A mill and river town where the Powow drops through the center on its way to the Merrimack, once famous across the country for its carriages, with a boat shop at Salisbury Point that has built dories since 1793 and the home where Whittier wrote Snow-Bound.

Essex County · Record checked October 12, 2026

17,366Population2020 census1
1668Became a townNew Town of Salisbury, renamed Amesbury1
90 feetThe fallsthe Powow's drop through the center of town2
150The 1773 tornadobuildings that fell, from Salisbury Point up the river3
10National Registerplaces, all still standing4

Amesbury on the map

Click the map to look closer.

Map of Amesbury, Massachusetts in 2026, with Lake Attitash, the Powow River, Salisbury Point and Main Street

2026

Amesbury today

By KNOWOL

Amesbury on shaded terrain from Powwow Hill down to the Merrimack, with Main, Market and Macy streets, Salisbury Point, Lake Attitash, Tuxbury Pond, Bailey Pond and Clarks Pond, and Batt Hill, Bear Hill and Beech Hill.2

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Amesbury

The tornado of 1773

On the 1st of August, 1773, a tornado came up the Merrimack from the east. It struck Salisbury Point first and cut a path about a mile wide toward Haverhill, and almost every house and building from the Point to a quarter mile above Amesbury Ferry was flattened or damaged. A Captain Smith of Beverly was sitting in a sail maker's loft when the whole building was carried off around him. He was found senseless ninety-four feet away with a broken leg. Two 90-ton vessels on the blocks were lifted and carried twenty-two feet sideways. Some people were picked up by the wind and set down safe, and others were dug out of their cellars unhurt. About 150 buildings fell.53

Anchors, nails and carriages

The falls of the Powow made Amesbury a mill town early. An iron works went up at the Mills about 1800, and a heavy trip-hammer there forged big anchors. Paul Moody ran a cotton mill here with Ezra Worthen, and in 1813 the partners incorporated the Amesbury Wool and Cotton Manufacturing Company. The old nail works, with 28 of Jacob Perkins's nail machines and an island in the river, sold at auction for $21,000 about 1825. Then came carriages. J. R. Huntington started carriage making at the Mills village in 1855, and Amesbury work became known across the country for elegance and durability. By 1860 nearly one in seven of the carriage makers in Massachusetts worked in Amesbury.67891011

The Point that built the Alliance

Salisbury Point, the crescent-shaped village where the Powow meets the Merrimack, belonged to Salisbury for more than two hundred years. In January 1777 Thomas Cushing asked William Hackett to gather white oak for a 36-gun ship for the Continent, and Hackett and his cousin John built the frigate Alliance in the old shipyard at the west end of the Point. She was launched in 1778, and the 1888 county history calls the yard the first navy yard of the Continental Congress. Later the Point built dories, and Swampscott fishermen hauled them home by wagon from the Lowell shops. Simeon Lowell's shop of 1793 still builds them. In 1886 the Point and the Salisbury Mills village joined Amesbury.1213141516

Through the years

25 moments from 1638 to today.

