Here images of the Market House circa 1851, scanned from half-tone prints in John J. Currier's History of Newburyport, Volume I ~ in a section which records that "the selectmen of Newburyport were authorized, August 5, 1822, to build a Market house of brick, one story high, on the spot where shambles once stood; and March 10, 1823, they were granted permission to add another story to the building provided it could be rented to advantage." Evidently, the Newburyport Chair (caning) Company occupied the unfinished room until the lease was vacated on January 28, 1830, at which point the town voted to finish the hall at an expense not to exceed 800 dollars and rent it to the Lyceum association, an arrangement which continued until 1851.

In 1834 the town voted to finish the second floor hall, then reconsidered, and not until April 8, 1834 was money appropriated to complete the project. The following year, the March annual town meeting was held "in the new hall over the market house." The hall actually holds the distinction of accommodating the last annual town meeting ever held in Newburyport on March 18, 1851 ~ which was then adjourned to the new City Hall ~ before Newburyport was organized as a city form of government on June 24, 1851.

The accompanying image depicts "the landing place in the rear and at the (south)easterly end of the market house (which) was used as a dock for boats and barges."

¹ These lands included the area now Market Landing Park and the "historic waye to the Waterside" to its east, as well as the common grounds surrounding Frog Pond, as follows. And during litigation two hundred years later, way 5 and way 6 were (only) referenced by the antecedents Middle Shipyard or Market Landing --- citing the October 28, 1826 as its justification as public trust land by way of the Newbury proprietors’ quitclaim:

“Reserving the road of one and one-half rods wide on the easterly side of the Middle Shipyard or Market Landing, so called, from Merrimac Street to the River … also a four rod way at the southerly end and a four rod way at the northerly end of Frog Pond … also a strip of land one rode (sic) wide all around said Pond adjoining thereto and on the margin thereof, being for public use and at no time hereafter to be appropriated to the private and exclusive rights of said inhabitants.” (Currier’s “Ould Newbury,” page 621, with a copy of said quitclaim soon availed.)

² The above link within on the Comity.org Web site offers some insight about all five historic wayes to the Waterside ~ many of which were once wharves and tidal flats. The stipulated fact summarized at the above link within explains that Market Landing was explains the infilling of the landing which began in 1861 ~ primarily to allow for the construction of the railroad later that decade. In the image of the firehouse above, an outbuilding to the east and north of the then Firehouse, indicating that Market Landing had been substantially infilled at the time the photographs was taken, which was likely in the mid-1860s.

³ Come to know more about these very ways Lord Tim himself roved in his various walks of life ~ as the tanner who lived across from Somerby's Landing, going to meeting at the Waterside Third Parish Meetinghouse in Market Square, bowing beneath the bowsprits as he made his way to the bark house east of Market Landing, to pick up his tanning supplies. And then, when his ship came in and moved up in society (and up State Street to the Tracy House) ~ his "haunts" during his daily constitutionals down to the waterfront to check on his ships, visit the counting houses and experience the commerce (and familiar commerce) of Market Square. And along the way, come to know more about yourself ~ as one othe Waterside people born here or drawn here to this special place where we can see our tomorrows dawn.