This collection consists of 25 documents related to Ipswich, Massachusetts. It includes letters, deeds, and a petition. Most of the documents were written to or from John Winthrop, Jr.

You will see some letters dated with two different years. This is because the letters were dated using the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar that we use today. During most of America's colonial period, March 25 was the first day of the new year. In 1750, for example, the year ended on 24 March 1750; the following day was 25 March 1751. In that time period, New Englanders were still considered part of Great Britain, which continued to use the Julian calendar until September 1752.

"A contemporary copy of the articles of complaint against Rev. Thomas Gilbert of Topsfield, presented to the Court at Ipswich" dated 1666 (Folder 22) has never been published and so there is no transcript for this document.

Box 1 contains all of the original documents and has been restricted. Box 2 contains scanned copies of each document and a transcript, when available, for public use. Box 3 contains both the original deed and a scanned copy in a separate folder. Only the scanned copy is available to the public.