Susan Preston Draper with her daughter, Margaret.

    Hopedale History
    November 1, 2015
    No. 287
    The Kentuckians, Part 1


    Hopedale in October   

    Memories of Marge Horton   

    Birthday party on Inman Street - 1944   

    Road race - October 31   

    Dual Valley Conference Cross Country Championships - October 31   

    Kevin Gardner who is a stone wall builder as well as an author and historian will be speaking at the Milford
    Town Library on Thursday, Nov. 12th at 7 pm. I saw him at the Hopkinton Library a couple of years ago and
    he is really interesting. He builds a small stone wall in front of the audience while he tells stories about the
    different kinds of stone walls. Anne Lamontaigne, Milford Historical Commission

    Additions to hope1842 pages during the last two weeks include: Upton Chamber (Milford News article about
    the origin of the mysterious structure.)     Deaths   

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    Twenty-five years ago - November 1990 - The first known web page is written.

    Home Alone is released to theaters. It would become the highest grossing live-action family comedy film of
    all time.

    Leaders of Canada, the United States, and 32 European nations meet in Paris to formally mark the end of
    the Cold War.

    The United Nations Security Council passes UN Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military
    intervention in Iraq if that nation does not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by
    Tuesday, January 15, 1991.

    Fifty years ago - November 1965 - Freedom Flights begin: Cuba and the United States formally agree to
    start an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States (by 1971 250,000 Cubans take advantage of
    this program).

    Northeast blackout of 1965: Several U.S. states (VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, NY and portions of NJ) and parts of
    Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13½ hours.

    Vietnam War – Battle of Ia Drang: In the Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands in Vietnam, the first major
    engagement of the war between regular United States and North Vietnamese forces begins.

    Vietnam War: The Pentagon tells President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned major sweep operations to
    neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam
    will have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.

    The news above is from Wikipedia. See below this text box for news clippings from the Milford News and
    the Milford Gazette from 100 years ago.

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    General Draper's first wife, Lilla Joy Draper, died in 1884. In 1890, he married Susan Preston of Lexington,
    Kentucky. Here, from the general's autobiography, is a bit about her family.

                                                                      The Kentuckians, Part 1

    This may be a suitable place to refer briefly to my wife's descent and connections. She was the daughter of
    Major-general William Preston of Kentucky, one of the most distinguished citizens of that State, and at the
    time of his death its most prominent figure socially, though he took no part in politics, as he never asked to
    have his disabilities as a Confederate general removed.

    General Preston was a great-grandson of John Preston, a Scotch-Irish gentleman who came to this country
    in 1740, and purchased and settled upon a large tract of land near Staunton, Virginia. The record of his
    descendants is most wonderful, and furnishes a list of men distinguished as diplomats, and senators, and
    governors, and generals, and cabinet officers that it would be hard to equal in the record of any other
    American family. I quote substantially from The Scotch-Irish in America, a work published in 1890.

    "This Preston family was a southern family of old Virginia and Kentucky; and therefore it is not surprising that
    it furnished so many brave and impetuous officers in the Confederate army; but love of the Union was warm
    in the hearts of many of its members, conspicuous among whom were the Browns, the Blairs, and the
    Carringtons, of southern States, as well as the Porters of the northern section.

    "Its members were generally Democrats and firm friends of Jefferson and Jackson. They were persons of
    large talent and thoroughly educated; of large brain and magnificent physique. The family of Patrick Henry,
    the Hamptons, Wickliffes, Marshalls, Peytons, Carbells, Crittendens, and Ingersolls, were connected with
    them in matrimonial alliances. Among them were four governors of Virginia; also members of the cabinets of
    Jefferson, and Taylor, and Buchanan, and Lincoln. They had major-generals and brigadier generals by the
    dozen; members of the Senate and House of Representatives by the score; and gallant officers in the army
    and navy by the hundred. They furnished three of the recent Democratic candidates for Vice-President of the
    United States. They furnished to the Union army General B. Gratz Brown, General Francis P. Blair, General
    Andrew J. Alexander, General Edward C. Carrington, General Thomas T. Crittenden, Colonel Peter A. Porter,
    Colonel John M. Brown, and other gallant officers. To the Southern army they gave Major-general John C.
    Breckinridge, Colonel W.P.C. Breckinridge, Colonel William Watts, Colonel Cary Breckinridge, Colonel
    William Preston Johnson, (aide to Jefferson Davis), with other colonels, majors, captains and surgeons, --
    fifty or more, -- sixteen of them dying on the field of battle; -- and all descendants of this one Irish emigrant,
    from the county of Derry, whose relatives are still prominent in that part of Ireland, one of them having recently
    been Mayor of Belfast."

    "General Preston's grandfather, William Preston, was a colonel in the Revolutionary War, and his father a
    captain under General Wayne. His brother-in-law, Albert Sidney Johnston, one of the most distinguished
    general of the Southern Confederacy, was killed at Shiloh, dying in the arms of General Preston, then his
    chief of staff. It is believed by many, if not most, military students, that but for General Johnston's fatal wound
    at Shiloh, the advance of the Confederates, then checked, would have continued, and General Grant's army
    been utterly defeated or captured before General Buell's arrival, which turned the Union defeat into victory."
    William F. Draper, Recollections of a Varied Career, pp. 202 - 2-4.

    Here's an item about the general's in-laws that he didn't mention. Before the war, the Prestons, and Susan's
    mother's family, the Wickliffes, were among the largest slave owners in Kentucky.

                        Hopedale Drapers and their Kentucky Mates                  Ezine Menu                    HOME

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    Here's another Hopedale-Kentucky connection, but in this case, they're
    both in Illinois. Click here for "Other Hopedales." Here's a little coincidence
    - The ZIP for Hopedale, Illinois is 61747. Thanks for that bit of trivia, DJ.