The pictures above, except for the one with the caption that mentions
    the Milford Ice Company dam, were taken from Draper Corporation
    photography department negatives at the Bancroft Library.

    Note the white town line on the GoogleEarth view above. Milford is above and to the
    right of the line, Upton on the left and Hopedale is below the line. Route 140 runs
    across the view from right to left, more or less in the middle. This ;has often seemed to
    me like a strange change in the town line which up to that point is fairly straight in its
    division of Hopedale and Milford. My guess is that when the town line was drawn during
    the 1886 separation of Hopedale from Milford, the Hopedale people, or the Draper
    people (well, same thing) wanted the Mill Pond, all or at least half, to be part of
    Hopedale because of their interest in water rights. Draper Company owned the water
    rights to North Pond, which is upstream from the pond  By 1886, they were getting
    beyond the point where water power was a factor, but perhaps there was still some use
    for it. Another possibility is brought up by the caption on the picture at the top of the
    page. Had the Hopedale Coal & Ice Company bought the Milford Ice Company and saw
    some advantage to having the pond become part of Hopedale? We'll probably never
    know, but if I can find anything on it, I'll add it here.

    That strange little chunk of Hopedale that juts up north of Route 140 and through the
    pond is the reason that when traveling from Hopedale toward Upton, you pass an
    Entering Hopedale sign, and then within a couple of hundred yards or so, you see that
    you are Entering Upton. Traveling the other way, it's Entering Hopedale and then very
    soon, Entering Milford.

    Arnold Nealley refers to the pond as Taylor's Marsh. The Lee Taylor family used to live
    in a house on the west side of the pond. Taylor worked for Hopedale Coal & Ice, which
    seems a hint that H C & I had an interest in the area. It makes me think that they may
    have owned the house and much of the land in the area, and that Taylor probably
    rented the house from the company.

    In the picture below, you can see the town boundary stone in the middle of the Mill
    River, where it runs under Route 140.

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Looking downstream where water goes under Route 140.

    During the middle of January 2015, I passed by the pond several times, and each time I
    wondered why it was so low, and who controlled the level of the dam. I stopped for the
    pictures you see below on January 22, (and again on January 23) and then came to the
    conclusion that it wasn't a matter of lowering the boards, but that they were all gone. You
    can compare the pictures below that show the dam with several of those above. The
    dam, at least the part that was holding back the water, is gone.

    Photos above taken on January 22, 2015.
    Photos below, January 23, 2015.

    Eventually the dam was replaced and the
    water returned to its previous level.