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Draper, William Franklin

soldier, manufacturer; congressman, was born April 9, 1842, in Lowell, Mass. He served in the union army during 1861-64, and held commissions as second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, major, and lieutenant colonel, commanding, also as colonel and brigadier-general by brevet. He is manufacturer of cotton machinery and has made and pat- a ented many improvements in such machinery. He was president of the Home Market club in 1891 and 1892; was a delegate to the republican national convention in 1876; was colonel on staff of Governor Long from 1880 to 1883. He was a candidate for governor before the republican state convention of 1888 and chosen presidential elector at large the same year; and was elected to the fifty-third and fifty-fourth congresses as a republican, and declined a re-election. In 1897 he was appointed ambassador to Italy.