king’s hands. In 1200 King John granted the burgesses their first charter, confirming their town to them to be held at fee-farm, exempting them from tolls and similar customs, and granting them a gild-merchant. These liberties were extended in 1256; Edward I. and Edward III. both resumed the borough for short periods, but the charter of 1200 was confirmed by almost every subsequent sovereign. The burgesses were definitely incorporated in 1464 and re-incorporated in 1665 under a charter which remained in force previous to its modification by the Municipal Act of 1835, except during a short period in the reign of Charles II. From 1295 onwards the town has sent two representatives to parliament. The cattle market, held on Tuesdays, and the provision market on Saturdays are the prescriptive right of the corporation. A September fair, still held in 1792, was in the hands of the corporation in the 17th century. Large ironworks were established late in the 18th century. The wool and cloth trade which flourished here in the 14th and 15th centuries was superseded by the manufacture of sailcloth, now represented by the sacking industry.
See Victoria County History: Suffolk; J. Wodderspoon, Memorials of the Ancient Town of Ipswich (ed. 1850).
IPSWICH, a township of Essex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A.,
on both sides of the Ipswich river, about 27 m. N.N.E. of Boston.
Pop. 1910 (Federal census), 5777. It is served by the Boston &
Maine railroad. The surface is diversified by drumlins, vales,
meadows, sand-dunes and tidal marshes. Ipswich has several
manufacturing industries, including hosiery. The public library
was the gift of Augustine Heard. Among the residences are
several built in the 17th and 18th centuries. The oldest of these,
the John Whipple House, is the home of the Ipswich Historical
Society (1890), which has gathered here a collection of antiques
and issues publications of antiquarian interest. In the Ipswich
Female Seminary, which no longer exists, Mary Lyon taught
from 1828 to 1834 and here planned Mount Holyoke Seminary;
Professor J. P. Cowles and his wife conducted a famous school
for girls in the building for many years. Facing the South
Common were the homes of Rev. Nathaniel Ward (1578–1652),
principal author of the Massachusetts “Body of Liberties”
(1641), the first code of laws in New England, and author of
The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, Willing to help mend
his Native Country, lamentably tattered, both in the upper-Leather
and the Sole (1647), published under the pseudonym, “Theodore
de la Guard,” one of the most curious and interesting books
of the colonial period; of Richard Saltonstall (1610–1694),
who wrote against the life tenure of magistrates, and although
himself an Assistant espoused the more liberal principles of the
Deputies; and of Ezekiel Cheever (1614–1708), a famous schoolmaster,
who had charge of the grammar school in 1650–1660. In
the vicinity was the house of the Rev. William Hubbard (1621–1704),
author of a Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in
New England (Boston, 1677) and a general History of New
England, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in
1815.
The town was founded under the name of Aggawam in 1633 by John Winthrop, jun., and twelve others, with a view to preventing the French from occupying the N. part of Massachusetts, and in the next year it was incorporated under its present name. In wealth and influence during the early colonial period it was little inferior to Boston, whose policies it not infrequently opposed. When Governor Andros and his Council in 1687 issued an order for levying a tax, a special town meeting of Ipswich promptly voted “that the s’d act doth infringe their Liberty as Free borne English subjects of His Majestie by interfearing with ye statutory Laws of the Land, By which it is enacted that no taxes shall be levied on ye Subjects without consent of an assembly chosen by ye Freeholders for assessing the same,” and refused to assess the tax. For this offence six leaders, headed by the Rev. John Wise, minister of the Chebacco Parish (now Essex), were prosecuted, found guilty, imprisoned for three weeks to await sentence and then disqualified for office; they were also fined from £15 to £50 each, and were required to give security for their good behaviour. In Ipswich were originally included the present townships of Hamilton (1793) and Essex (1819).
See T. F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony 1633–1700 (Ipswich, 1905), and the publications of the Ipswich Historical Society.
IQUIQUE, a city and port of Chile, capital of the province of
Tarapacá, 820 m. N. of Valparaiso, in 20° 12′ 15″ S., 70° 11′ 15″ W.
Pop. (1895), 33,031; (1900, est.), 42,440. The coast here runs
due N. and S. and the city is built on a narrow level plain between
the sea and bluffs, the latter rising steeply 2000 ft. to the level
of the great desert plain of Tarapacá, celebrated for its rich
deposits of nitrate of soda. Facing the city is the low barren
island of Serrano, or Iquique, which is connected with the
mainland by a stone causeway 1500 ft. long, and shelters the
anchorage from southerly storms. A mole extending from the
N.E. end of the island affords some further protection. The
city is laid out in the rectangular plan, with broad streets and
large squares. Water is brought by pipes from Pica, 50 m.
distant. Iquique is a city of much commercial importance and is
provided with banks, substantial business houses, newspapers,
clubs, schools, railways, tramways, electric lights, telephone
lines, and steamship and cable communication with the outside
world. It exports iodine and immense quantities of nitrate of
soda obtained from the desert region of the province. A large
number of vessels are engaged in the nitrate trade, and Iquique
ranks as one of the two leading ports of Chile in the aggregate
value of its foreign commerce. It is connected by rail with the
inland town of Tarapacá and various mining centres, and through
them with the ports of Pisagua on the N., and Patillos on the S.
Iquique was an insignificant Peruvian fishing settlement until
1830 when the export of nitrate began. In 1868 the town was
nearly destroyed by an earthquake, in 1875 by fire, and again
in 1877 by earthquakes, a fire and a tidal wave. It was occupied
by the Chileans in 1879 in the war between Chile and Peru, and
was ceded to Chile by the treaty of the 20th of October 1883.
IQUITOS, a tribe of South American Indians. It is divided
into many branches, some on the river Tigre, others on the Nanay.
Missionary efforts have failed and they remain savages, worshipping
figures carved in the shape of birds and beasts. They brew
the Indian fermented liquor chicha better than any of the
neighbouring tribes, flavouring it with the shoots of some plant
which has the effect of an opiate.
IQUITOS, a city and river port of Peru, and capital of the
great inland department of Loreto, on the left bank of the upper
Amazon near the mouth of the Rio Nanay, 87 m. below the
mouth of the Ucayali and 930 m. from Puerto Bermudez. The
geographical position of Iquitos is 3° 44′ S., 73° W. Pop. of
the city (1906, est.), 6000; of the district (1906, est.), 12,000.
Iquitos stands about 348 ft. above sea-level, on the low wooded
banks of the river opposite some islands of the same name, and
has a warm but healthful climate (mean annual temperature,
about 75° F.). The city consists of two pueblos, the larger of
which is occupied by Indians and half-breeds, the descendants
of the Iquitos tribe from whom the city takes its name. The
opening of the Amazon to navigation, and the subsequent arrival
of foreign ocean-going vessels at Iquitos, added immensely to the
importance of the city, and made it the commercial entrepôt
of eastern Peru. In 1908 three lines of ocean-going steamers
were making regular voyages up the Amazon to Iquitos (about
2500 m.). The city has a large import and export trade for an
immense region watered by the Marañon, Huallaga, Ucayali and
other large Amazonian rivers navigated from Iquitos by
lines of small boats. Iquitos was put in wireless telegraphic
communication with Puerto Bermudez on the 8th of July 1908,
whence a land line runs across the Andes to Lima. Besides
machine shops and shipbuilding facilities, the important industries
are the weaving of hats and hammocks, and the preparation
of salt fish; and there is a considerable export of
rubber and straw hats. Tobacco is produced in the vicinity
and sent to other parts of the Montaña region. Iquitos dates
officially from 1863, when it had a population of 431, though there
had been a white settlement there for more than half a century.
