View of the greenhouse complex from within the garden, 1867.
From 1805 to 1948, Harvard University operated a botanic garden under the direction of its botany department. In addition to its role in scientific research and education, the garden was open to the public and became a very popular park. Located on seven acres at the corner of Linnaean and Garden streets, the garden featured a greenhouse filled with exotic tropical plants. The structure was one of several buildings organized in a line on the northern, elevated portion of the site, including the professor’s residence, a herbarium, a library, and a lecture room.
1886 Hopkins atlas showing the layout of the botanical garden buildings and walkway circulation. The greenhouse complex is circled in red.
The greenhouse was designed by Ithiel Town who also designed the professor’s residence (now located at 88 Garden Street). Known for his Greek Revival designs, Town also developed a truss system for bridges, which is named after him. The dimensions of the greenhouse are not known. The structure consisted of a semicircular central block with a pitched roof and lower wings that also had pitched roofs. Cold frames were located along the southern foundation, and a toolshed/workshop was located at the north wall. Wooden shutters slid up and down on tracks. Two cisterns inside the greenhouse were filled with water from a nearby spring, and two wood- and coal-burning stoves heated the structure. The greenhouse featured a traveler’s tree of Madagascar (Ravenala madagascariensis), Indian bamboo (Bambusa bosa), an extensive collection of cacti and palm plants, and over 200 orchids.
View of greenhouse to the right, along with library and herbarium situated on a terrace overlooking the botanical garden, 1867.
An article in a publication called The Century Illustrated Monthly from 1886 described the greenhouse complex:
“From the lecture room, you may pass directly into the conservatory, or what is pleasanter, you may walk out around the big hickory on the terrace and enter the rounded front of the central greenhouse, where an ambitious bamboo almost fills the doorway with masses of dark green drooping leaves … . There are several distinct compartments so as to suit the different requirements of the tropical and sub-tropical plants here brought together from all parts of the world. The 1400 species grown insure a goodly supply of blossoms at all seasons of the year, and hundreds of kinds not found in other greenhouses.”
The structure was razed in the late 1940s to make way for a new residential development for Harvard faculty and students, as well as returning military servicemen.
With the establishment of the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain in 1872, research on woody plants was moved to that location. The herbarium collection continues to be maintained by Harvard at a facility at 22 Divinity Avenue. The former herbarium building, now known as Kittredge Hall, is the home of Harvard University Press.
Below are several illustrations of the greenhouse and plants in The Century Monthly Illustrated drawn by Roger Riordan, Harry Fenn, Francis Lathrop, and E. P. Hayden.
Sources:
Ernest Ingersoll, “Harvard’s Botanic Garden and Its Botanists,” The Century Monthly Illustrated, 1886, pp.242-243.
Susan E. Maycock and Charles M. Sullivan, Building Old Cambridge, 2016.
Charles A. Hammond, “The Botanic Garden in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1805-1834,” The Herbarist, Vol. 53, 1987, The Herb Society of America.
Architects’ rendering of new residential development at the corner of Garden and Linnaean streets, 1948.
In 1949, to meet the acute demand for housing, Harvard University constructed new residences for faculty as well as returning WWII servicemen. According to an article in the April 29, 1948 issue of the Cambridge Chronicle, the primary purpose of the new residences was “to reduce the pressure on Harvard faculty and families and on veterans living and working in the community.” Located at the corner of Linnaean and Garden streets, the site had been the University’s botanic garden and herbarium under the direction of the botany department. In addition to its primary role as a scientific collection, the garden had also been a very popular public green space.
View of two-story apartment building and walkway with stone retaining wall, and mature trees.
The planned community consisted of 117 single-family, duplex, and apartment units. The architects, Des Granges and Steffian, integrated their plan with the existing terrain and preserved landscape features where possible. Along the site’s northern boundary, single-family and semi-detached houses adjoined Gray Gardens East, while two-story buildings along Linnaean and Garden streets created a transition to the higher density three-story apartment blocks that occupied the center of the complex. Following old garden paths, two new streets were constructed for the development, both named after past curators of the herbarium, Benjamin Robinson and Merritt Fernald.
Original brochure highlighting typical 2-bedroom apartment layout.
