Below is Frank Dutcher’s description of the picture above. It was sent to Harriet Sornborger, who was the librarian at the Bancroft Library for many years during the first half of the twentieth century. It was copied from the original in the Hopedale Community Historical Society file at the library. According to the map at the bottom of this page, the Lillie house was near the southwest corner of Hopedale Pond. As Dutcher points out, in the picture above that’s a glimpse of the pond between the shop and the sawmill.
I think to get the three buildings into the picture, the artist made them look closer than they actually were. According to the map, the house was north of Freedom Street, and the sawmill was south of it. That’s where I’d expect it to be to have water power available. That also brings to mind, what about the shop? Did that have any water-powered tools? If so, it would have also had to be south of Freedom Street, downstream from the dam.
The Lillie family was the first to move into the Old House. That was near the end of 1841. It was probably a year or two later that they built and moved into the house in the picture.
Sarah (Lillie) Daniels Elizabeth Humphrey
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In this 1851 map, the name H. Lillie appears near the southwest corner of Hopedale Pond. The locations of the saw mill and machine shop are also shown.