June 11, 1842
Community Affairs
We have now on the Hopedale Estate about 45 persons great and small. These are all boarded in one general family. There are 13 men, 12 women, and 20 children and youth under fifteen years of age. We have 13 cows, 4 yokes of oxen and steers, 2 horses and 6 swine. We have planted with garden sauce for market and our own use some 3 acres, with Indian corn 4 or more, with potatoes and beans 10 or more; in all from 17 to 20 acres. We have made numerous repairs in and upon our old buildings, erected a new building 32 by 14 feet, one and a half story above the basement; calculated for a Printing Office, schoolroom, two upper sleeping rooms and two basement shop rooms, all of course on a small scale. The brethren have just commenced building a dam and the foundation for a Mechanics shop to be 30 by 40 feet, two stories high above the basement, designed for various machines to be operated by water power. The erection and furnishing of this establishment will occupy all the labor and resources, which we can spare from other demands for several months to come. Our little school will go into operation shortly. We might have many boarding scholars, if we could accommodate them; but this we cannot do at present. A few scholars in the vicinity, who can board at home, will probably be taught in the school. Our business is multiform and arduous. There is everything to do and small means with which to operate. Division of labor is also difficult; but we have got along better than most people would normally imagine, and hope for better days to come.
Adin Ballou refers to the shop completed in 1843 as a mechanic shop so I had thought that must be the Little Red Shop. However, the shop completed in 1842 was 32 x 14, the one finished in 1843 was 30 x 40 and the present Little Red Shop is 20 x 90. We know that the present shop was lengthened twice but the 20 foot width doesn't match either of these two buildings. For more thoughts (but no conclusions) on this, go to the end of the Cotton Chats article.
Here's more from Rev. Ballou on the 1843 shop. Based on early maps, I think this was on the lower pond and later became the first home of the Dutcher Temple Company.
The mechanic shop was completed in the early Spring [1843], and the first story and basement were supplied with a considerable amount and variety of labor-saving machinery for facilitating work in carpentering, joinery, box-making, and kindred callings. The story above was so partitioned and fitted up as to afford tolerable accommodations in its southern part for the printing press and its accessories, while the northern was made convenient and comfortable for school purposes and for services of public worship; in which twofold capacity it met our needs, in a rude fashion to be sure, until we were in a condition to erect a building for the same purposes the following year. Adin Ballou, The History of the Hopedale Community, p. 110.
Hopedale Community Menu HOME