the railroad in ashland

Barn or storehouse on freight station (now Bernsen) property: The barn is not on the 1860 county map, but is shown on the 1883 birds eye view. In the 1892 state atlas, it is identified as “Hughes & Brown storage”.  Hughes & Brown was a general store on Main Street. As noted above, the Hughes & Brown storehouse is mentioned as being moved to make way for the new spur in an October 1891 news item. The barn still stands today.   

Sheds on Town garage property: Nothing is shown in this area on the 1883 birdseye view. A May 1891 news item reported that H.H. Shepard had built a storehouse for his own use at the end of the side freight track. Shepard was a lumber manufacturer, who produced clapboards, shingles, boxes, etc. In July 1892, it was reported that D.C. Merrill, a coal dealer had “rebuilt his coal packet” at the station. The 1892 state atlas shows two buildings in this area, one labeled “D.C. Merrill coal shed” on the first spur, the other labeled “H.A. Shepard Storage” at the end of the second spur. In November 1893, it was reported that Geo. Z. Collins & Co., the leather board mill on Collins Street, had built a 50 foot long storehouse on the branch track extension. The 1893 map of the railroad property shows a coal shed on the first spur, and three buildings on the second spur labeled “store house”, “proposed coal shed” and “store house NH Shepard” as well as two rectangles of dashed lines, that may also represent proposed buildings. The 1929 and 1946 fire insurance maps, which only cover part of the area, show three coal sheds. The 1935 aerial photo shows three buildings on the first spur and two on the second spur. The Town bought the property from the railroad in the late 1970s to build the Town Garage, which was completed in 1980. The Town removed some of the railroad era buildings and erected more new buildings of its own. Today, only one railroad era building remains, the clapboarded wooden building with two distinct roofs that stands nearest to Depot Street, which is still known as the coal shed.    

Cattle pen:  The cattle pen was also located on what is now the Town Garage lot, next to the outer siding. It had a fenced in ramp leading up to the siding so that cattle could be loaded onto the cars. Weekly or biweekly cattle trains picked up cattle along the main line. At one time, the cattle train schedule was every Monday.   

Related Private Buildings The Feed and Grain store at the end of Reed Street was partly on the railroad property. Freight cars were unloaded from the inner siding into the rear of the second story. The goods were sold out the front door at the first story on the Reed Street level.  

To the north of Reed Street off Winter Street was the Standard Oil, later Sunoco and still later Mobil, oil tank storage facility on private property. Fuel oil was carried in tank cars and piped into the oil tanks on the property now occupied by Hydrosource and White Mountain Brewing. The pipes for the various oil tanks (kerosene, fuel oil, etc.) started at the spur east of the freight station, according to John Hall.     

Mystery Building:  A building near Union Bridge is labeled “RR Co” in the 1892 state atlas. It was presumably part of the Lyon property purchased by the BC&M RR in 1880. But, how it was used by the railroad is not clear.   

Part 7:  This presentation of The Railroad in Ashland was delivered by David Ruell to the Ashland Historical Society on September 12, 2019 in the Ashland Railroad Station Museum.