Description of List

Rufus Choate, writing under the name Chebacco, published a series of articles on the old houses of Essex in the local newspaper, Essex Echo, about the year 1908. Mr. Choate wrote that he was "happy to present the contents of a paper prepared by Rev. John Cleaveland in 1782, enumerating the houses of the town at that date. The whole town at that time belonged to Mr. Cleaveland's parish, and for the purpose of catechising the children and for occasionally holding meetings, the Pastor and Ruling elders met at Elder Seth Story's, Aug. 29, 1782 and divided the town into ten districts, one house in each district being named as a house in which meetings might be held."

"About twenty years ago a descendant of Rev. John Cleaveland, living in New York City, found this paper among the old Pastor's documents, and kindly sent it to the writer of this article [Rufus Choate]. As some parts of it already dim with age, and a few words are almost illegible, it may be well to commit it to the press."

"The phrase '&ct in his house' which Mr. Cleaveland often used, indicates that another family also lived in that house." Following the list of names is:

N.B. - Mr. William Ross and George Clarke's families and Mrs. Bethel have liberty to come to that district which they may choose.

Ipswich, Sept. 1, 1782. The Second Church being stayed after divine service p. m., the following articles and arrangements were read to them and accepted by a unanimous vote.

Attest John Cleaveland, Pastor.

The newspaper clipping from which the list was transcribed is not dated. The list has been reformatted for this presentation. Brackets [ ] appear around words and comments not in the original. Numbering of each house and family has also been added. Mr. Choate states that in 1782 there were 110 houses and the population was almost 1,000. In my reading of the list, I can only identify 102 households and 131 heads of households. There are 38 different surnames in the list.

Below is a table of family names and the number of occurances of that name in the list of householders. Surnames are linked to the first occurance of that name on the list.