Rockport (Massachusetts)

Rockport is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,952 at the 2010 census. Rockport is located approximately northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula. It is directly east of Gloucester and is surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean.Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Rockport.HistoryBefore the coming of the English explorers and colonists, Cape Ann was home to a number of Native American villages, inhabited by members of the Agawam tribe. Samuel de Champlain named the peninsula "Cap Aux Isles" in 1605, and his expedition may have landed there briefly. By the time the first Europeans founded a permanent settlement at Gloucester in 1623, most of the Agawams had been killed by diseases caught from early contacts with Europeans.The area that is now Rockport was inhabited in 1680. Richard Tarr, the first settler of Sandy Bay Colony. R.Tarr was a granite cutter. All of his children born after 1690 were recorded in Sandy Bay Colony record books. He and his wife Elizabeth had ten children. Richard Tarr died about 1732. Source provided by "History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann" by John J. Babson, Published by the Proctor Brothers 1860. Printed by John Wilson and Son, 22 School Street, Boston, MA. This history book account is still available on line. The area was used as a source of timber—especially pine—for shipbuilding and granite mined from the Sandy Bay quarries. The area around Cape Ann was also one of the best fishing grounds in New England. In 1743, a dock was built at Rockport harbor on Sandy Bay and was used for both timber and fishing. By the beginning of the 19th century, the first granite quarries were developed, and by the 1830s, Rockport granite was being shipped to cities and towns throughout the East Coast of the United States.