Holliston      Upton      Grafton         Millis        Whitinsville     Photos of some of the old homes, etc. in those towns.

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    Twenty-five years ago - May 1995 -  More than 170 countries agree to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
    indefinitely and without conditions.

    The Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.

    At Vaal Reefs gold mine in Orkney, a runaway locomotive falls into a lift shaft onto an ascending cage and causes it to
    plunge 1,500 feet  to the bottom of the 6,900-foot deep shaft, killing 104.

    Fifty years ago - May 1970 - President Richard Nixon orders U.S. forces to cross into neutral Cambodia, threatening
    to widen the Vietnam War, sparking protests across the United States and leading to the Kent State shootings.

    Four students at Kent State University in Ohio, USA are killed and nine wounded by Ohio National Guardsmen, at a
    protest against the incursion into Cambodia.

    Hard Hat Riot: Unionized construction workers attack about 1,000 students and others protesting the Kent State
    shootings near the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street and at New York City Hall.

    The Beatles release their 12th and final album, Let It Be.

    In Washington, D.C., 100,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam War.

    In the second day of violent demonstrations at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, state law
    enforcement officers fire into the demonstrators, killing 2 and injuring 12.

    Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II, to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

    News items above are from Wikipedia. The Hopedale news from 1920, below this text box, is from the Milford
    Gazette, and was copied from files at the Bancroft Library.

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                                                                    Adin Ballou – The Early Days

                                                                               By Rev. John K. Hammon

    Continuing from last month, here’s more of Rev. Hammon’s paper on Adin Ballou, given to the Hopedale Community
    Historical Society. There's more to it than these two parts. Click here if you'd like to read the entire paper.

    Ballou felt divine Providence was working on his behalf, however, when at the very hour he was being voted out of the
    Milford Universalist Church, he was being voted into the First Congregational Parish of Mendon. No sooner had the
    Milford people finished their unpleasant task than a committee attended Ballou with the invitation to accept the
    Mendon pulpit – an invitation that was not allowed to gather dust! Not a Sunday passed without his preaching.
    Adin Ballou’s really maturing years, so far as thought and action was concerned, began at this point. His religious
    beliefs were intensifying, and his conception of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Men beginning to
    assume more and more prominence in the system of his theology. As a future retributionist he was compelled to
    believe in the deep efficiency of pure Christian conduct in the here and now. To prepare oneself to avoid a distant but
    still real consequence of immoral acts it seemed to him and to his friends of paramount importance to live
    righteously in this sphere, --here on earth. This is what religion and particularly Christianity was meant to serve.
    Meanwhile from the fury of the Restorationist dispute his interest began to turn elsewhere. There began to sweep
    over the country a great enthusiasm for various reforms. The 30s and 40s and 50s of the 19th century were the grand
    decades which saw the conscience of the American idealism being pricked, when men and women began to
    examine themselves both from the standpoint of their religious prospects and the founding principles of the Republic
    with its Bill of Rights. It was a tremendous assessment in which the intellectual leaders and the men on the farms
    were inquiring as to whether or not the daily actions they were performing met in any consequential way the ideals
    they were wont to express. When huge areas of lack and inconsistency became apparent there were those ready of
    acute enough minds and stout enough temperament to make resolute efforts toward correction and adjustment.
    With Adin Ballou’s precision and his very sensitive conscience it is not to be wondered that we find him at the very
    forefront of these efforts. He seems suddenly to have awakened to the fact that his preachings were mere
    shibboleths without accompanying social action. The idea of practical Christianity became luminous to him—how
    could one be a true, a real, a practical Christian; squaring his deeds to his professions? What did it mean beneath
    everything else to claim the name of Christian if it did not signify the determination to live a life as the great master of
    Galilee exemplified it and gave us the archetype?

    The first reform movement in which he became interested was that of Temperance. The circumstances of his
    introduction to this are rather amusing, as well as instructive. He was persuaded by Rev. Perry of the orthodox
    Congregational parish in town to join the movement and promote it in the neighborhood. Ballou discerned the
    potential reaction on the part of some of his people to his espousal of the movement. It was highly and rightly
    suspected that the sponsorship on the Temperance Reform in town was designed to make sectarian capital – a
    good many of the liberals were afraid of this, so Ballou when agreeing to help informed his brother minister that he
    would make efforts to guard against any and all “sectarian and partisan misdirection or entanglement” – as he put it.
    They would have immediately a public meeting with a lecture describing the plank and the reasons for it. Perry
    insisted it be held in the liberal congregational church –Ballou’s church –and that he, Ballou, be the lecturer.
    However, he demurred upon being asked to cooperate upon the occasion by sharing the exercises. When he did
    accede it was apparently with great reluctance.

    The time of the meeting came; there was a large attendance; the bell rang and Ballou waited in the vestibule for Perry
    to come, so that they could go up to the pulpit together. He waited and waited, until finally he had to stop the bell-
    ringer. At last the other minister appeared. When Ballou greeted him cordially and suggested they hasten forward,
    Perry began to complain about the hard day he’d had, how tired he was, how unable to take part. But shrewdly Ballou
    insisted. The argument continued as the two men passed up the aisle with the people on either side taking a great
    interest in what was being said. They were also amazed! Suddenly, Perry broke away, ducked into a pew and sat
    down, leaving Adin to proceed to the desk and conduct the exercises all alone. Let it be said though, to Perry’s credit
    that after being severely rebuked for his behavior by a leading parishioner, he was man enough to beg Ballou’s
    pardon for the whole affair in deep humiliation.
            
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Hopedale News - May 1920
Adin Ballou
The Ballou home on its original location - the corner of Peace
and Hopedale streets. In 1900, the home was moved to Dutcher
Street, and Adin Ballou park was established on the site.