Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. III, Part 2

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 772

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. III > Part 2

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GENERAL WILLIAM FRANKLIN DRAPER. (VIII) General William Franklin Draper, son of George Draper (7), was born in Lowell, Massa- chusetts, April 9, 1842. He attended public and private schools until the age of sixteen, being then prepared to enter Harvard College, but his father deemed him too young and he spent the next three years in the machine shop and mills at Hopedale, studying the construction and operation of the Draper machinery. He became an expert draughts- man. In the spring of 1861 he was again making ready for college when the battle of Bull Run con- vinced him and his father that his duty was to his country first, and he enlisted August 9, 1861, in Company B, Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, which his father had assisted in raising and of which, although he was only nineteen years old, he was made second lieutenant.

Three years of active service followed. In the Burnside expedition he was signal officer on the general staff and in this position took part in the battles of Roanoke Island, Newbern and Fort Macon. In April, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and re-joined his regiment. The Twenty-fifth was in Maryland and he resumed his duties just after the battle of South Mountain, tak- ing part in the remainder of the Antietam campaign that followed as captain of the Thirty-sixth Massa- chusetts Regiment. He was in the battle of Fred- ericksburg and was afterward sent to Newport News with the corps. Seven months were spent in Kentucky in pursuit of Morgan's Cavalry and sundry guerrilla troops. In June, 1863, he went to Vicksburg to join General Grant's army, taking part in the capture of the city and fighting in the vicinity of Jackson. His regiment was reduced in numbers by sickness and death from six hundred and fifty in June to one hundred and ninety-eight in September, when he was promoted major. In August, 1863, the regiment returned to Kentucky and marched through Cumberland Gap to East Tennessee and there stayed for the winter, engag- ing in the siege of Knoxville, and the battles of Blue Springs, Campbell's Station and Strawberry Plain. Colonel Goodell being disabled by wounds, Major Draper commanded the regiment after Octo- ber 10.

In the spring of 1861 the Corps removed to Annapolis and was partly recruited. They joined the Army of the Potomac in season for the battle of the Wilderness, where on May 6, 1864, Major Draper, while leading his regiment, was shot through the body and fell on a rifle pit just being captured by his men. He seemed to be mortally wounded and was left on the field, where he was taken by the Confederates. Later he was re-cap- tured and sent to a hospital in Washington. He was given a lieutenant-colonel's commission, his

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regiment being too small to muster a colonel. After he had partly recovered from his wound, he re- joined his regiment during the siege of Petersburg. The minnie ball which passed through his body is preserved by General Draper as a grim reminder of his close call.

At the engagement at Weldon Railroad he had command of his brigade. A month later, at Poplar Grove church and Pegram's Farm, his division was engaged and at one time cut off from the others. His regiment was the only one in the brigade that came out of the engagement as an organiza- tion and they brought back the colors of several other regiments. Here he was again wounded, be- ing struck in the shoulder by a nearly-spent ball, and, his wounds proving very troublesome, he ac- cepted a discharge at the expiration of his enlist- ment, October 12, 1864. He was brevetted colonel and brigadier-general of United States Volunteers for gallant and meritorious services in the field. Both of his regiments during the war were fight- ing regiments, the Twenty-fifth losing seventy per cent of its number in one engagement (Cold Har- bor), a record broken by but three other regiments during the war. The Thirty-sixth, in the campaign beginning with the Wilderness, had every field and line officer except one killed or wounded as well as three-quarters of the enlisted men.

Returning home, General Draper went to work for his father's firm, E. D. & G. Draper. He fol- lowed naturally in the footsteps of his Draper an- cestors; from the English ancestors who made cloth in the crude old ways of the early centuries; from his immigrant ancestor who brought his looms to Roxbury, in New England. and was among the first to make cloth in the colonies; from his grand- father who invented and manufactured revolving temples and looms in 1816 and paved the way for the brilliant achievements in textile manufacturing of the century following; to his Uncle James who carried on the business in 1825 and afterward; to his uncle, Ebenezer Daggett Draper, who began to manufacture temples in 1838; to his father who with · his uncle formed the E. D. & G. Draper firm in 1852 and began to manufacture temples, let-off mo- tions, etc.

