George Washington Heard (1793-1863)

Like many Federalists, John Heard and Sarah Staniford Heard of Ipswich named their son after the President. He did not pursue a military career, however, nor did he take to the sea like his younger brother Augustine. Instead, he entered into business, politics, and local philanthropy, dividing his time between Boston and Ipswich.

As a boy, George received instruction from Rev. Asahel Huntington of Topsfield, Mass., and completed his preparatory studies at Phillips Academy in Andover. He graduated from Harvard College in 1812, and went on to study medicine with Dr. John Gorham of Boston. He received his M.D. in 1815, although he never entered into practice. Instead, like his father, he engaged in business as a distiller, only to abandon it several years later for “conscientious motives” possibly having to do with the rise of the local temperance movement.

Heard married Elizabeth Ann Farley (1802-65) of Ipswich in 1823, and the couple moved into the Heard family mansion on South Main Street. The following year, he was school master of Ipswich and the Heards began to produce children: John (1824-); Augustine (1827-1905), named after George’s brother; Margaret (1830-1); Albert Farley (1833-90); and George Washington (1837-75), who later legally changed his name to George Farley Heard.

In 1826, and again in 1830, 1831, and 1833, Heard was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Also in 1833, he became the first President of the new Ipswich Bank. In 1837, Heard removed to Boston and entered into partnership with James Haughton of James Haughton & Company, dealers in dry goods. In 1844, he left the company and returned to Ipswich.
In 1848, George W. Heard, along with his brother, Augustine, and brother-in-law, Joseph Farley, established the Ipswich Manufacturing Company. During the Civil War, Heard’s kind and benevolent manner could be seen in his financial generosity toward widows and orphans.

At his funeral service in 1863, the Rev. Robert Southgate described George W. Heard as “possessed [of] a well-balanced mind. The basis of his mental character I consider to have been sturdy, Saxon common sense; with a calm, clear, careful judgment; not easily biased by passion or prejudice, and resting firmly on its well-considered conclusions….his moral character was marked, most of all, by a clear, quick sense of what was right and just to others…not demonstrative in his feelings,--he could not bear to make a show of them openly,--yet they who knew him, know how deep and tender were his domestic attachments, how tenacious and reliable his friendships.”

Sources:
Rev. Robert Southgate, A Sermon, on the Occasion of the Death of George W. Heard (T.R. Marvin & Son, 1863).
Edward W. Hanson, The Heards of Ipswich, Massachusetts (privately published, 1986)