Homes for Sale, Real Estate Agents and Information about
Hopedale, MA
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to be a handy resource for home buyers looking for homes for sale, realtors and
information about
Hopedale, MA.
Here you can find the latest MLS listings even
before they appear in our weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly print publication: Suburban Real
Estate News. You can also search all of the MLS listings for
Hopedale
if you
click here.
Not all homes for sale in Hopedale, MA are listed in MLS. We suggest that you check with the recommended Real Estate Agents serving Hopedale, MA listed here.
We have also included some information about
Hopedale, MA below
that we hope you will find to be helpful.
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Population
5,907 people. (229th in Massachusetts.)
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Hopedale is on the southeastern edge of Worcester County and occupies the
valley of the upper Mill River. Benjamin Albee set up a grist mill on the
Mill River to grind settlers' corn in 1669 in the first recorded
settlement. Until the mid-19th century, the town followed the pattern of
many communities with a combination of agriculture and small industry. But
in 1842, Adin Ballou and his followers, idealists who wanted to combine
biblical individualism with social responsibility and religious liberalism,
purchased 600 acres in what is now downtown Hopedale to establish Fraternal
Community Number One. Thirty houses, chapel and workshops were built on an
architectural plan for the 170 people who joined in the social experiment,
which combined farming with manufacturing, and took strong social stands on
temperance, women's rights and abolition.
Unfortunately, disagreements over how to administer the community ended in
bankruptcy by 1856 and George and Ebenezer Draper, followers of Ballou,
took over the property. The brothers made doors, window sashes and blinds
and ran a printing office, but they discovered early on that their most
profitable business was making textile machinery. By 1880 there were 400
patents held in Hopedale for textile machinery, 800 Draper employees and $1
million in sales. By 1892, with the advent of the Northrop Loom, Draper
became the largest producer of textile machinery in the country. There
were 78,000 Northrop looms sold in 1903 because they used less power and
could be operated by untrained hands (which resulted in the textile
industry abandoning New England and moving south). By World War I, the
majority of the 400,000 looms in the United States had been made by Draper
and the company was selling to China, Russia and Mexico.
The Drapers believed that good houses make good workers and created a model
self-contained company town with one of the best collections of
architecturally significant double houses in the country, built on hills
and in valleys in garden settings which preserved the views. The company
charged low rents, and provided high quality housing, impeccable
maintenance and recreation opportunities. Workers left their handsomely
designed duplex houses to walk to work at Hopedale Machine, or Northrop
Loom, or Hopedale Elastic and left work to play in company parks or stroll
along company streets. In addition, the Drapers donated the high school,
playground and bandstand to the town and built roads, sidewalks, sewage
systems and water and gas lines to service their 250 buildings of worker
housing. Only one strike, in 1913, was ever recorded in Hopedale through
the most turbulent eras of American labor unrest.
The Drapers' secular, paternalistic industrial complex was highly
successful, resulting in an integrated, planned community with innovative
19th and early 20th century employee housing, a central institutional
complex and proprietors' estates, all of which remain essentially intact.
Eastern Massachusetts, bordered by Milford on the northeast, Bellingham on the
east, Mendon on the south and west, and Upton on the northwest. Hopedale is 20
miles southeast of Worcester and 31 miles southwest of Boston.
Narrative compiled by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).
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Today's newest MLS listings
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Commercial
$125,000
0
bedrooms,
0
baths
More Info
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Commercial
$1,500
0
bedrooms,
0
baths
More Info
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Commercial
$7
0
bedrooms,
0
baths
More Info
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Condo
$139,900
3
bedrooms,
1
baths
More Info
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Commercial
$3,250
0
bedrooms,
0
baths
More Info
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Recommended Real Estate Agents serving
Hopedale, MA:
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