Heritage Tours and Events 2025

Saturday, July 26 – Sunday, August 9. *If This House Could Talk neighborhood stroll. City residents will be displaying posters with stories about their homes. Stroll Newburyport neighborhoods and look for house stories prominently displayed. Online map and details HERE

Sunday, July 27, and Saturday, August 2, 10 am to 6 pm. *Local Citizens and Their Contributions. Oak Hill Cemetery. Brown and State Streets. Over 20 gravesites will be labeled – ministers, benefactors, sea captains including Francis B. Todd who was buried in a rum barrel. View the grave of Anna Jaques, the hospital benefactor. Enjoy a stroll through beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery while learning about our local citizens of the past.

Sunday, July 27, and Saturday, August 2; 10:00 am to Noon. *Superior Courthouse Open House, Bartlet Mall. Visit the 1805 courthouse, designed by Charles Bullfinch, and learn about its history and beautiful interior and exterior architecture including the courtroom where President John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster tried cases. Presented by Essex County Clerk of Courts Tom Driscoll and the Greater Newburyport Bar Association.

Sunday, July 27th, 12:00-4:00 pm – Self-Guided Historic Graveyard Tour, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 166 High Street, Newburyport, MA. The tour is free. For more information, call 978-697-4084. Stop inside the graveyard to get your narrative history map and follow the numbers to the gravesites of prominent people at your own pace. A self-guided history tour of the colonial graveyard surrounding St. Paul’s Church begins with a brief history of St. Paul’s parish from its founding in 1711 in British America during the reign of Queen Anne through the Revolutionary period before visiting the grave sites of early Newburyporters. Follow a narrative history map to the gravesites of the founding merchants who amassed tremendous wealth, revolutionary leaders like Tristram Dalton, who became the first senator from Massachusetts, loyalists whose lives were impoverished and shattered after the Revolution, the sea captain who transported Thomas Jefferson to Paris in 1783, and the gravesite of the only known African American buried in the graveyard. You will also visit the mausoleum of Rev. Edward Bass, the first Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts, who had to choose between his loyalty to the crown and his devotion to his church and congregation.

Sunday, July 27, 1:00 to 3:00 pm. *Old South Church Tours, 29 Federal Street. Meet at the Federal Street front doors. Step right in and experience the way the church used to be in the 1700s! Your tour will be steeped in history as you learn of Paul Revere’s bell, see spittoons in the sanctuary, descend into the crypt and discover a forgotten Founding Father buried directly under the pulpit! Call 978 465-9666 for more information.

Sunday, July 27, 1:45 – 3:15 pm, and Monday, July 28, 6:00 – 7:30 pm. Tuesday, July 29, 11:00 – 12:30 pm, *Clipper Heritage Trail’s Along the Water’s Edge Waterfront Harbor Tour. Boardwalk near Black Cow restaurant. Tickets go fast! Make
reservations online at www.harbortours.com. Join historian Ghlee Woodworth aboard the Yankee Clipper and enjoy a 90-minute cruise along the beautiful Merrimack River. Step back in time and hear about shipyards, Caldwell’s Rum, and a castle as we cruise
upriver to Amesbury. On the return leg, the Yankee Clipper takes us along the shores of Joppa and learn how citizens fortified the harbor against the British in the 1770s.

Monday, July 28, 9:00 to 10:30 am. *Feathered Friends and Long Forgotten Friends, Oak Hill Cemetery, main gates, Brown and State Streets. Join Sue McGrath of Newburyport Birders and local historian Ghlee Woodworth for an exciting outing at
Oak Hill Cemetery. Many different species are attracted to the diverse habitat of Oak Hill and while learning to identify birds, see the graves of Newburyport benefactors, sea captains, early American photographers, and abolitionists.

