In 1689 the Town of Ipswich acquired the six acres of the South Green with the proviso that the land should remain common after years of ownership disputes. The South Green served the town for 200 years, later fell into neglect by the end of the 19th century, and was then improved by a civic group with lawns, flower beds, and elm trees; today it forms the core of the South Green Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. It was long associated with militia training: after Massachusetts ordered towns in 1636 to form militias of adult men, Captain Denison's Ipswich Company almost certainly trained there, boys ages 10 to 16 were required in 1645 to train in arms, a horse troop was established in 1655 for men taxed at L100 or more, and by 1686 the town had made the South Green the official training ground, though it had likely been used earlier. In 1775 Colonel Nathaniel Wade organized Ipswich Minutemen from the militia, and they fought at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and in the siege of Boston; in 1789 the militia mustered there to welcome George Washington. The South Green was also a center of education: Ipswich established a free school in 1642, appointed Ezekiel Cheever as schoolmaster in 1650, erected a grammar school building at the South Green in 1653, and kept school associations there through later moves, mergers, and returns, leading to the name School House Green for much of its history. It also served everyday agricultural life as a gathering place for cattle before town cowherds drove them to common grazing lands, and in 1747, during the Great Awakening, members who left the First Church built the South Parish Meeting House at the north edge of the Green and established the South Cemetery at the south end; a second meeting house built in 1837 anchored the Green until it burned in December 1977.