Arthur Wesley Dow Gallery:
The Arthur Wesley Dow Gallery comprises what was the Heard family’s “best parlor,” complete with gilt mirror, handsome marble fireplace with carved wood mantle, and working pocket shutters. Today, the room contains many examples of Dow’s work, including oil paintings, woodblock prints, sketches, and photographs. The Gallery also features objects owned by Dow, including his desk and rocking chair, photographs of Dow, and a portrait of his wife, Minnie Pearson Dow. As a tribute to Dow’s love for Japanese art, the Gallery also contains a number of imported Asian porcelain objects. The Ipswich Historical Society is the holder of the most extensive collection of Dow’s work in the world.

Ipswich Painters Gallery:
This was the original dining room of the house, and it was probably also where John Heard conducted business as the room has its own separate entrance. Decorative features include French reproduction wall paper, carved moldings, and a palladian window. Today, as a gallery, the room features the work of eight Ipswich Painters: Edna Ellis Baylor, Arthur Wesley Dow, Henry Kenyon, Arthur Kimball, John Mansfield, Carl Nordstrom, Francis Richardson, and Theodore Wendel-all of whom chose to live and paint in Ipswich during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

China Trade Room:
The Heard family originally used this room as the “common parlor.” Perhaps its most noticeable architectural detail is the likeness of President George Washington carved into the fireplace mantel-not an unusual tribute to Washington since his death in 1799. (John Heard (1744-1834), a federalist, constructed the house between 1795 and 1800). Today, the room contains numerous objects illustrating the Heard family’s ties to the Far East where Augustine Heard (1785-1868), John Heard’s son, made his fortune in China first as a “supercargo” with important Boston and Salem merchants and then as the owner of his own company, Augustine Heard & Co. Heard sailed to China during the 1830s, and lived there in the 1840s, introducing steam ships to that region. His four nephews (John Heard Jr., Albert Farley Heard, George Washington Heard Jr., and Augustine Heard Jr.) continued the family business well into the late 19th century. Objects in the room include Chinese and American paintings of key people, ships, and the port of Hankow; bamboo and black lacquer furnishings, metal-lined tea boxes, shipping crates, porcelain dishes and tea pots, a shipboard desk and liquor carrying case, and statues of the Buddha.

Children’s Room:
Formerly a spacious second-floor bed chamber, today the room houses a delightful collection of samplers by Ipswich girls, portraits of Ipswich children, an 18th century rocking horse, a doll house replica of the Heard family town house in Boston, children’s chairs, shoes, and dozens of Victorian-era toys and dolls collected by Daniel Bremner Lunt, a past president of the Historical Society, including horse-drawn carriages.

Ipswich Female Seminary Room:
When the house was first built, this third-floor room would have been used as a bed chamber for servants. Today, we use it to display an eclectic collection of objects relating to the Ipswich Female Seminary. Founded in 1828, the Seminary was active into the mid 19th century and was considered quite progressive for its time thanks to the educational philosophy and teaching practices of its two key teachers, Zilpah P. Grant and Mary Lyon (who later founded Mount Holyoke College). Featured in the room are writing desks owned by students, books they used, scientific equipment, globes, diplomas, and a portrait drawing of Mary Lyon. The Historical Society archives contain journals, catalogues, letters, and wildflower collections having to do with the Seminary.

Military Room: Opening May 2006
Another third floor bed chamber, initially used by servants and in later years by Heard children, this room displays objects from the Society’s military collection including colonial-era weapons, Revolutionary muskets and powder horns, the Civil War collection of Col. Nathaniel Shatswell (camp desk and chair, uniform, personal items), and artifacts from the life of the World War I Navy pilot John Richardson Patch (photographs, uniform, personal effects). Also featured are portraits, lithograph prints, and a WWI collection of liberty bond posters.