Interior House Painter Hamilton MA

Hamilton, Massachusetts
Town
Hamilton Town Hall
Seal
Location in Essex County and the state of Massachusetts.
Coordinates: 42°37′10.95″N 70°51′17.24″W / 42.6197083°N 70.8547889°W / 42.6197083; -70.8547889Coordinates: 42°37′10.95″N 70°51′17.24″W / 42.6197083°N 70.8547889°W / 42.6197083; -70.8547889
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Essex
Settled	1638; 384 years ago (1638)
Incorporated	1793; 229 years ago (1793)
Government
• Type	Open town meeting
Area
• Total	14.9 sq mi (38.6 km)
• Land	14.2 sq mi (36.7 km2)
• Water	0.7 sq mi (1.9 km)
Elevation	49 ft (15 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	7,561
• Density	510/sq mi (200/km2)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern)
ZIP code	01936/01982 (South Hamilton)
Area code	351 / 978
FIPS code	25-27900
GNIS feature ID	0619446
Website	www.hamiltonma.gov

Hamilton is a town in the eastern central portion of Essex County in eastern Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 7,561. Currently the town has no manufacturing industry and no industrially-zoned land.

Though Hamilton is a landlocked town in the North Shore region of Massachusetts, its proximity to it provides easy access to the Atlantic seashore with its reservations, beaches and boating. The town includes many historic houses, pastoral landscapes, and old stone walls that accompany winding tree-lined roads. It also has a rich equestrian heritage, which remains strong due to the influence of the many horse farms and of Myopia Hunt Club, which holds frequent equestrian events, including polo most Sunday afternoons. (Myopia also hosts a Thanksgiving Day fox hunt each year that the public may attend.) Thus, people visiting Hamilton may well share the secondary roads with horse and pony riders. Patton Park, one of the parks in downtown Hamilton, was named after General George S. Patton. The park is a center of activity for the town.

Hamilton is closely tied to neighboring Wenham, sharing a school system, library, recreation department, commuter rail station and newspaper. In 2010, the community of Hamilton-Wenham was listed among the “Best Places to Live” by Boston Magazine.

Hamilton includes South Hamilton, which is that part of Hamilton that the Postal Service has assigned the zip code 01982. “Hamilton” and “South Hamilton” are indistinguishable from each other except for the difference in zip codes.

History

In June 1638, John Winthrop the Younger, son of the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, bought most of present-day Essex County from Masconomet, chief of the Agawam Indians, for the sum of twenty English pounds. A memorial stone on Sagamore Hill in southeastern Hamilton marks where Masconomet was buried with his gun and tomahawk around 1658.

Hamilton was first settled in 1638 and was originally a section of Ipswich known as “The Hamlet”. The first recorded land grant in the Hamlet was Matthew Whipple’s farm, dated 1638. Three years later the new stagecoach road from Boston to Newburyport (Bay Road) was laid out through the Whipple land. Other early settlers of the Hamlet, including the Appletons, Winthrops, Lamsons, and Dodges, were attracted by countryside similar to the English farms and estates they had left behind.

The town was incorporated on June 21, 1793, and named for Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait became the town seal in 1903. With the arrival of the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1839, the population center moved gradually southward toward the depot.

The farm village proved to be an attractive location for Boston groups seeking land for recreation and renewal. A Methodist ministers’ association first held a camp meeting at Asbury Grove in 1859. In the 1880s, the Myopia Hunt Club, which had been named in jest for its nearsighted founders, moved from Winchester, Massachusetts, to the Gibney Farm in Hamilton. Beginning as a lawn tennis and baseball club, it turned to polo, the hunt, and golf as members built large summer estates in the area. Myopia donated the site for the General George S. Patton Memorial Park to the town of Hamilton. The park continues to be a recreation center for the town.

In 1921, the Mandell family built the Community House in memory of the eight men in Hamilton and Wenham who died in military service during World War I, including their son, Sam. They commissioned Guy Lowell, a respected architect of Boston and New York, to design the building, and gave the Community House in trust for the use of the residents of both towns. Although in its early days the Community House offered activities such as bowling and a men’s smoking room, it now features a wide range of classes and activities for all ages.

Transportation

• MBTA Commuter Rail provides service from Boston’s North Station with the Hamilton/Wenham station on its Newburyport branch of the Newburyport/Rockport Line. The MBTA Commuter Rail is walking distance from the town hall, homes and the many small shops in town.
• There are no freeways within town; Route 128 provides the nearest access in Beverly, MA. Route 1A passes through the center of town, and Route 22 passes through the eastern corner of town between Wenham and its eastern terminus in Essex.
• The nearest airport is Beverly Municipal Airport, and the nearest national and international air service can be found at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 14.9 square miles (38.6 km), of which 14.2 square miles (36.7 km²) is land and 0.73 square miles (1.9 km), or 4.89%, is water. Hamilton lies 5 miles (8 km) inland from Massachusetts Bay, and both the eastern and western portion of town are bordered by water, with the Ipswich River to the west and Chebacco Lake and several other small ponds to the east. The highest point in town is found on Blueberry Hill in Bradley Palmer State Park, with an elevation of at least 215 feet (66 m), according to the most recent (2011-2012) USGS 7.5-minute topographical map. Several areas of town are protected, including Myopia Hunt Club and parts of Bradley Palmer State Park, Appleton Farm Grass Rides, and the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary.