Mike grew up in Hopedale, and later worked for a while at a mill using Draper looms. He has written a number of articles for this site. One, A Tragic Drowning, may have been the most viewed page ever on hope1842. Click here to read Mike’s memories.
G&U train crossing Route 140 – December 2..
The picture of Hopedale Pond with a skim of ice above was taken on December 3. The Milford News picture below is from December 29, 1970. I wonder if we’ll see any scenes like that this year.
Christmas in 1838
I presume that the reputed anniversary of our Savior’s birth was never celebrated in my ancient Mendon parish, nor elsewhere in the vicinity, until the year 1838. Traditionary prejudice, an inheritance from our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors, was strongly against it. But I suggested and encouraged a change from the long-prevailing custom, to which my people readily consented. Our sanctuary was accordingly appropriately and gracefully trimmed and well lighted for the evening of December 24, when I delivered a specially prepared discourse to a large and deeply interested congregation. My text was Isa. 9: 6, 7: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” etc. Since that time celebrations of the event have prevailed more and more in the churches of this general region and indeed throughout the land, the descendants of the founders of New England of all shades of belief, vying with their Episcopalian and Roman Catholic brethren in making them attractive, significant, and impressive. Autobiography of Adin Ballou, pp. 305-306.
In addition to Ballou’s account of the 1838 celebration of Christmas in Mendon, click here to read about Christmas in early Hopedale by Edward Spann, Anna Thwing Spaulding, Charles Merrill, Abby Hills Price, and Frank Dutcher.
With the closing of the town hall, Beyond Full had to close. It’s re-opened in Cambridge. Thanks to my son DJ for the picture.
Thanks to Lawrence Barrett for this picture of his grandfather (in foreground) at work at the Draper plant.
Was the raccoon incident Hopedale’s biggest news story of 2025? It was big enough to be covered by Channel 5, and other Boston stations. It occurred about four houses from where I live, but I knew nothing about it until the next day. It happened on Christmas and I wasn’t home. Here’s the Channel 5 account.
Hopedale Pond, December 26.
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