Crane Wildlife Refuge

Choate Island, also known as Hog Island, is an island located in the Essex River Estuary in Essex, Massachusetts. It is part of the Crane Wildlife Refuge, which is owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations. The 135-acre (0.55 km2) island is a refuge for a variety of birds and animals. It is surrounded by a salt marsh and has a spruce forest which was planted in the 1930s and makes the island easily visible from much of the surrounding area. The island has been inhabited by the Native Americans of the area, and was visited by early Europeans, who established farming on the island. The Choate House, built around 1730, remains relatively unchanged. The island is connected to Long Island, which has a farmhouse and a barn, by a salt marsh and a causeway. There is a dock on Long Island which provides access to Choate Island by boat. The Crane Wildlife Refuge was established by Miné S. Crane in memory of her husband, Cornelius Crane, and both are buried at the summit of the island. Much of the 1996 film The Crucible, based on Arthur Miller's play regarding the Salem witch trials, was filmed on the island. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis reportedly spent much time on the island preparing for his role in the film.

Choate House is a historic house on Choate Island in the Crane Wildlife Refuge, Essex, Massachusetts, owned and administered by the nonprofit Trustees of Reservations. Choate House was built around 1730, was the birthplace of lawyer and public citizen Rufus Choate (1799–1859), and has remained virtually unchanged for over two centuries. It stands on Hog Island, also called Choate Island, and is accessible only by boat.

The Ipswich Range Lights are a pair of range lights on Crane Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts. They have a long and varied story. They were first built as two brick towers, 542 feet (165 m) apart on a more or less east–west line in 1838. The movement of the sands led to shifting of the towers and by 1881 the rear tower, Ipswich Rear Range Light, was badly cracked. It was replaced by a cast-iron tower, while by 1867 the front light, Ipswich Front Range Light, had been replaced by a movable wood structure that could be shifted as the channel shifted. The front light was discontinued in 1932 and the rear light was replaced in 1938 with a skeleton tower. It, or its replacement, is still in service today. The 1881 cast-iron rear tower was loaded on a barge and shipped to Edgartown, Massachusetts, where it replaced the Edgartown Harbor Light that had been destroyed in the Hurricane of 1938.The modern light tower, located on the site of the Ipswich Range Rear Light as described above, is shown on Coast Guard lists and NOAA charts as Ipswich Light. It displays a white light which occults once every 4 seconds.

Crane Beach is a 1,234-acre (4.99 km2) conservation and recreation property located in Ipswich, Massachusetts, immediately north of Cape Ann. It consists of a four-mile-long (6 km) sandy beachfront, dunes, and a maritime pitch pine forest. Five and a half miles of hiking trails through the dunes and forest are accessible from the beachfront. Crane Beach is open year-round, and is free to Ipswich residents with the purchase of a yearly beach parking sticker. Non-residents must pay a fee to enter ($40 on weekends during peak season for a car, as of August 2021). In the summer months there is a refreshment bar, and the restrooms, showers and changing facilities are open year-round. During low tide, it is often possible to wade out to sand bars, and during the warm months small boats often dock on these sand bars. Across the water, Plum Island and its sandy beaches are visible. Crane Beach was established in 1945 as a gift from Richard T. Crane Jr., son of Richard T. Crane, and his family. Along with Castle Hill and the Crane Wildlife Refuge, it is owned and maintained by The Trustees of Reservations. There is an annual celebration that takes place at the beach on June 16 (if the weather is sufficient) called Crane Beach Day. On this day, students from the Doyon and Winthrop Elementary Schools, as well as the Ipswich Middle School students, gather at the beach during the school day. The middle school students have the option to take part in a run that goes from the Ipswich Town Hall, to the beach. Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr. (previous owners of the Crane Estate) began a tradition of inviting all the Ipswich school children to the beach for a day in 1911 to celebrate their son, Cornelius’, 6th birthday. Ever since, the tradition of Crane Beach Day has been repeated. In 2011, the schools celebrated the 100th anniversary of the event. Several students, with birthdays closest to the day of the event, arrived at the beach by boat like they would when the tradition was started. There were people hired to impersonate the Crane family and greet people as they got to the beach, a replica of the old Ipswich Lighthouse, and even a special ice cream flavor dedicated to Cornelius (called “Cornelius Crunch”). In addition, every student received a celebratory t-shirt to wear to the beach, featuring a picture of Cornelius on his 6th birthday.Crane Beach is an important nesting site for the threatened piping plover. The 2006 International Piping Plover Breeding Census estimated that only 3,884 plovers remained. According to the same 2006 census, Crane Beach was home to 19 breeding pairs and 40 total adults.The Greenhead fly is active in this area for a few weeks in July and early August.The Cape Ann Transportation Authority (CATA) provides summer weekend bus service between the Ipswich MBTA train station and Crane Beach.

Corn Island is a forested island of Essex County, Massachusetts.

