Essex County
Essex County is a county in the northeastern part of the state of Massachusetts. A part of the Greater Boston area, it is one of the most populous counties in the state. The largest city in Essex County is Lynn. The county was named after the English county of Essex. It has two traditional county seats: Salem and Lawrence. Salem has jurisdiction over the Southern Essex District, and Lawrence has jurisdiction over the Northern Essex District.
The county was created by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony on May 10, 1643, when it was ordered "that the whole plantation within this jurisdiction be divided into four sheires". Essex then comprised the towns of Salem, Lynn, Wenham, Ipswich, Rowley, Newbury, Gloucester, Andover, and New Jerusalem. In 1680, Haverhill, Amesbury and Salisbury, located north of the Merrimack River, were annexed to Essex County. These communities had been part of Massachusetts' colonial-era Norfolk County. The remaining four towns within colonial Norfolk County, which included Exeter and what is now Portsmouth, were transferred to what became Rockingham County in the Province of New Hampshire. The Massachusetts-based settlements were then subdivided over the centuries to produce Essex County's modern composition of cities and towns.
Essex County is where Elbridge Gerry (who was born and raised in Marblehead) created a legislative district in 1812 that gave rise to the word gerrymandering.
Demography and Population
Essex County has a population as of April 1, 1950 of 522,384
Founding Date
1643
Type
Geopolitical, County / March
Ruling Organization
Parent Organization
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