The multi-unit buildings were organized around courtyards incorporating existing mature trees. Due to the sloping site, three-story buildings transition to two stories on the south sides of the courtyards, so they receive ample sunlight even in winter. Mortared stone and concrete retaining walls and concrete steps negotiated levels within the varied topography. Buildings were constructed of red brick with flat roofs, simple squared-off cornices, and casement windows. The main entrances were designed as focal points with flat-roofed canopies below projecting two-story bay windows. More extensive use of glass flanking the entry door and extending up the bay windows was in contrast to the more austere and opaque brick facades.
View of one of the courtyards.View of courtyard with mature multi-stemmed tree and building with altered entrance including added columns and new canopy.
In the 1990s, Blackstone Block Architects was commissioned to renovate the complex including new accessible entrances, signage, outdoor seating, brick sidewalks along Fernald Drive, and new plantings. The residences remain under Harvard University Housing.
View from Fernald Drive.
Sources
Cambridge Chronicle, April 29, 1948.
Building Old Cambridge, Susan E. Maycock and Charles M. Sullivan, 2016.
Happy Torn Down Tuesday! As a follow up to our Modern Monday Instagram post yesterday, today we are featuring the house that once stood at 280 Harvard Street in Mid-Cambridge.
280 Harvard St, ca 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
The February 19th, 1887 edition of the Cambridge Tribune stated that the home was commissioned by Mrs. Caroline Marshall, wife of Boston merchant Moses M. Marshall for their son, Moses Sylvester. The article included a detailed description of the house and it’s building materials:
The house is set slightly back from Harvard Street and the exterior is very handsome; a piazza extends around two sides with a tower at the corner. The brick chimney is outside and is decorated with terra cotta panels. The house is clapboard, with the exception of the tower, which is singled, and the roof is covered with Brownville slate. The windows are of plate glass, while the front door has stained glass. This front door is of cherry, which is the main material used for finish the other outside doors, however, being of pine, with five panels and raised mouldings. From the vestibule one enters a hall measuring 16×9. On the right of this hall is the parlor, finished in cherry, with a large bay window formed by the tower. Back of the parlor is the library, also finished in cherry, from which opens a well arranged conservatory.
Stairway, 280 Harvard St, ca 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
On the left of the ball, through an arch, one enters the reception hall, with stairs, the latter of cherry, with a find landing measuring 11×9. Back of the reception hall is the dining-room, while in the rear of the house are the kitchen and pantries. A pleasing feature of this house is that almost every room in it contains a bay window. On the second floor are five chambers, bath-rooms, cedar closer for furs, and on the third story two chambers, a store-room and large billiard room, measuring 32×23. The house will be tastefully furnished and will have elaborate mantels.
Mantelpiece, 280 Harvard St, ca 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
It will be completed about the end of March. The architect is Mr. G. J. Williams of Boston, and the builders, Messrs. Mead, Mason & Co. of Boston.
280 Harvard was the first residence in Cambridge designed by architect. G.J. Williams. This was one of Williams’s only single-family projects in the city, and is more stylized compared to his simpler multiple-occupancy dwellings at 86-88 Webster Ave or 62-68 Plymouth Street, designed the same year as 280 Harvard. However, the house’s design was echoed in others built in the following years on Harvard Street, such as those at 284 and 298.
284 Harvard St, ca. 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)298 Harvard St, ca. 1895
According to a piece highlighting Boston markets and their proprietors, Moses S. Marshall began working for his father’s meat market in 1878 at age 18 and by 1893 was a senior member of the firm. The company, Marshall and Taylor, operated from 28 North Faneuil Hall Market in Boston.
Faneuil Hall, ca. 1860s (Boston Pictorial Archive, Boston Public Library)
Moses S. Married Grace Clark on June 18, 1884 and the couple had a daughter, Dorothy Frances, on February 8, 1889. The family attended the Austin Street Unitarian Church (demolished in 1949), and Mrs. Marshall held church sewing meetings at the family residence. After a long illness, Grace Marshall died June 26, 1903 at 42 years old. Moses Sylvester Marshall died of a cerebral hemorrhage on October 24, 1909, at 49 years old. Caroline Marshall became head of the family after the death of her son, and continued to live at 280 Harvard Street with her daughter, Ella Stimson, and three granddaughters, including Dorothy.