In April, 1868, he purchased the interests of his uncle, Ebenezer D. Draper, the senior partner in the firm, and the name then became George Draper & Son. In 1877 when his brother, George A. Draper, became a partner the name was changed to George Draper & Sons. In 1880 Lieutenant Gov- ernor Eben S. Draper entered the firm. After the death of the father, George Draper, in 1887, William F. Draper, Jr., was admitted and two years later another son of General Draper, George Otis Draper, was admitted. Since his father's death, General Draper has filled his place. The business has con- stantly expanded. The history of the firm and its allied corporations has been a marvellous story of progress, improvement of machinery, increase of business, enlargement of facilities, building of dwelling houses for employees, village improve- ment. The Draper idea is never to stand still, al- ways to improve things. During the past few years since the general went to Italy as ambassador and later on account of a severe illness, the burden of active management has fallen largely on his younger brothers and sons. All have been trained by prac- tical experience and close application to business to assume the management of the great and com- plicated interests represented by the words, "Drapers of Hopedale."

Although General Draper was not a member of the original firm at Hopedale, he has seen and taken

part in the business from the start. When he be- came his father's partner the first milestone of suc- cess had been passed, but the concern at Hopedale in 1868 was a dwarf compared with the giant of the present day. General Draper realized how much the business depended upon improvements in ma- chinery, and he has devoted a large share of his attention to inventions. He has patented more than eighty of his own besides hundreds that were pro- duced by inventors under his direction and in his employ, experimenting all the time. It can truth- fully be said that his firm has done more to im- prove and cheapen the manufacture of cotton cloth than any other establishment now existing in this country or abroad. Since 1870, inventions brought out by the Drapers have doubled the production of cotton spinning machinery in this country without increasing the power or labor to operate the ma- chines. The saving in machinery amounts to tens of millions of dollars; the saving in power is enormous and the annual saving in labor, or rather the annual increase of production by the same forces, amounts in value to many millions. Their inventions have been copied abroad and are the foundation of great industries and have made a revolution in methods there. What the firm has done in spinning machinery it bids fair to do also in weaving machinery, the progress in this direc- tion having been rapid in recent years. General Draper and his mechanical experts, James H. Northrop and Charles F. Roper, have spent a num- her of years developing and improving the ma- chinery used in cotton manufacturing.

General Draper has always taken an interest in political affairs. He has been active in the Repub- lican party and in the support of its protective tariff policy ever since the war. He succeeded his father as president of the Home Market Club of Boston, and is a state leader of his party. But until 1892, when he was elected to congress, the only public elective office that he had held was that on school committee of the town of Hopedale. He had been on Governor Long's staff with the rank of colonel during three years. He had been delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated President Hayes, and as an elector at large in 1888 he voted for President Harrison. He was a candi- date for governor of the Commonwealth in 1888, was strongly backed by the soldier vote, but was de- feated by Governor Ames. He declined the nomina- tion which was virtually his the following year.

In 1892, when General Draper was nominated for congress in the eleventh district, his campaign against George Fred Williams was one of the most brilliant and successful ever made in Massachusetts. For weeks he was on the stump, speaking almost every night, and although he made no pretensions to oratory, he knew his subject, the tariff, as few other men have ever known it; he had something to say and he carried conviction to the minds of men who had been leaning to free trade and its Democratic substitutes designed chiefly for vote- getting. During his campaign United States Sena- tor Lodge took occasion to say in his graceful way: "Such a career as General Draper's is a fair exam- ple of what is best in American life-ready for all sacrifices when the need of the country is most bitter, and ready for the performance of all duties of peace when people demand them."

