Early Settlement

Originally part of Salem, the area was first settled in 1626 by Roger Conant and other members of the Dorchester Company who came down from Gloucester, Massachusetts after a failed attempt at establishing a fishing station. They decided to settle in what was then called Naumkeag, part of the Agawam Indian Territory. Conant and other colonists built homesteads along the banks of the North River. Here they fished and farmed until 1628 when, a new wave of English colonists, led by John Endicott, arrived in Naumkeag. Endicott was sent by the Massachusetts Bay Company to govern the tiny settlement, replacing Conant. Disagreements between the “Old Planters” and the new arose, but were eventually resolved peacefully. In honor of this resolution, they changed the name of the settlement from Naumkeag to “Salem”— meaning the “village of peace”.

In 1635, Roger Conant and four other villagers, John Balch, Peter Palfrey, John Woodbury, and William Trask, petitioned the town of Salem for a land grant on the other side of the river, known as the “Bass River Side.” This grant was approved and each man was allotted 200 acres of farmland, totaling 1000 acres in all. These men and their wives and children soon settled the new region, building homesteads in what eventually became Beverly.

https://www.historicbeverly.net/about/beverly-history/