Excerpts from an article written by Alice Keenan in 1982:
What was to become of the old Lummus house that was in its last stages of ruinous decrepitude – would they tear it down, we wondered? Certainly, it could never be restored. Well, we wrote to our friend the other day that a small miracle had taken place on High Street when a young builder had the foresight and grit to take on the Lummus House in all its tattered disarray and transform it into the charming manse it is today.
To begin with, the spot itself simply reeks of history. The plaque erected by the Historical Society at the turn of the century, the dedication address delivered by Oliver Wendell Holmes, tells us that “on this lot originally nine acres was the house of Thomas Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony” and here the “redoubtable Dudley” as he is frequently referred to, made his home.
Redoubtable he was, for he was named the Deputy Governor of the Bay Colony before the tiny ship “Arbella” sailed from England in 1630, and retiring from the post of Governor in 1635 he moved to Ipswich from Cambridge at the age of 60 bringing along his family – and quite a family that was who settled close by. His daughters: Ann Bradstreet, America’s first poetess, and her husband, Simon Bradstreet, the Deputy Governor.
Eventually, in 1712 the old place was sold to Jonathan Lummus with “an old house.” Lummus promptly tore the old house down and built his new one on the spot, but the cellar in the opinion of some historians “is the original for the Governor Dudley house”. Jonathan’s house stood stout and strong on its little knoll overlooking old Pudding Lane (High Street) for more than two centuries, but time and its inevitable wear and tear had done its sad work and by 1964 that house was, to put it frankly, falling apart.
When the “for sale” sign went up most people simply shook their heads and wondered who in their right mind would buy such a fright, but our young builder had been bitten by the restoration bug and tackled what to most was a mad, impossible task. His path wasn’t easy, but with the sympathetic understanding and cooperation of a few dedicated and far-sighted individuals, the hard job of restoring the old Jonathan Lummus House was finally completed.
The accompanying picture shows just how the old Lummus House looked in the spring of 1964 when the restoration work had finally started and we rather fancy that Jonathan, and even the stern Dudley would have been most enthusiastic at the end result.
View photos and read more about the Jonathan Lummus House at the Historic Ipswich site.
Historic Ipswich 