Rowley, Massachusetts
A Short History of Rowley
From a plantation founded by a Yorkshire minister in 1639, to the first stone arch bridge ever built in North America, to a sawmill that has been running since 1669 and still is.
1639: Rogers and the John of London
Rowley was founded by Reverend Ezekiel Rogers, a Puritan minister who lost his English pulpit for nonconformity and sailed for New England with about twenty families aboard the ship John of London. They settled here in 1639, and the town was incorporated on September 4 of that year, at first taking in land that is now part of Byfield, Groveland, Georgetown and Haverhill. The town was named after Rowley in Yorkshire, England, where Rogers had preached before he was silenced.
Cloth, Mills, and a Record-Setting Bridge
Rowley’s early economy ran on farming and on cloth. In the mid 1600s the town became known for fabric woven from hemp, flax, and cotton, and mills rose along its rivers to power the work. In 1642 the first stone arch bridge built anywhere in North America was raised over the Mill River here. A sawmill established here in 1669 is still in business today.
Carriages, Shoes, and Boats
As the country industrialized, so did Rowley. Moses E. Daniels built a carriage factory in the town in 1868, and by the start of the twentieth century Rowley had a booming shoe industry along with successful boat-building businesses. The town kept its farms through all of it, and today it still holds a Farmers’ Market on the Town Common and an annual Rowley Agricultural Day.
The Houses That Remember
Rowley keeps its early architecture better than most towns its size. The Platts-Bradstreet House on Main Street, built about 1677, is a well preserved example of First Period building and has been the home of the Rowley Historical Society since about 1920; it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Nearby, the Humphrey Bradstreet Farm, which dates to 1635, is thought to be one of the oldest continuously operating farms in the United States.
One Town, Three Schools
Today Rowley belongs to the Triton Regional School District, which it shares with the neighboring coastal towns of Newbury and Salisbury. Rowley’s own Pine Grove School, at 191 Main Street, serves the youngest students, and the Triton Regional Middle and High Schools share a campus on Elm Street in the Byfield section of Newbury. The district is governed by a committee that answers to all three towns at once, which is why a Rowley school budget has to pass in three separate halls.
Sources: Town of Rowley, About Rowley (townofrowley.net); Wikipedia, Rowley, Massachusetts and Platts-Bradstreet House; the Rowley Historical Society.