Swampscott (/ˈswɒmpskət/)[1] is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located 15 miles (24 km) up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore.

[2] A former summer resort on Massachusetts Bay, Swampscott is today a fairly affluent residential community and includes the village of Beach Bluff, as well as part of the neighborhood of Clifton.

[3] Prior to European colonization, the town was inhabited by members of the Naumkeag, Pennacook, and Pawtucket groups and Massachusett tribe.

A series of epidemics following European settlement, including smallpox, killed many of the indigenous people living in the area, and it's estimated that fewer than 50 individuals remained by the late 17th century.

[4] Wood's New England Prospect lists "Swampscott" as a noted habitation in 1633 before extensive European settlement.

[7] Indigenous people in the Swampscott area subsisted on seasonally determined activities, including hunting, fishing, collecting wild plants and shellfish, and horticulture.

They hunted deer, marine mammals, upland game birds, and ducks, and cultivated crops like corn, beans, pumpkin, squash, and tobacco.

[4] Swampscott was first colonized by Europeans in 1629 when Francis Ingalls settled there and built the first Massachusetts Bay Colony tannery.

Ingalls observed that the town's indigenous population lived in wigwams extending from Black Will's Cliff along the entire north shore.

[4] Swampscott has an important Revolutionary War site: the final home of General John Glover in Vinnin Square.

[8] A beach town north of Boston, measuring 3 square miles (7.8 km2) and abutting Salem, Marblehead and Lynn, Swampscott was an important destination for the wealthy at the beginning of the 20th century.

[citation needed] Lynn was the divider between the poor beach and the rich resort town.

These prices are comparable to other wealthy North Shore towns such as Marblehead and Manchester-by-the-Sea which are located nearby.

An abandoned 4-mile branch of the Boston & Maine Railroad originating in Swampscott serves as the Marblehead Rail Trail.