing. Besides that of the town, which is simply borrowed from the 

 English, there is "Pudding street," as it used to be called. He pro- 

 tested against the notion that this had a gastronomical origin, and 

 suggested that it was once "Put in" street, and invited strangers to 

 put in there, or come in. But even if this theory be rejected, we can 

 remember that one of the prominent streets in London is called "Pud- 

 ding Lane." He advised the people of the town, if they had not 

 already repudiated the name, to hold on to it. 



On this hill where the Congregational church stands, and on the 

 same spot, the old church was erected at the very beginning of the 

 town's history. He remembered as a little boy attending the bicen- 

 tennial celebration of the settlement of the town, when Choate, a na- 

 tive of Hie town, was oi'ator. This carries us back almost to the time 

 of the first English settlement in New England. Plymouth was 

 reached in 1620, Salem in 1626, and Ipswich in 1633. In 1634 the grant 

 of land was made. Three yeai's later the accommodations were so 

 limited that a part of the town was set off" and became Eowley. The 

 speaker alluded to the curious fact that towns in New England bear 

 sometimes a marked resemblance to those for which they are named in 

 England. He could not say how it is in the case of Ipswich, but Bos- 