Monday, July 28, 6:00 – 7:30 pm. Tuesday, July 29, 11:00 – 12:30 pm, *Clipper Heritage Trail’s Along the Water’s Edge Waterfront Harbor Tour. Boardwalk near Black Cow restaurant. Tickets go fast! Make reservations online at www.harbortours.com. Join historian Ghlee Woodworth aboard the Yankee Clipper and enjoy a 90-minute cruise along the beautiful Merrimack River. Step back in time and hear about shipyards, Caldwell’s Rum, and a castle as we cruise upriver to Amesbury. On the return leg, the Yankee Clipper takes us along the shores of Joppa and learn how citizens fortified the harbor against the British in the 1770s.

Tuesday, July 29, 11:00 – 12:30 pm, *Clipper Heritage Trail’s Along the Water’s Edge Waterfront Harbor Tour. Boardwalk near Black Cow restaurant. Tickets go fast! Make reservations online at www.harbortours.com. Join historian Ghlee Woodworth aboard the Yankee Clipper and enjoy a 90-minute cruise along the beautiful Merrimack River. Step back in time and hear about shipyards, Caldwell’s Rum, and a castle as we cruise upriver to Amesbury. On the return leg, the Yankee Clipper takes us along the shores of Joppa and learn how citizens fortified the harbor against the British in the 1770s.

Friday, August 1 and Saturday, August 2, 11 am – 2 pm. *History Tours. First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist, 26 Pleasant Street. Drop in for a tour 11 am – 2 pm and help celebrate the church’s 300 th anniversary and history. View the drone
video of the beauty of church grounds and steeple, experience the architectural beauty and social history of the church, a cornerstone of Newburyport since 1725. See the 1750s clock hand struck by lightning and studied by Benjamin Franklin. Be sure to head downstairs to see the Merrimack Valley Ship Model Club display and stop by next door at Parish Hall’s book sale.

Saturday, August 2, 10 am to 6 pm. *Local Citizens and Their Contributions. Oak Hill Cemetery. Brown and State Streets. Over 20 gravesites will be labeled – ministers, benefactors, sea captains including Francis B. Todd who buried in a rum barrel and view the grave of Anna Jaques, the hospital benefactor. Enjoy a stroll through beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery while learning about our local citizens of the past.

Saturday, August 2; 10:00 am to Noon. *Superior Courthouse Open House, Bartlet Mall. Visit the 1805 courthouse, designed by Charles Bullfinch, and learn about its history and beautiful interior and exterior architecture including the courtroom where President John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster tried cases. Presented by Essex County Clerk of Courts Tom Driscoll and the Greater Newburyport Bar Association.

Saturday, August 2, 11 am – 2 pm. *History Tours. First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist, 26 Pleasant Street. Drop in for a tour 11 am – 2 pm and help celebrate the church’s 300 th anniversary and history. View the drone video of the beauty
of church grounds and steeple, experience the architectural beauty and social history of the church, a cornerstone of Newburyport since 1725. See the 1750s clock hand struck by lightning and studied by Benjamin Franklin. Be sure to head downstairs to see the Merrimack Valley Ship Model Club display and stop by next door at Parish Hall’s book sale.

Saturday, August 2nd at 11:00 am to 1:15 pm. and 1:30 – 2:45 pm – Historic Church Tour: King and Revolution. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 166 High Street, Newburyport, MA. The tour is free. For more information, call 978-697-4084. Your tour
guide will escort you back through time to the parishs founding in 1711 during British New England during the reign of Queen Anne and will take you through the Revolutionary War period to the present day. Visitors will tour the current church building surrounded by its 18th-century graveyard and Civil War-era chapel, hear the history of its design and architecture, understand the period features and symbolism contained within, such as the painted reredos behind the altar, and see church artifacts such as the 1809 Paul Revere bell and the 1800 carved bishop’s mitre, hear about the role of African-Americans in the early church, and understand the contribution of Rev. Edward Bass who saved the church from destruction during the Revolutionary War period and went on to become the first Massachusetts Bishop of the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church of America. Be prepared for liberal amounts of local and American history.