Below - The icehouse on the west side of Hopedale Pond. When the icehouse was razed, the pump
    house (below the windmill) was brought across the pond and set up behind the Durgin home at 20
    Dutcher Street where it became The Little Red Schoolhouse. Here's the story from a paper written
    for the Hopedale Community Historical Society.

    In the early 1940s, after the razing of the icehouse, the pump house was moved across the pond to
    Dutcher Street. It was then that it became known as "The Little Red Schoolhouse." Old Bill Taylor of
    Milford moved it with a team of horses. It took approximately five hours to reach its present location.

    Ethel Durgin set up a nursery school in the old pump house, and taught there. A fire bell was
    donated by the fire department when the school opened. The bell came from a 1914
    Hopedale ladder truck.

    Click here for a page with more about the Little Red Schoolhouse, including lots of names of
    Hopedale kids in the 1950s, and some from other area towns.

    Before there was a Grafton & Upton Railroad, there was a narrow-guage
    Grafton Center Railroad. This picture shows that railroad's locomotive.

    Here are some of the words that first appeared
    in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 1920.

A couple of Hopedale items for sale on eBay.

Hopedale in October 2020

Hopedale in September

Hopedale in November

Demolition of the Draper Plant

Ezine for September - Open Spaces

Ezine for October - The Summer of '67

Recent deaths

Hopedale in 2020 Menu               HOME

Hopedale residents ask Town Meeting to decide fate of land deal

Click here for the article and more on the railroad and the Parklands.

Click here to see photos of the
Town Meeting   

Progress Street

    Jerry was in front of me while I was driving through Milford,
    and yes, I was stopped at a light when I took the picture.

    Draper plant at the Freedom-Hopedale intersection
    before the 1934 changes described below.

    We usually get a few views of herons when
    we're paddling on rivers. This one was fishing
    on the Charles near the Millis-Medfield line.
Lake Street garages - October 2, 2020

    The use of Draper looms in recent years has
    been to produce "selvage denim." Click here
    for the article the items above come from.
Draper looms at Cone Denim's White Oak
plant in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Hopedale Pond on October 8. Click here to see more.

Water going over a beaver dam near the Rustic Bridge.

    A storm during the evening of October 7 blew down trees and knocked out electricity in the area. The
    picture on the left shows where a flowering crab on Dutcher Street had been blown down. The trees
    along there had been planted in the early 1980s by the Hopedale Beautification Society, with assistance
    from Scouts of Troop 1, who are shown in the picture on the right. Click here to see more pictures of the
    boys, a Milford News article about the project, and a plaque with the names of donors.

    The picture on the right was taken by Hopedale historian Winogene Noyes, from her yard at 93 Dutcher
    Street. The tree that was blown down was the one the boys in the picture were planting.

Click for more demolition photos.

Hopedale Pond, Freedom Street

Click here for info on the scarecrow fest.

    Here's a little item that was on ebay during the middle of
    October. The starting price was $19.99. It says Hopedale
    Com't on it. Okay, I think, might be a good little thing for
    my kitchen windowsill, so I put in a bid. It was the top bid
    for days, but I knew that meant nothing until the last
    second, since there was another bidder. I was watching it
    during the last couple of minutes. It went for $96.09.
    Mmmm, a little more than I was thinking of paying.

And that would be Dickie Daige, of course.

    Town Meeting on Community
    House lawn, October 24. Almost
    certainly the largest turnout ever
    for a Town Meeting in Hopedale.
    On the matter of buying land
    adjacent to the Parklands, there
    was a near unanimous vote in
    favor. Click here for more pictures
    of the meeting.

Click to see more of the scarecrow fest..

Shop comes down - dust goes up.

Click here to see more Draper demolitions photos.

A little fall color from my front yard - October 28.

October 30
October 31

Trick, or treat?