Detail, 1888 Sanborn Atlas (mapjunction.com)
The house was later occupied by Suffragette Mabel A. Jones, and for many years was home to members of the Manning family. The house continued as a single-occupant dwelling, and for decades saw many residents come and go. The house was demolished in 1971 to make way for the 18-story apartment building that stands a 280 Harvard Street today. For more information on the current building, see our Instagram post from Monday, April 20th.
It is hard to name an architecture style more identifiable with Harvard than the Georgian style. The oldest extant buildings in Harvard Yard include Massachusetts Hall (1720), the Wadsworth House (1726) and Holden Chapel (1744), just some of a larger group of Georgian buildings constructed before the American Revolution. The Georgian style is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, George III, and George IV—who reigned in continuous succession from 1714 to 1830. It is in this time that Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, created its now iconic architectural identity. By the 19th century, other buildings in various styles were designed in the Yard, from University Hall (1815) in the Federal style, to Matthews Hall (1872) a Victorian Gothic dormitory, to Sever Hall (1880) one of the greatest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the world; Harvard would later return to the Colonial-era Georgian style. Two great and lesser-known examples are Lionel Hall and Mower Hall.
1930 Bromley map showing recently completed Lionel and Mower Halls enclosing the two small quadrangles.
Current aerial of Lionel (yellow) and Mower (blue) Halls, facing west. Holden Chapel at center.
Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard University President (1909-1933) is responsible for the wide-scale revival of the Georgian style at Harvard through his massive building programs for the Harvard River Houses, dormitories in the Yard, and the new President’s House. Two of the smallest being Lionel Hall and Mower Hall.
Circa 1925 image of Mower (left) and Lionel (right) Halls during construction from Peabody Street. Courtesy of Harvard Property Information Resource Center.Plans of Lionel Hall (identical to Mower Hall) published in Architectural Forum, Dec. 1925.
Lionel and Mower Halls were built in 1925 in the Georgian Revival style and sited to frame the Holden Chapel and enclose the western edge of the Yard. Appropriately nicknamed “The Holden Twins”, the two dormitory buildings were designed by the firm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, who went on to design many later buildings for Harvard, including the River Houses (both the Georgian style and later Modern Houses). Both Lionel and Mower Halls were funded by a building campaign by President Lowell to expand the university and house additional students. They are constructed of red brick with stone trim. Both buildings are near-identical and rise 2 1/2 stories into a gambrel roof. Symmetrical facades and stone entries with fluted pilasters capped with Corinthian capitals over rusticated stone complete the Georgian Revival motif.
Lionel Hall quadrangle facade. Photo by Ralph Lieberman (2012).Lionel Hall entry detail. Photo by Ralph Lieberman (2012).
Lionel Hall is named after Lionel de Jersey Harvard (class of 1915), an English descendent of John Harvard who was killed in World War I in France. Lionel was the first known relative of John Harvard to attend his namesake’s University. He descended from Thomas Harvard (1609–1637), brother of Harvard University founder John Harvard (1607–1638), who had died childless. Lionel Harvard in 1918 served as Commander of Number One Company, in the British Army and died from mortar fire in March of 1918, during the German Spring Offensive, leaving behind a widow and infant son.
Undated photo of Lionel de Jersey Harvard, Creative Commons.
Mower Hall is named in honor of Thomas G. Mower, by a gift valued over $18,000 from Miss Sarah E. Mower as a memorial to her late father. Thomas Gardner Mower (1790-1853) graduated from Harvard College in 1810 and immediately began to study medicine, later enlisting in the army as a surgeon in the War of 1812. After the war, Mower settled in New York and became a head Surgeon and examiner for the US Army until his death.
While these two modest dormitories do not stand out for their size nor architectural grandeur among the iconic buildings in Harvard Yard, they together showcase how proper design, massing and siting can truly enhance the character of an area without diminishing the significance of nearby buildings.
This week is National Wildlife Week, a time to celebrate our nation’s incredible wildlife. According to their website, “the National Wildlife Federation is working to show how connecting with wildlife and the outdoors can help children and adults thrive during these unprecedented times.”
In honor of this week, we are featuring a special place in Cambridge to observe local wildlife and nature, the Alewife Brook Reservation. In addition to providing information on the history of Cambridge’s built environment, the CHC also collects historical information on Cambridge’s natural environment and landscape, and the City’s various land revitalization projects over the years.