General Draper was re-elected in 1894. In con- gress he was a bulwark for the defence of Ameri- can industries against the attack of all enemies. In his first term he was a member of the commit- tees on foreign affairs and patents. During his sec- ond term he was chairman of the committee on

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patents, and second on foreign affairs, being acting chairman during the illness of Chairman Hitt, of Illinois. He made important speeches on the Chi- nese Exclusion bill, advocating a moderate policy. His speech on the Hawaiian question is still a docu- ment of public interest to those connected with the new colonial governments. He spoke on the Cuban troubles and on the resolution to censure Ambas- sador Bayard, the leading subjects before congress at that time. He was the only Republican member of the committee on Foreign Affairs, and one of a half dozen in the whole house to oppose the resolu- tion of censure. The patent committee under his leadership did more work than had been done in that committee for the preceding quarter of a cen- tury. A very important revision and amendment of the patent laws was carried through. General Draper secured a law for dramatic copyright of great value to dramatists. While in congress he became one of the most influential members. He was a hard student and indefatigable worker. He made the tariff a subject of especial study and re- search. His own business was a laboratory where he could experiment. He investigated personally the conditions in Europe and America, and his arguments for a protective tariff were accepted as convincing by men who would not take the dictum of a mere student and theorist.

General Draper was the permanent chairman of the Republican state convention in Massachusetts in October, 1896, and his speech on that occasion was used by the Republican national committee as a campaign document, in the successful campaign that followed. He was appointed April 1, 1897, by President McKinley, American ambassador to Italy, and for three years he represented the American government in Rome. General Draper was espe- cially fortunate in having a wife who admirably sus- tained the social duties of her high position. After his return from Italy General Draper suffered from a severe illness, but he is in active business, and in politics and his power has recently been shown in a battle with the tariff revisionists. He made a not- able speech in 1905 on the floor of the state con- vention of the Republican party before the nomina- tion of his brother as lieutenant-governor. Neither he nor his, brother ever carry water on both should- ers. Any man of intelligence, knows where the Drapers stand, though the brothers are not always entirely agreed in their opinions. General Draper succeeded his father as president or director of many concerns outside of Hopedale."

General Draper is a member of the Grand Army, Loyal Legion, Knights Templar, Sons of the Revo- lution, Society of Colonial Wars, Union and Al- gonquin Clubs of Boston, the Arkwright Club, Metropolitan, Army and Navy and Chevy Chase of Washington, and many other clubs and fraternal organizations. He is a man of generous impulses and has given freely of his wealth in charity and for public purposes. No man in Massachusetts has more friends than General Draper. He is trusted and honored wherever he is known.

He married (first), September 15, 1862, while home on a brief furlough, Lydia D. W. Joy, daugh- ter of David T. and Lydia D. (Bunker) Warren, adopted daughter of Hon. David and Charlotte A. Joy. She was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, Au- gust 31, 1843. She died in February, 1884. He married (second), May, 1890, Susan Preston, daugh- ter of General William Preston, of Kentucky, an officer in the Mexican war, minister to Spain under President Buchanan, a major-general in the Con- federate army, and a special envoy to Emperor Max- imilian in Mexico. Children of General and Lydia

D. W. Draper were: I. William Franklin, Jr., born at Hopedale, December 17, 1865. 2. George Otis, see forward. 3. Edith, born in Ilopedale, February 18, 1874, married Montgomery Blair, an attorney of Washington, D. C., son of Postmaster General Blair, of Lincoln's cabinet. 4. Arthur Joy, born at Hopedale, April 28, 1875, earned a lieuten -. ant's commission in the war with Spain during the campaign in Porto Rico. 5. Clare Hill, see forward. Child by second wife: Margaret Preston Draper, March 18, 1891. General Draper's Washington home is at 1705 K street.

(VIII) George Albert Draper, son of George Draper (7), was born at Hopedale, Massachusetts, November 4, 1855. His early education up to the age of seventeen years was received in the private schools of his native place, and was supplemented by a two years course in the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology in Boston. From that time to the present Mr. Draper's interests have been solely with the Draper Company. His first year was spent in the office of the company. For two years follow- ing he traveled, selling and setting up machines. He soon became identified with the manufacturing financial affairs of the company, and about ISS7 was appointed treasurer of one of the co-operating bodies-Hopedale Machine Company. In 1896, when the five Draper plants were merged in the Draper Company, George A. Draper was elected treasurer, and placed at the head of the manufacturing and financial department.

Mr .. Draper married, November 6, 1890, Jessie Preston, daughter of General William and Mar- garet (Wickliffe) Preston, of Lexington, Kentucky. Her father won his military title by service in the Confederate army during the civil war. The chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Draper are: Wickliffe Pres- ton, born August 12, 1891; Jessie Preston, born December 25, 1893, died August 12, 1894; Helen Howard, born August 9, 1895.

