Ipswich Female Seminary

Ipswich Female Seminary was an American female seminary in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The institution was an early school for the secondary and tertiary-level education of young women. Enrollment averaged 116 students. According to Academy records, 88 of the school's graduates went on to teach as educational missionaries in the western and southern United States. History The building occupied by the Ipswich Female Seminary, and which was employed simply for purposes of instruction and for study, was erected in 1825 by a joint-stock company incorporated under an Act of the General Court of Massachusetts. The property and affairs of the company were committed to a board of trustees, and so remained for about 24 years, when it was purchased by the new proprietor and principal of the Seminary, Rev. John P. Cowles. Upon the erection of the building, a school for young women was immediately opened by the Rev. Hervey Wilbur, a teacher and a lecturer on astronomy, who was aided by several competent and accomplished women. Wilbur was succeeded by the Rev. James M. Ward, of Abington, Massachusetts, under whose guidance and instruction the school was opened to both sexes. In 1828, Miss Zilpah P. Grant, later known as Mrs. William B. Banister of Newburyport, Massachusetts, accompanied by her capable and efficient assistant, Miss Mary Lyon, on the invitation of the trustees, transferred their school of young women from Derry, New Hampshire, to Ipswich. Grant had previously been a teacher and Lyon a student at an academy for female students in Byfield, Massachusetts. Under their joint administration, though each was occasionally absent, Lyon for her winter school in the western part of the State, and Grant in pursuit of health improvement, the school became prominent. Students came from all parts of the U.S., and even from other countries.