  1. 1638The General Court creates a plantation called Merrimac on the north bank of the Merrimack.1
  2. 1641William Osgood is granted land on the Powow River on condition he build a sawmill for the town.1
  3. 1654Salisbury agrees to split into Old Town and New Town, with the Powow as the line.1
  4. 1663The town buys an acre from Edmund Elliot for a burying ground; before this, settlers were buried at Golgotha by the Powow.17
  5. 1668New Town is incorporated as Amesbury, named for the English town next to Salisbury.1
  6. 1682Richard Currier swears his Amesbury sawmill cut five or six thousand feet of boards a week that spring.18
  7. 1705The Friends build their first meeting house.19
  8. 1729Josiah Bartlett, later a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is born in Amesbury.2
  9. 1773On August 1 a tornado tears up the Merrimack from Salisbury Point, and about 150 buildings fall.5
  10. 1778The frigate Alliance, built by William and John Hackett, is launched at Salisbury Point.13
  11. 1785About this year the Rocky Hill Meeting House is built for the West Parish of Salisbury.20
  12. 1789George Washington greets townspeople at the Rocky Hill Meeting House on his way north.20
  13. 1793Simeon Lowell builds his boat shop on the Merrimack.15
  14. 1800About this year an iron works at the Mills begins forging large anchors under a heavy trip-hammer.6
  15. 1813The Amesbury Wool and Cotton Manufacturing Company is incorporated on February 16.8
  16. 1836John Greenleaf Whittier moves into the house on Friend Street, his home until 1892.21
  17. 1851The Friends finish their fourth meeting house on Friend Street, with Whittier on the building committee.19
  18. 1855J. R. Huntington starts carriage making at the Mills village.10
  19. 1856The Merrimac Hat Company is founded.1
  20. 1860Nearly one in seven of the carriage makers in Massachusetts works in Amesbury.11
  21. 1876West Amesbury is set off as the town of Merrimac.1
  22. 1886Salisbury Point and the Salisbury Mills village, about three thousand people, are annexed to Amesbury.16
  23. 1888A bronze statue of Josiah Bartlett, given by Jacob R. Huntington, is unveiled on the Fourth of July.22
  24. 1904A boulder naming the first 18 settlers is set at Golgotha during Old Home Week.23
  25. 1996Amesbury changes to a city form of government.1

Places to see

Places worth a visit in Amesbury today.

  • Lowell's Boat Shop459 Main Street, on the Merrimack. Building dories since 1793.Visit their website
  • John Greenleaf Whittier Home86 Friend Street. Where Whittier wrote Snow-Bound.Visit their website
  • Josiah Bartlett statueTown square. Bronze statue of the signer, 1888.
  • The DoughboyAmesbury Middle School. Leonard Craske's memorial of 1929.
  • Salisbury PointOn the Merrimack. Shipyard village, part of Amesbury since 1886.
  • Powwow HillNorth of the center. Highest ground in town, 331 feet.
  • Lake AttitashWest, shared with Merrimac. A 360-acre great pond.
  • Tuxbury PondNew Hampshire line. Where the Powow enters, two islands.
  • Lake GardnerOn the Powow. Where the river enters for good.
  • Woodsom FarmNext to the town forest. Open farmland joined to the town forest.

On the National Register

All 10 places in Amesbury on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.4

  • Macy-Colby House

    Built about 1649 · Listed 2008 · 257 Main Street

    A saltbox built by Thomas Macy, Amesbury's first town clerk, who left in 1659 after sheltering Quakers and became the first European settler on Nantucket. Nine generations of Colbys lived here, and it's now a house museum.24

    Visit their website

  • Rocky Hill Meetinghouse and Parsonage

    Built about 1785 · Listed 1972 · 4 Old Portsmouth Road

    Built for the West Parish of Salisbury, it has one of the best-preserved original 18th-century meeting house interiors in New England, with its high pulpit, box pews and original paint. George Washington greeted townspeople here in 1789.20

    Visit their website

  • Lowell's Boat Shop

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1793 · Listed 1988 · 459 Main Street

    Simeon Lowell's shop is considered the birthplace of the New England fishing dory, and his grandson Hiram developed the Banks dory. A beam records 2,029 boats built here by hand in 1911, and it's still a working boat shop and museum.15

    Visit their website

  • Amesbury and Salisbury Mills Village Historic District

    Listed 1985 · Market Square, roughly bounded by Boardman, Water, Main and Pond Streets

    The mill village at the falls of the Powow, where a textile industry grew between 1800 and 1875. It includes Salisbury Mill No. 4, a four-story brick Greek Revival mill.25

  • John Greenleaf Whittier House

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1811 · Listed 1966 · 86 Friend Street

    The poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier lived here from 1836 until his death in 1892 and wrote most of his work here, including Snow-Bound. It's a museum with his study kept as he left it.21

    Visit their website

  • Union Congregational Church

    Built 1835 · Listed 2014 · 350-354 Main Street, Salisbury Point

    A Greek Revival church with a stepped tower and cupola, said to have been built by local shipwrights. Its vestry of 1854 was joined to the church in 1892 by an old horse shed.26

