On the 25th of January, 1635, the town of Salem voted to William Trask, John Woodbury, Roger Conant, Peter Palfrey, and John Balch, a tract of land, as follows:  “Two hundred acres apiece together lying, being at the head of Bass River, one hundred and twenty-four poles in breadth, and so running northerly to the river by the great pond side, and so in breadth, making up the full quantity of a thousand acres.”  These men were original settlers, having been in the country for some time before Endicott’s arrival.  This circumstance gave to them and others the distinguishing title of “old planters.”  The grant of a thousand acres, comprising the five farms above mentioned, was always known as “the Old Planters’ Farms.”  The first proprietors of them, and their immediate successors, appear to have arranged and managed them in concert,—­to have had homesteads near together between the head of Bass River and the neighborhood of the “horse bridge,” where the meeting-house of the Second Congregational Society of Beverly, or of the “Precinct of Salem and Beverly” now stands.  Their woodlands and pasture lands were further to the north and east.  An inspection of the map will give an idea of the general locality of the “Old Planters’ Farms” in the aggregate—­above the head of Bass River, extending northerly towards “the river,” as the Ipswich River was called, and easterly to the “great pond,” that is, Wenham Lake.  Conant, Woodbury, and Balch occupied their lands at once.  I have stated how Trask’s portion of the grant went into the hands of Scruggs, and then of John Raymond.  Palfrey is thought never to have occupied his portion.  He sold it to William Dodge, the founder of the family of that name, known by way of eminence as “Farmer Dodge,” whose wife was a daughter of Conant.  A portion of the grant assigned to Conant was sold by one of his descendants to John Chipman, who, on the 28th of December, 1715, was ordained as the first minister of the “Second Beverly Society.”  He was the grandfather of Ward Chipman, Judge of the Supreme Court, and for some time President, of the Province of New Brunswick, and whose son of the same name was chief-justice of that court.  He was also grandfather of the wife of the great merchant, William Gray, whose family has contributed such invaluable service to the literature, legislation, judicial learning, and general welfare of the country.  The Rev. Mr. Chipman was the ancestor of many other distinguished persons.  The house in which he lived is still standing, near the site of the church in which he preached.  It is occupied by his descendants, bearing his name, and, although much time-worn, has the marks of having been a structure of a very superior order for that day.  The venerable mansion stands back from the road, on a smooth and beautiful lawn, bordered by a solid stone wall of even lines and surfaces.  In these respects it well compares with any country residence upon which taste, skill, and wealth have, in more recent times, been bestowed.