Ira Draper was born on December 24, 1764 in Dedham, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Abijah and Alice (Eaton) Draper. Abijah, descendant of James Draper, who settled at Roxbury, Massachusetts, about 1649, was a farmer and a soldier. He had held every office in the militia up to that of major, in which capacity he commanded Minute Men under Washington at Roxbury.
Abijah Draper was very well-to-do for the period, and afforded Ira a good education, though it was mostly in the nature of personal instruction from the family and employed tutors.
Ira remained at Green Lodge, Dedham, the family home, helping his father in the management of the estate. At his father’s death he inherited Green Lodge.
He began to dabble with mechanical improvement along with his farming, and in this connection constructed a threshing machine and a road scraper.
The threshing machine, though one of the first in the country and apparently practicable, did not contribute to later development of the machine.
Finding invention more interesting than farming, Draper turned to textile-manufacturing machinery as a field affording considerable opportunity for improvement.
He made several minor improvements on looms, among them a “fly shuttle” attachment and a jaw temple. He then conceived and constructed the first rotary temple, the invention which has made his name remembered. The loom temple is a device for keeping cloth spread to its proper width, with the warp threads taut and parallel, to minimize the chafing of the selvage. The old form was a telescoping stick with points at the ends to catch the selvage at either side.
It had to be adjusted in length for the width of cloth and the weaver had, from time to time, to move it forward as the cloth was woven.
The rotary temple patented by Ira Draper in 1816 was the first practical self-acting temple. In this the cloth was held by a horizontal wheel having a row of teeth set obliquely to its axis. This had the effect of doubling the capacity of the operative by allowing one weaver to attend two looms. The device was improved by a spring mounting in 1829, and in 1840 George Draper, the son of Ira, added another row of teeth to prevent it from marking the cloth. The rotary temple was immediately and almost universally adopted and formed the basis of a profitable and lasting business.
By continually improving their temple and purchasing the rights of other inventors the successive Draper descendants built up the Draper Company into the largest temple manufacturer of the world.
In 1907 they supplied practically all of the loom temples used in the United States.
Ira Draper continued his connection with the business until he was well along in years, when he turned it over to his sons.
In his twenty-second year, on May 31, 1786 Draper married Lydia Richards of Dedham. In 1811 his first wife died and on March 9, 1812, he married her sister Abigail (“Nabby”) Richards. He had, by both wives, sixteen children.