  • Amesbury Friends Meeting House

    Built 1851 · Listed 2002 · 120 Friend Street

    The fourth meeting house of a Quaker congregation dating to 1657, built with John Greenleaf Whittier on the building committee. It hosted the Salem Quarterly Meeting from 1851 to 1962, and a bench there is marked Whittier's Bench.19

    Visit their website

  • Briggs Carriage Company

    Listed 2017 · 14 and 20 Cedar Street

    Two brick buildings of one of Amesbury's largest carriage makers, out of more than thirty in town at one time. Briggs also built streetcars here from 1889 to 1903, then automobile bodies, until it closed in 1929.27

  • Walker Body Company Factory

    Built about 1885 · Listed 2007 · Oak Street at River Court

    Two surviving mills on Carriage Hill, a brick one of about 1885 and an unusual wood-frame one of 1918, from a carriage maker that turned to automobile bodies. They're now homes.28

  • Amesbury Public Library

    Listed 2025 · 149 Main Street

    The town's public library on Main Street, which keeps a large local history and genealogy collection.4

    Visit their website

In their words

“The greatest celebration of Independence Day in the annals of the ancient, patriotic and goodly town of Amesbury.”

History of Essex County, 1888, on the unveiling of the Bartlett statue29

“Amesbury, though a manufacturing town, was in its neatness and orderliness an exquisite little village with the Powow Hill at its back and the hem of its robe laved by two beautiful rivers.”

The Bay State Monthly, 188530

“The Amesbury work is very celebrated, being known in every part of the country, almost, and always noted for elegance and durability.”

Standard history of Essex County, 1878, on Amesbury carriages10

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Amesbury, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
  2. Map of Amesbury, Massachusetts in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  3. The history of Haverhill, Massachusetts (1861), on the tornado of 1773, Internet Archive
  4. National Register of Historic Places listings in Essex County, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
  5. Historical collections, by John Warner Barber (1841), on the tornado of 1773, Internet Archive
  6. History of Essex County, Massachusetts (1888), on the iron works at the Mills, Internet Archive
  7. History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880), on Paul Moody, Internet Archive
  8. Illustrated History of Lowell and Vicinity, Massachusetts (1897), on the Amesbury Wool and Cotton Manufacturing Company, Internet Archive
  9. The Essex antiquarian (1897), on the Amesbury nail works, Internet Archive
  10. Standard history of Essex County, Massachusetts (1878), on carriage making, Internet Archive
  11. Essex Institute Historical Collections, on the 1860 census of Essex County trades, Internet Archive
  12. History of Essex County, Massachusetts (1888), on the frigate Alliance, Internet Archive
  13. Essex Institute Historical Collections, on the Hacketts and the Alliance, Internet Archive
  14. The register of the Lynn Historical Society, on the Lowell dories, Internet Archive
  15. Lowell's Boat Shop, Wikipedia
  16. History of Essex County, Massachusetts (1888), on Salisbury Point and the 1886 annexation, Internet Archive
  17. The Essex antiquarian (1897), on Golgotha and Union Cemetery, Internet Archive
  18. History of Essex County, Massachusetts (1888), on Richard Currier's sawmill, Internet Archive
  19. Amesbury Friends Meeting House, Wikipedia
  20. Rocky Hill Meeting House, Wikipedia
  21. John Greenleaf Whittier House, Wikipedia
  22. Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Boston and eastern Massachusetts (1908), on the Bartlett statue, Internet Archive
  23. Genealogy of Richard Currier of Salisbury and Amesbury, Massachusetts (1910), on the settlers' boulder, Internet Archive
  24. Macy-Colby House, Wikipedia
  25. Amesbury and Salisbury Mills Village Historic District, Wikipedia
  26. Union Congregational Church (Amesbury, Massachusetts), Wikipedia
  27. Briggs Carriage Company, Wikipedia
  28. Walker Body Company Factory, Wikipedia
  29. History of Essex County, Massachusetts (1888), on the Bartlett statue, Internet Archive
  30. The Bay State Monthly (1885), on Amesbury, Internet Archive