ASHBORN

Before the Civil War, one of the largest guitar factories in America was run by James Ashborn in Wolcottville, Connecticut. Born in England, Ashborn began to make guitars in the late 1840, selling to the big New York music publishers Firth, Pond, and Company (later J. Firth Sons) and William Hall and Son, whose labels Ashborn's instruments usually carry. Featuring a robust tone for their size, most were small gut-string parlor guitars with fanbraced spruce tops in a variety of grades, with different woods-(often laminated over spruce) and decoration. Many had special patented wooden spindle peg tuners. |n 1864 Ashborn was elected state senator and ended his guitar-making.