Hopedale History September 1, 2018 No. 355 Members of the Community Hopedale in August
Recent additions to existing pages on hope1842.com: Women's Suffrage in Hopedale (A list of identifications to a picture of the Women for Hoover Committee - about 20 prominent women of Milford and Hopedale.) Deaths <><><><><><><><><><> Twenty-five years ago - September 1993 - Oslo I Accord: PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands in Washington, D.C., after signing a peace accord. Russian troops withdraw from Poland. The first mission in Biosphere 2 ends after two years. Fifty years ago - September 1968 - 150 women (members of New York Radical Women) arrive in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest against the Miss America Pageant, as exploitative of women . Detroit Tiger Denny McLain becomes the first baseball pitcher to win 30 games in a season since 1934. He remains the last player to accomplish the feat. Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive comes to an end in South Vietnam. 60 Minutes debuts on CBS and is still on the air as of 2018. Boeing introduces its largest passenger aircraft up to that time, the Boeing 747. News items above are from Wikipedia. See below this text box for Hopedale news from the Milford Daily News (25 and 50 years ago) and the Milford Gazette (100 years ago.) <><><><><><><><><><> Members of the Hopedale Community By Adin Ballou The membership of the Community during its entire existence was composed of men and women belonging to the more substantial, self-respecting middle class of American society - the rank and file of the American people. It included, first and last, six or eight ordained ministers of the Gospel, two experienced and skillful physicians, several well-equipped and competent teachers in the various branches of useful knowledge, writers for religious and reformatory journals, platform speakers, conference room exhorters, together with numerous farmers, gardeners, carpenters, machinists and a goodly number of other handicraftsmen - a plain, common sense, intelligent, high minded population. As a whole, we were in no proper sense such a set of visionary dreamers, deluded fanatics, restless impracticables, and thriftless incompetents, needing a guardian or some master spirit to take pity on us and save us from our own folly and imbecility, as has sometimes been represented by certain orators and authors, who seemed more desirous of deprecating us and our labors, sacrifices and achievements, than of telling the truth about us and doing exact justice to us and our cause. To be sure, there were now and then persons who came to us from selfish and unworthy motives, seeking an easy place for themselves and a supply for their own and their family's needs which they were too indolent and shiftless to earn elsewhere. To be sure, we were beset, by a great variety of visitors, good, bad, and indifferent, hailing from far and near, professing friendship for us and our movement; not infrequently claiming to be philanthropists and reformers par excllence, and bringing with them, it may be, some special device for bettering the condition of the world - some new panacea for one or more on the manifold ills which humanity is heir to - the crudest follies or impracticabilities perhaps. But few of either class ever gained an entrance within the pale of our organic fellowship, or if they did, were soon convinced that they were out of place and voluntarily retired, never attaining any appreciable influence in shaping our polity or in the systematic management of any of our affairs. Follies no doubt we had, and defects, whereof we had reason to be ashamed and repentant, but they were not of the sort alleged. If we were in any sense dreamers and visionaries, an imputation we were never disposed to take offense at or deny, we were only such as Jesus Christ and his Apostles were and taught us to be, when they pictures to us a kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy for which we should pray, a coming reign of equity and brotherhood which we should seek to inaugurate under whose benignant sway
Returning justice lift aloft her scale; Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white robed innocence from Heaven extend. As a matter of fact, no one who knew us and was disposed to be just towards us could deny that, with the rare exceptions alluded to, we were a most practical, self-supporting company, industrious, economical, husbanding well our resources and putting our means to good uses. Not a dollar was expended by us for intoxicating liquor, for enervating pleasure, or pernicious amusement. Bad habits, always more or less costly, were under proscription, and for the most part absolutely prohibited. Even tobacco, when previously used, was laid aside by those entering our membership, one person only continuing the indulgence, and that after repeated ineffectual attempts to overcome the appetite. We spent nothing on military trappings or displays; nothing on spectacular and boisterous demonstrations or any sort; political maneuvering or masquerade; nothing on police supervision or litigation - no occasion for the former ever existing, and all differences or controversies among ourselves or with our neighbors being settled by amicable conference or peaceful arbitration. As to constables, sheriffs, criminal prosecutions, or court proceedings outside of simple probate concerns, we had no use for them. Adin Ballou, History of the Hopedale Community, pp. 224-5, 2010 edition. Ezine Menu HOME |
Hopedale News - September 1993 |
Hopedale News - September 1968 |
Hopedale News - September 1918 |
Adin Ballou
Hopedale c. 1851 |
Several news notes here show that the flu epidemic had reached this area. |