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AIA Owned Properties
Alliance
Park
Photo courtesy of Royal
Feltner
Alliance
Park is located on Point Shore near 355 Main Street. In 1918,
a fire destroyed the Kranz Coal wharf which was located at
the junction of the Merrimac and Powow Rivers. In 1920, AIA
members William E. Biddle and Augustus N. Parry bought the
land and donated it to the AIA to restore as a park and a
memorial to the ships built here earlier. The Alliance, one
of the first frigates built for the Revolutionary Navy, was
built near here in the Daniel Webster shipyard in 1777–1778
and named in honor of the alliance between France and the
American colonies. It is said to have carried General
Lafayette across the Atlantic three times. For a time it
served as John Paul Jones’ flagship. This property is owned
and maintained by the Association as Alliance Park, a popular
picnic and sight-seeing area.
There
are two plaques commemorating ship building. The oldest one
reads, “Alliance Park, near this site in 1777–1778 one of
the first frigates of the Continental Congress, the Alliance
was built by William and john Brackett. Land presented to the
Amesbury Improvement Association on the occasion of
Amesbury’s 325th anniversary of incorporation as a town,
1993.” A total of 28 shipbuilders are listed.
A
memorial flagpole was erected in 1996 in memory of past
Amesbury Improvement Association Presidents: Dr. Horace
Leslie; Cyrus Rowell; Harris Chadwell, 1886–1927; Frank
Hoyt, 1928–1965; Hawley Patten, 1965–1996.
Golgotha Memorial
Photo courtesy of Royal
Feltner
In 1903, through the generosity of
Amesbury native Gayden Morrill, “Golgotha” the burial
ground of the first settlers of Amesbury, was donated to the
Association and is still maintained by the group.
Golgotha Burial Ground is located next to
52 Macy Street and was the burial ground of Amesbury’s
first settlers. The AIA installed a plaque and stone in 1903.
The plaque reads, ‘Memorial to the first settlers of
Amesbury 1654 and their first burial ground, AIA 1903.”
There are no gravestones left, but it is thought that there
are about 40 people buried here, many of them
children.
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Patten’s Pond Bird
Reservation
Photo courtesy of Royal
Feltner
Patten’s Pond is located on Main Street
opposite the Post Office. In 1930, Miss Annie Montgomery
Horton, an active AIA member and aunt of Hawley Patten, gave
the entire south-west shoreline of Patten’s Pond to the AIA
as a bird reservation. Other abutters, Annie F. Whelpley,
Harriet M. Merrill, Margeurite Merrill, and B.J. Checkoway
followed her example and waived their shore rights, resulting
in a 25-foot strip around the pond for the
Association.
The plaque on the stone reads,
“Patten’s Pond Bird Reservation, land presented by AIA
1948, Annie M. Horton, Annie F. Whelpley, Harriet M. Merrill,
Margeurite Merrill, B.J. Checkoway.”
The Captain’s Well
Memorial
Photo courtesy of Royal
Feltner
The Captain’s Well is located next to
the Middle School on Main Street. This land was given to the
AIA by Mrs. Jacob Huntington in 1890.
In 1792, Valentine Bagley, and Amesbury
seaman, was shipwrecked off Arabia and nearly dies of thirst.
He vowed that if he made it back home, he would dig a well
for the passerby so that no one would suffer from thirst as
he had. He dug the well in 1796. Mr. and Mrs. James N. Walker
donated and dedicated the memorial in 1929. It was created by
sculptor Leonard Craske, creator of the doughboy statue in
Amesbury and the fisherman statue in Gloucester. The well was
immortalized in the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier in
1890.
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