ASHLAND, a borough of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about 50 m. N.E. of Harrisburg and about 100 m. N.W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 7346; (1900) 6438 (969 foreign-born); (1910) 6855. It is served by the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading railways, and by the electric lines of the Schuylkill Railway Company and the Shamokin & Mount Carmel Transit Company. The borough is built on the slope of Locust Mountain, about 885 ft. above sea-level. Its chief industry is the mining of anthracite coal at several collieries in the vicinity; and at Fountain Springs, 1 m. south-east, is a state hospital for injured persons of the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania, opened in 1883. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks. Ashland was laid out as a town in 1847, and was named in honour of Henry Clay’s home at Lexington, Ky.; in 1857 it was incorporated.
ASHLAND, a village of Hanover county, Virginia, U.S.A., 17 m. N.W. of Richmond. Pop. (1900) 1147; (1910) 1324. It is served by the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac railway, and is a favourite resort from Richmond. Here is situated the Randolph-Macon College (Methodist Episcopal, South), one of the oldest Methodist Episcopal colleges in the United States. In 1832, two years after receiving its charter, it opened near Boydton, Mecklenburg county, Virginia, and in 1868 was removed to Ashland. The college in 1907-1908 had 150 students and a faculty of 16; it publishes an endowed historical series called The John P. Branch Historical Papers of Randolph-Macon College; and it is a part of the “Randolph-Macon System of Colleges and Academies,” which includes, besides, Randolph-Macon Academy (1890) at Bedford City, Virginia, and Randolph-Macon Academy (1892) at Front Royal, Virginia, both for boys; Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (1893) at Lynchburg, Virginia, which in 1907-1908 had an enrolment of 390; and Randolph-Macon Institute, for girls, Danville, Virginia, which was admitted into the “System” in 1897. These five institutions are under the control of a single board of trustees; the work of the preparatory schools is thus correlated with that of the colleges. About 7 m. out of Ashland is the birthplace of Henry Clay, and about 15 m. distant is the birthplace of Patrick Henry. Ashland was settled in 1845 and was incorporated in 1856.
ASHLAND, a city and the county-seat of Ashland county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., situated about 315 m. N.W. of Milwaukee, and about 70 m. E. of Superior and Duluth, in the N. part of the state, at the head of Chequamegon Bay, an arm of Lake Superior. Pop. (1890) 9956; (1900) 13,074, of whom 4417 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 11,594. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Northern Pacific, the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, and the Wisconsin Central railways, and by several steamboat lines on the Great Lakes. The city is attractively situated, has a dry, healthful climate, and is a summer resort. It has a fine Federal building, one of the best high-school buildings in Wisconsin, the Vaughn public library (1895), a Roman Catholic hospital, and the Rinehart hospital, and is the seat of the Northland College and Academy (Congregational). Ashland has an excellent harbour, has large iron-ore and coal docks, and is the principal port for the shipment of iron ore from the rich Gogebic Range, the annual ore shipment approximating 3,500,000 tons, valued at $12,000,000, and it has also an extensive export trade in lumber. Brownstone quarried in the vicinity is also an important export. The lake trade amounts to more than $35,000,000 annually. Ashland has large saw-mills, iron and steel rolling mills, foundries and machine shops, railway repair shops (of the Chicago & North-Western railway), knitting works, and manufactories of dynamite, sulphite fibre, charcoal and wood-alcohol. In 1905 its total factory product was valued at $4,210,265. Settled about 1854, Ashland was incorporated as a village in 1863 and received a city charter in 1887.
ASHLAR, also written Ashler, Ashelere, &c. (probably from Lat. axilla, diminutive of axis, an axle), hewn or squared stone, generally applied to that used for facing walls. In a contract of date 1398 we read—“Murus erit exterius de puro lapide vocato achilar, plane incisso, interius vero de lapide fracto vocato roghwall.” “Clene hewen ashler” often occurs in medieval documents; this no doubt means tooled or finely worked, in contradistinction to rough-axed faces.
An “ashlar piece” in building is an upright piece of timber framed between the common rafters and the wall plate.