HON. EBEN S. DRAPER (VIII), son of George Draper (7), was born at Hopedale, Massa- chusetts, June 17, 1858. He is the present lieuten- ant-governor of the Commonwealth. He was edu- cated in the well known Allen school in Newton and in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The years that he spent in his apprenticeship in the cotton mills and machine shop also belong to a very important part of his early education. He began at the bottom and worked with the hands and as one of them for the time being. He had the strength and endurance of the best of them and worked during the long hours then prevailing and asked no favors on account of his future prospects. He learned the business from A to Z and was pro- mnoted from time to time according to his experi- ence and usefulness. He was admitted to the firm of George Draper & Sons in 1880, and when the firm became the Draper Company, in 1896, was made selling agent of the establishment. Much of his time since has been spent at the Boston of- fices of the Draper Company. He is a prominent figure in the financial affairs of New England. Be- sides his enormous interests at Hopedale as officer of the various Draper concerns, Governor Draper is a director of the Boston & Albany Railroad Com- pany, the Old Colony Trust Company, the New England Cotton Yarn Company, the Queen City Cotton Company, of Burlington, Vermont, and of the Milford National Bank.

He is a member of the Corporation of the Mas- sachusetts Institute of Technology, of which he is an alumnus, a member of the board of trustees of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital Fund, and one of

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the managers of the Milford Hospital, which was built by he and his wife and given to the town.

The main interests of Mr. Draper, of course, have been in Hopedale. It has been one of his ambitions to make Hopedale the model for all other manufacturing villages, and he has co-operated with all the interests of his family and business asso- ciates to this end. While perhaps others deserve as much credit for the admirable conditions brought about in the charming village where the Draper plant is located, none took more satisfaction than he in the recent award of the St. Louis Exposi- tion pronouncing Hopedale the prize village in its class in the United States, and that means, of course, in the world. The streets are well laid out and in perfect order, the dwelling houses are well planned, artistic, even the cheapest of them, and the village is clean, neat, attractive and in many ways beautiful, impossible as that used to appear in a factory town. The Draper plant itself sets the example in good order, cleanliness and picturesqueness.

Governor Draper has been interested in politics from his early youth. He has been associated with the political interests of his father and General Draper, and active in support of the Republican poli- cies, especially of protection to American industries, for the past twenty-five years. He served as mem- ber of the Republican state committee and was chairman in 1892. He was chairman of the Massa- chusetts delegation to the Republican national con- vention in 1896, and gave efficient help in securing the adoption of the gold standard plank in the plat- form upon which Mckinley was elected. He was chairman of the Massachusetts delegation to the Nashville (Tennessee) Exposition of 1897. He has been an active and influential member and officer of the Home Market Club of Boston, was president of the Republican Club of Massachusetts for two years, and member of the club from its organization, member of the Norfolk Club, the Middlesex Club and the Massachusetts Club. He was a Republican elector for the state of Massachusetts, chosen in 1900, and voted for the second election of Mc- Kinley.

He was elected lieutenant-governor of the Com- monwealth in November, 1905, after one of the closest and most memorable campaigns of recent years. Everything that money could do was done by a strong and seasoned opponent to defeat him. The issue of tariff revision was made prominent. As a well-known political journal expressed it: "In the face of time-servers, in the face of temporizers, Mr. Draper had the courage to stand up and declare his own opinions with perfect candor on the mat- ters of Canadian reciprocity and tariff adjustment. It was the most courageous thing of a warm cam- paign and it promises to remain a standard for some time. The declaration was not one which was forced out of him either. He was not a cornered man, for indeed the public expectation had already been made up in anticipation of a comfortable at- titude on the part of Mr. Draper, but he stepped up to the mark of his own free-will, and set the pace he desired to follow. *

* * The family history and fortunes of the Drapers have been founded on the protective principle, and thousands of employees whom they have gathered about them in Hopedale, which has been styled the prettiest manufacturing town in the state, have grown to have the same general view of the economic situation. Yet the wise ones, as they were willing to be styled, who were sizing up the situation, remarked confidently that, for all this, when the time came Eben S.

