The Ashton Valve company was founded in 1871 by Henry G. Ashton after he invented a “lock up pop safety valve”. The pop valve was a tremendous improvement over what was available at the time and proved to be an immediate success, helping to cut back on the huge amount of boiler explosions that were taking place at the time. I’ve been researching the company for the past 3 years and I have a good collection of historical stories and advertisements about the company and it’s products. I hope you enjoy this bit of history and please contact me if you have any Ashton Valve stories to share.
Note that over on RyPN he’s linked to a LARGE number of interesting historical files, catalogs, and other stuff in the process of researching the Ashton company itself…
Thanks for that Overmod. I had the same idea in mind for here. I don’t know how much overlap there is between all the different RR forums. I assumed different people posted on different forums, but I really don’t know. People seem to be interested in the Ashton Valve story even though it’s different than the usual subject matter found on Train forums.
The company’s first “home” was at 138 Pearls Street, Boston. In less than a year they were burned out by the Great Boston fire of 1872. The next few years they were at various locations in Boston. After another fire in 1879 they settled in at 271 Franklin Street, Boston where they remained for 27 years. 1907 saw the company outgrowing Franklin Street and building a much larger facility at 161 First Street, East Cambridge, where they were until 1948 when they moves to Wrentham ,Ma with the Crosby Valve Company. That was the final home of Ashton Valve.
In 1892, the company purchased the Boston Steam Gauge Company and entered the gauge business. Today, the Ashton gauges are remembered more than the safety valves. They are often very expensive on ebay.
Many factories were purchased by the War Department during WWII and used to manufactures materials for the war effort. The Ashton Valve company was one of those. The continued to make gauges and safety valves, but now exclusively for Naval ships.
The Defense Plant Corporation was the branch of the government assigned to this task. Here’s a link to more information about them and a couple of letters that show the Ashton Valve’s involvement.
A few key people in the Ashton Valve story.
Henry Ashton…founder
Albert Ashton…his son
Columbus Dill…salesman and complete character!
Fred Casey …long time employee
J.R. Motherwell…another long term manager
Harry Ashton…also Henry’s son
Here’s the closest thing I have to a picture of Mr Buckelew. The American Marine Engineer journal, 1910. That journal used to have a page of caricatures regularly.
Unlike today’s throw-a-way products, items were built to last years ago. You could replace almost everything on an old safety valve or gauge. I have an Ashton Valve that’s over 100 years old and still works.
