Lombard Governor
If you ask the locals what Ashland is most famous for they would probably say the electric clock. Henry E. Warren developed a method to regulate the frequency at which electrical current is generated by the power companies overcoming the biggest obstacle to general acceptance of his electric clock. But there was another regulator of sorts manufactured here in Ashland that didn’t have quite the notoriety. It was the Lombard Governor.
As we have visited before, waterways were an essential resource for the operation of mills, and more recently in our history the generation of electrical power. Similar to Henry Warren’s dilemma with un-regulated AC, water power was subject to surges called ‘racing’ or ‘hunting’. In1894, Nathaniel Lombard developed the first practical water wheel governor in Roxbury, Mass. Lombard’s design incorporated hydraulics and a unique anti-racing device to move the gates of the largest turbines multiple times faster than any existing device. The result was a tremendous improvement in the speed regulation of the turbine while generating electric power.
No surprise, the business grew rapidly and Lombard, along with Allen Garratt, Irving Dodge, and a bright young engineer from MIT named Henry E. Warren ensured their continuous success. But, as with any growing company, they needed to expand to a larger location. During this period Lombard himself had ‘terminated his association with the company’ according to “A Report to the Nation” (a publication by the Lombard Governor Corp. in 1943) and Henry Warren is largely credited with the move to Ashland. With the company now owned by the Shepard interests of New Haven NY, Warren and his team began the search for a new location which required room for expansion as well as a source of water power to develop and test new governor designs. The year is now 1904, and it so happened that the Dwight Printing Co. facility on Main St. in Ashland was available. A great ‘Story of Ashland’ itself, Dwight Printing Co. never completed their mill complex because they wanted to dump their waste into the Sudbury River. At the time, the Boston Water Works was considering the Sudbury as a potential water source effectively canceling any plans for Dwight to contaminate it. As it turns out, it was of little consequence thanks to Nyanza, but we are grateful anyway.
Business boomed for Lombard Governor. Nathaniel’s governor was continuously improved and became the equipment of choice for most of the major power generating communities in the United States and foreign countries as well.
The first World War changed the scope of the company, however. Already known for their superiority in machining techniques, Lombard Governor produced hydraulic lathes for the manufacture of artillery shells, and special valves for the US government’s Muscle Shoals nitrogen plant. Shortly after the end of the war, Henry Warren left the company to concentrate on the manufacture of the electric clock by his new company, the Warren Telechron Co.
In the absence of Henry Warren, Lombard Governor had a series of ownership changes. Along with those changes was a management decision to shift from the design of governors to the manufacture of diesel engines. The move was costly though. Lombard Governor lost their competitive edge in the field of hydraulic governors. About that time, the company’s owner, C. Sidney Shepard, passed away leaving control of the company to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign and Home Missions. The organization decided to divest itself of the company and eventually transferred interests to Henry Warren, who became President. Warren re-focused the company back to their founding purpose, the design and manufacture of governors, but another important period was just beginning. It was 1940, and Lombard Governor began tooling up for the war effort. Again, known for their machining excellence, Lombard produced a large range of precision parts and machinery for the war.
At the conclusion of the war, Lombard expanded into the areas of chain saws, plastic molding injection machines, and even a motor scooter called the ‘Centaur’ that folded up and could be placed in the trunk of your car!
So what happened to the Lombard Governor Corporation? In 1962, the company changed its name to Lombard Industries to “reflect the wider scope of the company” and now focused on chain saws, plastic molding machines, and contract machine services. Later, in 1964, Lombard Industries was acquired by American Lincoln Corporation and the operation was moved to Toledo, Ohio. Very little of the original Lombard Governor remains visible today, and the factory on Main St. is now home to a variety of small businesses. There was even talk some years ago that the facility would be a good place to house Town Offices.There is one thing of interest that remains. If you look at the corner of the lot closest to the intersection of Main and Myrtle St you will see a generator that is no longer in use. It was powered by water provided via a sluiceway from the Mill Pond. The sluiceway is no longer functional or even visible today, and now serves as a walkway to the pond.
Steve Leacu for Ashland Directions