Alewife Brook near Concord Avenue, 1904.“The Fish Book.” Alewife Revitalization Study, 1979, Cambridge Community Development Department.
The Alewife Brook Reservation is a unique natural resource consisting of 160 acres of protected wetlands, woods, and meadows. A Massachusetts state park, it is “home to hundreds of species, including hawks, coyotes, beavers, snapping turtles, wild turkeys and muskrats,” as well as birds like osprey and Great Blue Heron. The park’s ponds, Little Pond, Perch Pond, and Blair Pond, are also spawning grounds for anadromous herring.
Great Blue Heron eating tadpole, Fresh Pond. Photo credit: Amanda Hodges.
The surrounding area of Fresh Pond and its natural watershed were formed by melting glacial ice and underground springs. Alewife Brook, historically known as the Menotomy River, is situated in what was the traditional territory of the Massachusett people and served as a gathering place for other groups. Native Americans came to the Pond and nearby area for fresh water; they constructed fish weirs along Alewife Brook, which traversed what was called the “Great Swamp” (also called the Great Marsh) to the north of Fresh Pond; and they hunted in the area’s marshes and uplands. Alewife Brook was given its name after the abundance of alewife fish that returned from the Atlantic each spring, swimming up the Mystic River into the Brook to spawn.
Swamp and maple woods near claypits, 1890-1891. Source: Henry L. Rand Collection, Southwest Harbor Public Library, Maine. Copied 12/92.
Fresh Pond Marshes about 1866. William Brewster, Birds of the Cambridge Region, 1906. Source: “Finding Alewife” slideshow by Charles M. Sullivan.
As industrialization in Cambridge grew, the surrounding area was used for claypits and ice harvesting at Fresh Pond. Marshes and wetlands were filled in to make room for new development.
Clay pit, Alewife Brook (M.D.C.), 1904.
In the early 1900s, landscape architect Charles Eliot planned for a reservation in conjunction with the Alewife Brook Parkway, forming part of the Metropolitan Park District. Eliot hoped to connect the Mystic River with Fresh Pond, creating parks along the watershed system. The Alewife Brook was straightened and channelized next to the parkway between 1909-1912 along with road construction, and landscaping was by the Olmsted Brothers firm.
Fresh Pond Drive, ca. 1905. Source: Detroit Pub. Co., Library of Congress.
Today, the Alewife Brook Reservation is a popular spot for people to walk, bike, nature watch/bird watch, and relax, while the Friends of Alewife Reservation work to protect the area. A 2011 project by the City of Cambridge constructed a 3.4-acre storm water management wetland, which also created habitats such as deep marsh and riparian forest.
Source: Friends of Alewife Reservation.
The CHC has many images – paintings, drawings, photographs and maps – of the Alewife area spanning several decades, as well as reports written in the 1970s and 1980s regarding Alewife’s revitalization. Once City offices are again open to the public, make an appointment with us to see these resources.
Fresh Pond Marshes looking southwest, 1904.Fresh Pond, ca. 1949-1950, Anthony Cabral. Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection.
For a more in-depth history of the Alewife area, especially during the 19th century, we recommend: The Great Swamp of Arlington, Belmont and Cambridge – An Historic Perspective of its Development 1630-2001 by Sheila Cook (2002) and Fresh Pond: The History of a Cambridge Landscape by Jill Sinclair (2009), a small part of which is available on Google Books. For a visual history of Alewife and the Fresh Pond area, see Charles M. Sullivan’s slideshow, “Finding Alewife” (2014).
Cows Near Fresh Pond, September 12, 1891, Henry Lathrop Rand, Henry L. Rand Collection, Southwest Harbor Public Library.
April is World Landscape Architecture Month and we’re celebrating by featuring renowned landscape architect and former Cambridge resident Carol R. Johnson.
Carol R. Johnson was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on September 6, 1929. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother, a school principal. From them she inherited a love of the outdoors and was shaped by the landscape experiences of her childhood spent in Vermont and Martha’s Vineyard. She first experienced the idea of a designed landscape as a student at Wellesley College, where Frederick Law Olmsted had applied his campus planning concept of building on the hills and leaving the valley open. She graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She then went to work for a commercial nursery in Bedford, Massachusetts. While there, she met students in the landscape architecture program at Harvard. With their encouragement, she decided to pursue a career in landscape architecture.
