After wealthy Richard Haffield of Chebacco Parish died, his widow slowly went insane, and her daughter Rachel, who lived with her, foolishly married a younger man named Lawrence Clinton who connived to steal their inheritance. In 1655, the Town of Ipswich took mercy on the old woman and sold her “four rods of ground…near the Mill Dam, for twelve pence, to build a little house on.” Trouble seemed to follow Rachel, and in 1692 she was charged with witchcraft. She was never executed, but died impoverished a few years later, probably in the small house she and her mother had built by the river.
In 1723, Rachel’s nephew Thomas White Jr. of Wenham sold the 4-rod lot to Samuel Dutch, who built the house still standing at 69 S. Main St. The small home of Widow Haffield and Rachel Clinton was recorded as still standing on the lot a few years earlier. A chamfered summer beam in the rear ell of the Samuel Dutch House may be from the earlier structure.
Samuel Dutch enlarged his lot and purchased “two-thirds of the sawmill standing on the south side of the River.” The third floor is believed to have been added later in the 18th or early 19th Century. Read more about the Samuel Dutch House and Rachel Haffield Clinton at the Historic Ipswich site.
Historic Ipswich 