December 15, 2008
Hopedale History
No. 122
Looms, Etc.
Hopedale in December Mill Street bridge Flood, December 12
Flood at Spindleville on YouTube December 12, 13, 15.
Friends of Historic Hopedale items for sale (books, cards, t-shirts, etc.)
Milford Sunday News – Yesterday’s Heroes - Bruce Stanas
Liberty ship named in honor of Hopedale man.
Keep up with what’s going on in the Blackstone Valley with the Blackstone Daily.
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When I was a kid growing up in Hopedale, I knew that looms were made at Drapers, but that was about it. It wasn’t until I began to take an interest in Hopedale history in the past ten years that I began to wonder when they produced their first loom, and what other items they manufactured. Fortunately there is a fair amount of information available on this.
The first Draper product was a loom part called a temple. The patent for this 1816 invention of Ira Draper, was owned by his son, Ebenezer when the Hopedale Community built its first shop in 1842. It became the most successful product of the Community, and probably the first thing manufactured by Ebenezer and his brother George when they formed their own company in 1852. In 1856, they withdrew their investment in the Community which resulted in its failure. In that same year, an inventor from Vermont to Hopedale and went into business with him. His name was Warren Dutcher and his invention was an improved temple. (Warren’s house still stands at the corner of Adin and Dutcher streets. The home of his son, Frank Dutcher, is the one on Adin Street that was the Adin Manor Nursing Home.) Dutcher’s business operated under the name, Dutcher Temple Company. The Draper brothers were his partners. This was the first of a series of moves in which they succeeded in bringing an inventor of a promising device for textile machinery to Hopedale and going into business with him.
At first the Drapers operated under the name of E.D. & G. Draper. When Ebenezer left Hopedale in 1868, General William F. Draper joined his father and the company became George Draper & Son. Later, when the general’s brothers, Eben and George Albert joined, the name was changed to George Draper & Sons. Other divisions that were operated as separate companies, all housed in the same area that eventually became consolidated under the name, Draper Company, and later Draper Corporation, included the Hopedale Machine Company, Hopedale Furnace Company, and the Hopedale Machine Screw Company. Companies carrying the names of inventors, in addition to Dutcher, included the Sawyer Spindle Company and the Lapworth Elastic Fabric Company.
From 1856, through the 1880s, the Draper companies produced an increasing number of parts and machines, mostly involved with spinning and weaving. One of the big textile developments of the era in which they played a significant role was a process called ring spinning. Spindles were one of their main products in that era. The following paragraph, from a Draper publication, written in 1881, gives an idea of what the company was doing at that time.
“Our business, begun in a small way, has been gradually increased, until it has included improvements in every branch of cotton manufacture. Many of the most important improvements in use have been introduced by us; and we have undoubtedly owned or had the management of more useful patents on cotton machinery than any other concern in the country. Among such inventions are the Draper Revolving Temple, the best of its day; the Dutcher Temple, which has since superseded the above, and is so much superior to every other that we have practically the entire market of the country; the Parallel Shuttle Motion, on which we have owned about a dozen patents, including that of W.W. Dutcher, the original inventor; the Thompson Oil Can, which has sustained its supremacy over numerous rivals for more than twenty years; the Evener for Railway-Heads, which has been universally adopted; the Shuttle Guide, Let-Off Motion and Thick and Thin Place Preventer for Looms; the firs Self-Oiling Steps and Bolsters for Spinning; the Sawyer Spindle, proved by actual tests, and acknowledged by competent judges, to be the best of its class in operation, of which at this writing about a million and three-quarters have been sold; the wonderful New Rabbeth Spindle, recently introduced, but already selling in great numbers; Draper’s Filling Spinner, which is rapidly superseding mules for weft spinning; the Double Adjustable Spinning Ring, already sold to the number of two million; improved Spoolers, with the Wade Bobbin Holder and Laflin Thread Guide, and the Sawyer or elevated bolster for their spindles; Twisters, with the Sawyer or New Rabbeth principle applied to their spindles; Slasher Warpers with rising or falling rolls, Walmsley’s matchless Step Motion, and an unrivaled Slow Motion; with many others as widely known.”
It wasn’t until 1887 that the Drapers began moving toward the development of a loom. They decided that if they were going to make and sell them, they wouldn’t be ordinary looms. Theirs would be automatic. Up until that time, when the bobbin ran out of thread, the bobbin girl would have to stop the loom and replace the empty bobbin with a new one. It was a fairly involved procedure. Development of a loom that would eliminate this required the invention of many new devices. There were about six men who made major contributions, but the most important innovations were the work of James Northrop, so when the new loom was finally ready to market, it was sold under the name of the Northrop loom. The first of them were delivered in 1894. It was a revolutionary development in the cotton weaving industry and Drapers sold hundreds of thousands of them well into the twentieth century.
A longer version of this article. The Dutchers and their business. The development of the Northrop loom. Draper inventors The Draper and Dutcher temples.
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Recent deaths:
Harold G. Taft, 103, November 29, 2008.
Peter Ellis, Jr., 50, December 5, 2008, HHS 1976.
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