TORRINGTON — Many people do not know about Torrington’s connection to guitar history, according to the Torrington Historical Society.
The first guitar factory in the United States was located in Torrington and will be the subject of a free virtual program hosted by the society at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 1 by the Torrington Historical Society.
“James Ashborn and America’s First Guitar Factory; How a Waterwheel on the East Branch of the Naugatuck River Changed History” will be presented by David Gansz, the foremost authority on James Ashborn, according to Mark McEachern, executive director.
Musician Guy Wolff, a researcher of Ashborn and his guitars, is also a presenter on this program.
According to McEachern, Ashborn was a guitar, banjo, and string manufacturer who established America’s first guitar factory in Torrington where, between 1842 and 1864, he produced approximately 12,000 instruments—triple that of his closest competitor, and at half the price.
The program will describe how Ashborn emigrated from England, worked for a New York retailer, and became associated with Asa Hopkin’s woodwind factory on the Naugatuck River at Fluteville, near Litchfield, before opening his own waterwheel-powered guitar production facility from which 7-10 specialized workers built and shipped his instruments to New York using the newly constructed Naugatuck Railroad.
Ashborn’s achievements will be shown against the backdrop of the industrial revolution, romanticism of all things Spanish in American culture, the advent of the guitar as a ‘parlor’ instrument for women, and minstrelsy as an emerging popular music fad. The presentation will conclude with Guy Wolff playing some pieces on an Ashborn guitar, McEachern said.
The Ashborn factory is gone, but the Torrington Historical Society recently installed an interpretive sign on the site. It is located on Newfield Road near the intersection with Winsted Road.
Gansz is a scholar whose specialty is in the history of the guitar. He has written several articles including three chapters in the book “Inventing the American Guitar: The Pre-Civil War Innovations of C.F. Martin and His Contemporaries.”
An authority on James Ashborn, America’s first guitar maker, he wrote the Ashborn entry in The Grove Dictionary of American Music with Oxford University Pres). He also lectures widely on the topic and is a part-time dealer in rare and antique guitars. Gansz is the director of the National Transportation Library at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, DC.
Wolff is widely known as a potter in the field of traditional New England pottery, and said it was this work that led to his interest in music of the period and eventually, to James Ashborn. He has since researched Ashborn and his musical instruments, and now owns an Ashborn guitar and a reproduction Ashborn banjo.
Registration is required for this program; go to torringtonhistoricalsociety.org or call 860-482-8260.
