In the first paragraph above, Frank Dutcher is quoted as saying that the school established in 1854 was for “older persons.” Dutcher certainly would have known that wasn’t true, so I’m assuming that the reporter somehow got the wrong idea when interviewing him. Click here to read about the school that Dutcher was referring to.
The home of General William F. Draper, shown in the top two pictures, stood on the site now occupied by Hopedale Junior/Senior High School. The land was donated to the town to be used for a school by the general’s daughter, Princess Margaret Preston Draper Boncompagni. The school was originally named the General Draper High School. The newspaper articles were copied from the scrapbooks at the Bancroft Library.