The photos above are from the Draper foundry in Hopedale.

    Hopedale History
    November 1, 2012
    No. 215
    Foundry Operations


    Hopedale in October    

    Hopedale Pond in October – Slide show on YouTube – Very good color this year.

    Another week, another G&U Railroad video. In this one, near the end, two railroad cars are pulled by a
    front-end loader.

    Fall color by Hopedale Pond and the Mill River – October 13

    I’ve recently made additions to pages on Hopedale history chronology     Beebe River     The General
    Draper Library     George Otis Draper    G&U Hopedale yard     

    Here are a few railroad links sent by Peter Metzke – The Joseph A. Smith Collection   (Peter says, “If
    you put Beebe River in the search box, the No. 6 Climax shows itself being in North Woodstock, and a
    further photo of a Shay Locomotive No. 5 is shown at the bottom. The top map is of interest as its title
    reads Map of Pemigewasset Valley showing Beebe River and Lincoln Tract.”) Another link is for the
    White Mountain Central Railroad.  And here’s one for an article on a logging railroad in the area which
    includes Beebe River.

    Jeanne Kinney recently sent this from the Worcester Women’s History Project: "The movement in
    England, as in America, may be dated from the first National Convention, held at Worcester, Mass.,
    October, 1850." The speaker was Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the occasion, the opening session of the
    1870 Woman's Rights Convention in New York City called to commemorate the twentieth anniversary
    of the beginning of the woman's rights movement. Why did Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott
    and other pioneers who signed the "Call" to the 1870 meeting regard the 1850 Convention as the
    beginning of the crusade for woman's equality? Why not the 1848 meeting at Seneca Falls for which
    Stanton drafted the celebrated Declaration of Sentiments and in which Mott played a leading role?”
    Here are the answers.  And here’s a page with much more on the Worcester Convention.  

    There must be at least two or three people in the world who would be fascinated to know what was
    being proposed for the regulation of automobiles in 1910. If you’re one of them, this is for you – a
    speech by Governor Eben Draper on that subject, which also includes a bit on highways in
    Massachusetts, accidents and other auto related facts from that time.

    Dutcher, Bancroft, Osgood, Patrick. Here’s a photo that’s practically a Who’s Who in Hopedale in 1900.


    Paddling the Charles in Waltham and Newton.

    The Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation.   

    Here’s a history of the Table Talk Pie Company, sent by Victoria Regina.

    Recent deaths   

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    Twenty-five years ago – November 1987 – Historical Commission Making Progress on Marker at Site
    of Town’s First High School.

    Hopedale Pistol and Rifle Club Open House to Celebrate Club’s 40th Anniversary.

    Fifty years ago – November 1962 – Willard Taft Elected President of Hopedale Country Club.

    Hopedale Housing Authority Ponders What Heating System for Soon-to-be-built 40-Unit Housing for
    Elderly Project.

    The Soviet Union and the United States reached a final agreement on the terms for Soviet removal of
    nuclear missiles from Cuba.

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    The following article was written about the Draper foundry in Spartanburg in 1953. I presume
    operations in the foundry in Hopedale were similar. Thanks to Peter Metzke for sending it.

                                 Draper Loom Parts Require Much Material

    Pig-iron, scrap-iron, coke, limestone, silicon, magnesia, cornell flux. These words don’t mean much
    by themselves. But put them all together and one has the ingredients for making a Draper loom part.
    These minerals are mixed together in proper proportions in a bucket – a 1750-pound bucket – to be
    poured into a cupola or melting furnace every few minutes at the East Spartanburg plant.

    It takes seven of the huge bucketfuls to fill a cupola. And two cupolas are used. Each is used on
    alternating days allowing workmen to repair the other with firebrick and like materials. The 2,850-
    degree temperature of the furnaces disintegrates the lining in a day.

    The mixing, the first operation going into the making of a Draper loom, begins outside the plant where
    there are located piles of raw materials, the height of which will match those of three-story buildings.
    Over 50 tons of coke are consumed each week in the process. More than 50 tons of metal are used in
    a seven-hour period.

    Pig-iron and scrap-iron are the basic materials. The limestone causes impurities to float to the top of
    the molten metal preventing their mixing with the iron. In five-pound blocks, the silicon is added when
    there is not enough in the pig-iron in its natural state. It and magnesia work together to make the
    metal machine easily. Flux caused the iron to flow freely.

    The materials are placed into the “bucket” by workmen on the outside. A large overhead crane
    operating on a track picks the metal up, takes it along the track, and dumps it into the mouth of the
    cupola. All the materials go in mixed up together. Flames from 30 to 60 feet high rise from the mouth
    of the cupola. This is the gas from the coke.

    All the incendiary materials burn, the metal pours out a hole in the bottom of the furnace, and the
    impurities rise to the top.

    Ohio firebrick, and special clay which is “like glue” when mixed with water are used to reline one of the
    cupolas each day. It takes workmen eight or nine hours to re-line the furnaces.

    Two blowers are on hand to feed air to the furnaces. The spare one is for use in case something
    should go wrong with the first one.

    “The melting is really not a dangerous operation,” Bob Gossett, a supervisor, stated. He said
    practically the only danger is when small leaks develop in the bottom of the furnace. A workman must
    dob up such holes by hand with a clay mixture.

    The furnace with its high-leaping flames is beautiful to be sure. But the average layman will hardly
    regard its potential danger so lightly as Mr. Gossett or Mr. Bullington, the other supervisor of the
    department.

    The white-hot molten metal flows from a hole in the bottom of the furnace to a waiting oval-shaped
    mixing ladle or container. Shaper of the huge metal pot affords a rolling effect to the liquid metal which
    mixes as it pours. The metal here awaits another ladle which will carry it to waiting molds in the
    foundry. Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Spartanburg, South Carolina, November 15, 1953.

                  
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