Married Hannah Brown Thwing, daughter of Benjamin and Anna (Mowry) Thwing, b. Uxbridge, Jan1, 1817.
Children:
William Franklin, b. Lowell, April 9, 1842
Georgianna T., b. Lowell, June 30, 1844; d. July 23, 1844.
Helen L., b. Lowell, July 11, 1845; d. August 10, 1847.
Frances Eudora, b. Ware, July 26, 1847; m. Charles H. Colburn, February 20, 1868.
Hannah Thwing, b. Ware, April 11, 1853; m. Edward Louis Osgood, January 20, 1881.
George Albert, b. Hopedale, November 4, 1855.
Eben Sumner, b. Hopedale, June 17, 1858.
George Draper began the world with an empty purse, but was richly endowed with mechanical genius, ambitious enterprise, shrewd intelligence, sound business judgment, and indomitable persistency of purpose. With these, and the faithful co-operation of a wf. rich in all the qualities necessary to match and compliment his own, he has successfully risen to wealth and distinction. He is still vigorously pushing his fortune, finding abundant opportunities to dispense liberally to public and private charities from the treasury of his large accumulations; and he has the high satisfaction of seeing his children well launched on the same sea of prosperous social and business enterprise. He and his family are too well and extensively known to justify further description. Adin Ballou, History of Milford, pp. 721 - 722.
*****************************************
I come now to my parents. George Draper (1817 - 1887), my father, was a man of very strong character and will be remembered today by all of the older generation in Massachusetts who had to do either with cotton manufacture or with public affairs. His years of schooling were brief, but he acquired at school and in later studies at home an excellent mathematical education, -- better than that possessed by most college graduates.
At the age of fifteen he left home to take a position the weaving department of the cotton mills of North Uxbridge. There he boarded in the house of Benjamin Thwing and made the acquaintance of his daughter, Hannah Brown Thwing, my mother. At seventeen years of age he was made the superintendent of a small cotton mill at Walpole. Mass. Thence he went to Three Rivers, Mass., and took the position of overseer of weaving in what was then one of the largest fine cotton mills in the country.
In 1839, owing to the general depression in manufacturing, caused by a reduction of the tariff, the mill stopped, and he was thrown out of employment, as were a large number of the skilled operatives in New England. He looked vainly for work in some position worthy of his ability; used up his small savings; ran into debt several hundred dollars; and finally accepted a position as an operative in the Massachusetts Cotton Mills of Lowell, at the remuneration of five dollars a week. His experience at that time convinced him of the advantage to laboring men of a protective tariff, and he never forgot it.
With a change in the country's policy, manufacturing improved, and he became an overseer again. In 1843 he accepted a position as designer of the celebrated Edward Harris cassimeres at Woonsocket, R.I. In 1845 he was made superintendent of one of the mills of the Otis Company at Ware, Mass., and later he had charge of the entire corporation. In 1853 he removed from Ware to Hopedale, Mass., going into partnership with his brother, E.D. Draper, who was then manufacturing and selling the temples invented by their father, and which he (George) had improved. E.D. Draper was also president of the Hopedale Community, which my father joined, and which I shall refer to later.
In 1855 the Hopedale Community came to grief financially, and he joined his brother in paying its debts, which they accomplished within the next few years. From this time his business increased until it has become one of the great manufacturing industries of the State. He was a man of a large inventive capacity and possessed also the business faculty which enabled him to introduce into use his own inventions and those of others, which he controlled, at a profit not only to the community but to himself. The improvements introduced in spinning machinery under his auspices and the writer's have doubled it production and saved to this and foreign countries hundreds of millions of dollars in machinery, and tens of millions per annum in power, labor and incidentals.
He was a total abstainer, a Unitarian in religious belief, never used tobacco, and prior to the War he was a Garrisonian abolitionist. During the war he was an ardent Union man, and worked earnestly for the cause. He organized several companies of volunteers, paying their preliminary expenses and making personal gifts to each man. He was active in recruiting and a member of Governor Andrew's private Advisory Board.
After the war he was a thorough and enthusiastic Republican, and an earnest believer in a protective tariff. He founded and presided over until his death, the celebrated Home Market Club, which crystallizes and represents the protective sentiment of New England. He wrote much on political topics, both in pamphlets and newspaper articles, and no one could fail to understand what he meant, even if he did not agree with him.
During the latter years of his life, he traveled much, both at home and abroad, giving up to a large extent his business cares. He was active in the formation of the new town of Hopedale in 1886, and built and presented to that town its town hall. His was a strong individuality, and, though he consistently refused public position, he was always a power behind the thrown in local and State affairs.
My mother was a Thwing, the name being very uncommon in this country and all who possess it being probably descended from Benjamin Thwing, who came from England in 1635 and settled in Boston, having a house and garden on Sudbury Street. His ancestry is traced with probable correctness to the Knights of Thwing, a village forty miles east of York in England. His descendants occupied reputable positions in life, his son Benjamin being a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1678. Nathaniel Thwing was Captain and Major of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment in the campaign against Louisbourg, and later Lieutenant-colonel of Colonel Gridley's regiment at Crown Point. John Thwing, between 1730 and 1769, owned and used as a farm a large part of the ground occupied by the village of Hopedale, where I reside. Another Nathaniel Thwing was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Thwing, my grandfather, was a school teacher in Uxbridge, noted in his profession. His house now stands in very good preservation.
My mother seems to me to have been the very embodiment of New England common sense. Though her life was largely devoted to household duties and the rearing of her children, she was thoroughly interested in public questions, and never satisfied until she had settled to her own satisfaction the right or wrong of anything that came up for consideration. Though my father was a positive man, she was equally sure in her own views - one evidence of which was that though he became a member of the Hopedale Community, she persistently refused to join, on the ground that she did not believe all questions should be settled by a majority vote or that there should be no rewards for pre-eminent ability and services. Gen. William F. Draper, Recollections of a Varied Career.
******************************************
Another death which affected him [evidently referring to himself, Adin Ballou] most sensibly was that of Mr. George Draper, a sometime member of the Community, who, though abandoning it and renouncing its essential principles, yet always held its founder in high regard and veneration, as attested by abundant proofs from time to time. "This lamentable event," to quote from Mr. Ballou's sketch of Hopedale alluded to, "took place in Boston wither he had gone for a temporary sojourn to obtain medical relief from kidney and other ailments, which, though not seemingly, dangerous, he was anxious to overcome. Unexpectedly to all, he presently became alarmingly sick under treatment and in a few days expired. His remains were brought home and on the 11th of June [1887] his funeral was solemnized with every demonstration that bereaved family affection and public grief could bestow. Thousands appreciated his merits, sympathized in a great public loss, and united in reverential tributes of respect to his memory." On the occasion an appropriate address was made by Rev. Mr. Wilson, but the eulogy proper was pronounced by the old pastor of the departed, who had lived side by side with him for more than thirty years, and who could portray the strong points and many excellencies of his character better than any other living person. A sense of justice and the remembrance of unnumbered expressions of kindly consideration and personal esteem received through so long a period, served to render the testimonial paid the deceased, tender, loving, faithful, and true. Adin Ballou, History of the Hopedale Community, p. 512.
Draper Menu HOME