Castle Hill is a 56,881 sq ft (5,284.4 m2) mansion in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which was completed in 1928 as a summer home for Mr. and Mrs. Richard Teller Crane, Jr. It is also the name of the 165-acre (67 ha) drumlin surrounded by sea and salt marsh that the home was built atop. Both are part of the 2,100-acre (850 ha) Crane Estate, located on Argilla Road. The estate includes the historic mansion, 21 outbuildings, and landscapes overlooking Ipswich Bay on the seacoast off Route 1, north of Boston. Its name derives from a promontory in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, from which many early Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers immigrated. The estate is a relatively intact work from the Country Place Era of the turn of the 20th century, when wealthy families built extensive country estates. The Crane Estate includes architectural and landscape designs from at least seven firms or individuals of national reputation, including the Olmsted Brothers and Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, and it is extensively documented. In recognition of its state of preservation and design, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998. The property is now owned by The Trustees of Reservations and is open to the public.

Ada K. Damon was a Grand Banks schooner that was used for fishing and later for sand transportation. She was wrecked on 26 December 1909 during a large snowstorm when her anchor chain parted, setting her adrift. Today, the remains of the wreck are a local landmark, a tourist attraction, and an archeological site.

Sandy Point State Reservation is a coastal Massachusetts state park located in the town of Ipswich at the southern tip of Plum Island. The reservation is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation and is an important nesting area for the piping plover and the least tern. Access to the reservation is through the adjoining Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

The James N. and Mary F. Stavros Reservation is a 74-acre (30 ha) nature reserve located in Essex, Massachusetts. The property has been owned by The Trustees of Reservations since 1986. About 50 acres (20 ha) of the reservation consists of salt marsh. White's Hill, which includes fine views of the Massachusetts coast, including Crane Beach, was sold by Mrs. Stavros to the Trustees in 1988 at well below market value. At the top of White's Hill is a 50-foot tall tower built by Lamont G. Burnham in the 1880s.Much of the adjacent property, including the Cape Ann Golf Course owned by the Stavros family, is covered by conservation easements.

Ipswich River is a small river in northeastern Massachusetts, United States. It held significant importance in early colonial migrations inland from the ocean port of Ipswich. The river provided safe harborage at offshore Plum Island Sound to early Massachusetts subsistence farmers, who were also fishermen. A part of the river forms town boundaries and divides Essex County, Massachusetts on the coast from the more inland Middlesex County. It is 35 miles (56 km) long, and its watershed is approximately 155 square miles (401 km2), with an estimated population in the area of 160,000 people.Historically, the settlement of Essex County began at the oldest community there, the tiny seaport of Agawam (later renamed Ipswich, and not to be confused with present-day Agawam in Hampden County), and typically proceeded westward and northward along the Ipswich or its tributary creeks. When Middlesex County was formed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, only Salem and Charlestown across the Charles River mouth and Boston harbor's inner estuary from Boston's much smaller hill dominated peninsula were older settlements. The upper river runs through and drains at least parts of Burlington, the lower river forms part of the borders between the towns of: North Reading and Lynnfield Middleton and the city of Peabody Middleton and Danvers, and Boxford and Topsfield.The wide swamps along the river made it impossible to ford the stream anywhere east of Wilmington in colonial times. The only route north out of Boston to the northeast (today called the North Shore) was via the Andover Road, an often muddy track, later made a wagon road which forded the stream just below the confluence of Lubbers and Maple Meadow brooks.

The Smith House, also known locally as the Tilton-Smith House, is a historic house in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Built in the first quarter of the 18th century, it is a good example of late First Period architecture. It suffered serious fire damage in 1998, but underwent a meticulous restoration. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Cogswell's Grant is a working farm and historic house museum in Essex, Massachusetts. It was the summer home of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, preeminent collectors of American decorative arts in the mid 20th century. Through her research and innumerable publications, Mrs. Little charted new areas of American folk art (which she preferred to call "country arts"), such as decorative painting, floor coverings, boxes, and New England pottery. In 1937, the Littles purchased this farm, including its 18th-century farmhouse with views of the Essex River, as a family retreat and place to entertain. They named it Cogswell's Grant, after John Cogswell, who was the first English colonial owner of the property, which includes about 165 acres (67 ha) of land. They carefully restored the farmhouse, trying to preserve original 18th-century finishes and carefully documenting their work, and decorated from their extensive collection of artifacts. In more than 50 years of collecting, they sought works of strong, even quirky character, and in particular favored objects with their original finishes and New England histories. They decorated the house for visual delight rather than historical accuracy. The result is rich in atmosphere and crowded with collections of things—primitive paintings, redware, painted furniture, stacked Shaker boxes, weather vanes and decoys—that have since come to define the country look. Bertram Little served for many years as president of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now called Historic New England. The Littles bequeathed the property, complete with its contents and associated records, to that organization in 1984. Part of the 19th century barn north of the house has been adapted for use as a visitor's center, and the rear ell of the house has been adapted for use as a caretaker's residence and visitor restrooms. Cogswell's Grant is open for public tours Wednesday through Sunday, June 1 - October 15.