Draper would be found ready to swallow the reci- procity program. * He declared against the * * general idea of Canadian reciprocity by treaty as an impossibility, something which he believed could never bring about tangible results. He also spoke on tariff adjustment, but while declaring himself a protectionist from the bottom of his heart, he said that he was not one who held that tariff sched- ules were sacred and he was perfectly willing to trust the whole matter to Congress." General Draper on the floor of the convention made his position clear. He opposed any change of the tariff, believ- ing in letting well enough alone. If the licutenant- governor repeats his success at the polls he will be, under the time-honored custom of Massachusetts, the next governor. In the old Cammonwealth the people believe in trying a candidate for governor first in the position of lieutenant-governor, and they come to know him pretty well before he is honored with the position of chief magistrate. Although Governor Draper was too young to be in the civil war, his services during the Spanish war should be mentioned here. He was one of those who ap- preciated that the government needed the prompt and liberal assistance of all citizens in preparing for the war that found the country so unprepared for it. He was the leading spirit and president of the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Association and not the least of his tasks in that position was rais- ing $200,000 for the hospital ship "Bay State." The other good works accomplished by that organization have been often commended by the soldiers in the field. He was in 1898 in much the same position that his father held in 1861 in Massachusetts. A writer who knows Governor Draper well recently expressed his estimate of his character thus: "Eben S. Draper has always had money in his family, but to his credit it can be said that he has helped to- make it. If today, by any sudden stroke of fate, it should come about that all his family possesses should be swept away, he has the training so that he could go into the world and make a new fortune for himself. * *

* He is regarded as the best type of New England manufacturer, polished by education, travel and excursions in the fields of politics-a man to do honor to the state in every capacity."

Eben S. Draper married, November 21, 1883, Nannie Bristow, daughter of General Bristow, of Kentucky. He served in President Grant's cabi-' net as secretary of the treasury. By his marriage the following children were born: Benjamin H. Bristow, born February 28, 1885; Dorothy, born November 22, 1890; Eben S., Jr., born August 30, 1893.

(IX) George Otis Draper, son of General Will- iam F. Draper (8), was born in Hopedale, Massa- chusetts, July 14, 1867. He was educated in the public schools of Hopedale and Milford. the Allen School of West Newton, and the Massachusetts In- stitute of Technology. While at the Institute he held high official positions in connection with the various student organizations. He was a member of the Theta Xi fraternity. In his senior year he won a medal for a tariff essay in a national students' competition. Since leaving he has been constantly interested in the welfare of his alma mater, being on the council of the Technology Club and a mem- ber of the M. I. T. Alumni Association.

After a year and a half of preliminary work in various departments at Hopedale, he purchased a small interest in the firm of George Draper & Sons, largely with borrowed capital. Eight years later he bought out his elder brother's interest, becom-

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ing a full partner. In twenty years' connection with the Hopedale industries, he has taken out one hin- dred patents, and had practical charge of General Draper's business departments during the frequent and prolonged absences of the latter while serving as congressman and ambassador, etc. Mr. Draper is a standard authority on the textile industry, hav- ing published works with editions of 8,000 to 12,000 each, that are in use by cotton manufacturing estab- Iishments, textile schools, etc. He has lectured be- fore many scientific societies, and has made constant contributions to technical journals. His knowledge of the patent art as affecting cotton machinery in- ventions is possibly unequalled, as he has person- ally classified all the patents in the art and had constant touch with the development of cotton ma- chinery inventions. His business career has been particularly varied, as he has had official connection with twenty corporations. in twelve of which he served as president or vice-president. They have included the manufacture of various kinds of ma- chinery, various groups of textiles, also mining, quarrying and contracting. Some of the largest public buildings in our greater cities have been built by contracts backed personally by him. Mr. Draper is a member of the committee on patents and inven- tions of the National Manufacturers' Association and of the American Inventors' Association. He is on the welfare committee of the National Civic Federation, and on the board of government of the National Cotton Manufacturers' Association; he is also an active member of the American Cotton Manufacturers' Association.

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Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. III, Part 2

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 772

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 772