Johnson earned her degree from Harvard in 1957, and in 1958 she was one of the first landscape architects to be hired by The Architects Collaborative (TAC), the renowned architectural practice founded by Walter Gropius. She left TAC after only one year to start her own practice, taking advantage of projects offered to her through her Wellesley and Harvard contacts. At first, her office worked on mostly suburban private gardens, but Johnson soon had opportunities to expand her projects, such as the landscape of the U.S. Pavilion at Montreal’s Expo ’67, where she collaborated with Buckminster Fuller and Cambridge Seven Associates.
Johnson initially managed her practice out of her apartment in Cambridge and then a small office at 15 Mount Auburn Street in Harvard Square. As the practice expanded, she moved to larger offices in 1986 at 1100 Mass Ave. The firm, known as Carol R. Johnson & Associates, or CRJA, worked on a range of public and private projects including the planning and design of urban spaces, campuses, industrial sites, and waterfronts into popular parks and public spaces. Through the years, the firm developed a national and international clientele with multiple projects in Abu Dhabi, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In 2001, the firm relocated to Boston where it purchased and renovated a former molasses warehouse in Boston’s financial district. The firm also established a studio in Knoxville, Tennessee responding to growth in the southeast and mid-Atlantic region. In 2011, CRJA was acquired by the IBI Group of Firms. Johnson became a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1982, and in 1998 she received the ASLA Medal. Johnson officially retired in June 2016.
Projects in Cambridge
Specific projects in Cambridge include Lechmere Canal Park and John F. Kennedy Memorial Fountain and Park, as well as her own home on Brown Street.
Site plan for Lechmere Canal Park
View of Lechmere Canal Park circular basin with fountain jetView of Lechmere Canal Park basin and Cambridgeside Galleria
Built in 1895, the Lechmere Canal functioned as an active seaport until the Charles River Dam Bridge cut off access in 1910, and the canal fell into disuse. In 1978, the City adopted the East Cambridge Riverfront plan to revitalize the neighborhood with commercial and residential development. Johnson’s firm was hired to create a 7.5-acre linear park which wraps both sides of the canal and connects with the Charles River walkway. The canal was edged with sunken gravel paths and bermed lawn panels, maximizing green space along its length. Weeping willows, sycamores, and red maples were planted at regular intervals alongside evergreen shrubs, ornamental grasses, and groundcovers. The canal terminates at a circular basin with a tall jet fountain at its center. This area has a secondary circulation network composed of a raised brick path which provides direct access to the surrounding buildings. The seawall at the basin offers docking for light watercraft, and a small stepped amphitheater and open air pavilion serve as orienting focal elements. Intended as a shady place to sit, the pavilion also incorporated plexiglass panels that interpret the industrial history of the canal. The project also established urban design guidelines for private developers whose buildings edge the basin and canal.
Bird’s eye view of John F. Kennedy Park and fountain
View of JFK memorial fountain with quotes from Kennedy’s speeches inscribed in the stone (wikimedia)
Completed in 1987, John F. Kennedy Park is a passive recreational greenspace with several walkways located at the corner of Memorial Drive and JFK Street. At each gateway to the park, entrance pillars display text from the speeches of John F. Kennedy. At the center of the park and on axis with a pedestrian link to Harvard Square, a water feature is surrounded by a wall with additional inscriptions of Kennedy’s speeches. The cascading water over the text was inspired by Johnson’s hikes in New Hampshire where she saw streams coursing over rocks. Varieties of trees native to Massachusetts and flowering trees which bloom around the time of Kennedy’s birthday were planted in clumps throughout the park. Because of the site’s relationship to the curving Charles River across the street, visitors can enjoy expansive views to the south and west. The park was dedicated as the Commonwealth’s official memorial to Kennedy on May 29, 1987, which would have been Kennedy’s 70th birthday.
View of John F. Kennedy Park (wikimedia)View of picnic table and pergola and vegetable plot to the left in Johnson’s own garden (David L. Ryan, June 2000)
In her former home at 14 Brown Street, an 1928 Colonial Revival, Johnson created a garden out of a limited area. A garage was constructed in front of the house to one side creating a private space for outdoor dining in the rear with a picnic table under a pergola covered with grapevines. Johnson also extended an existing berm out from the house almost to the front sidewalk, elevating the front yard 4 and a half feet above street level, creating a forecourt to the house with a lawn edged with perennials. The house was accessed by a walkway alongside the base of the berm. The roof of the garage was designed as another outdoor space used for entertaining as well as a place to read and enjoy the view. Adjacent to the pergola, Johnson also enjoyed tending a vegetable plot surrounded by a low hedge of boxwood.
Today’s post was written by guest author Rick Ashton and tells the story of the Ashton Valve Company, formerly located at 161 First Street, East Cambridge.
The sound of a steam train whistle in the distance can stir your imagination. The Ashton Valve Company offered locomotive whistles in sizes up to 48″ tall. The beautiful brass gauges in the cab of a locomotive and the safety valves on the engine also could have been manufactured by Ashton Valve. For over 100 years the company was one of the leading manufacturers of railroad-related items.
One Ashton item was an innovation that saved lives. How? If the engine’s boiler happened to build up too much pressure, the Ashton “Pop” Safety Valve would activate or “pop” and let the excess steam blow off, preventing a possible boiler explosion. We have Henry G. Ashton to thank for that life-saving invention.
Henry G. Ashton was born in Norfolk, England in 1846 (Editor’s note: Henry G. Ashton is the great-great-grandfather of this post’s guest author, Rick Ashton). He attended public schools and took courses in mechanical engineering. In 1869 he arrived in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife Emma and infant son, Albert. He was first employed by the Hinkley Locomotive Works. In 1871 he invented his Lock-up “Pop” Safety Valve. It was the first effective safety valve to actually work and was an immediate success. He formed the Ashton’s Lock Safety Valve Company (Ashton Valve Company) and set up shop on Pearl Street in Boston with three other employees. In 1872 the company secured a contract with the United States Navy for safety valves, a contract they held for 76 years.
Henry G. Ashton. Courtesy Rick Ashton.
The Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed the Pearl Street building, but the company persevered and by 1879 they relocated to 271 Franklin Street, a building they would occupy for 27 years. The building was four stories tall and business was so strong that in 1900 a fifth floor was added to keep up with the demand. In 1892 they purchased the Boston Steam Gauge company and began manufacturing steam gauges, a perfect compliment to the various steam related valves they were producing. The gauges were manufactured with the same assurance of quality as the valves were.
After 24 years of managing the company, Henry Ashton, the company founder, died in 1895. His son Albert, who had attended engineering classes at MIT, took over many of the management responsibilities and ran the company for the next 27 years.
Ashton Valve outgrew the Franklin Street building and in 1907 they built a new facility at 161 First Street in East Cambridge. The building was 45,000 square feet and was built at a cost of $67,000. That’s $1,797,000 in 2018 dollars. A completely modern building, it had electricity on all floors and modern bathroom facilities. The building still stands today with the Ashton Valve name carved in granite over the front entrance.
Credit: Cambridge Sentinel, 1921.
161 First Street today. Credit: Google Maps.
By 1907 the company had sales offices all over the world. Ashton products were internationally known for their quality. As their advertisements stated, “higher in first cost but cheapest in the end.” The 1920’s and 1930’s were the peak years and the company employed up to 300 people. Their profits often were in the millions (in today’s dollars).
Ashton’s Railroad Division had been the backbone of the company since its inception in 1871 and was run as a separate entity until the 1950’s. They produced separate catalogs for the valves, whistles, and gauges used on trains. Some of the Ashton products produced for the train industry included: locomotive mufflers and open pop safety valves, steam gauges including the Ashton-Lane-Bourdon locomotive gauge, double spring steam locomotive gauges, duplex steam and heat gauges, air brake gauges, protected dial pressure gauges, air brake recording gauges, wheel press recording gauges, locomotive steam whistles and whistle valves.
Ashton Valve pressure gauge, ca. 1923-1924. CHC Objects Collection. Photographed by John Dalterio.
With the advent of diesel locomotives, electricity, and gas engines, sales started to drop off in the late 1940’s. The peak years were over. In 1948 Ashton merged with the Crosby Valve and Gauge Company, but kept the Ashton name alive until sometime in the early 2000’s. Today one is liable to see the Ashton Valve name on gauges sold on eBay to collectors, and they demand a high price.
The next time you hear a train whistle in the distance, think of the Ashton Valve company – it could be an Ashton whistle!
