{"id":2380,"date":"2016-01-19T21:23:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T02:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/?p=2380"},"modified":"2019-06-30T21:52:15","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T02:52:15","slug":"the-ruins-of-ringville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/the-ruins-of-ringville\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ruins of Ringville"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dave and Cath Whitcomb, with photographs by Kate Ewald<\/strong><\/p>\n

On September 28, 2014 \u2013 a glorious fall day \u2013 a contingent of amateur historians and interested residents followed David Whitcomb of Witt Hill Road on a tour through industrial ruins of the Ringville section of Worthington, Massachusetts, at the convergence of Watts Stream and Ward\u2019s Stream.<\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a>
Dave Whitcomb orients the walkers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Little River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The headwaters of Watts and Ward\u2019s streams spring from the foot of Knowles Hill, the second-highest point in Worthington, at an elevation of 2,011 feet. By divergent routes the streams flow to Ringville, where they merge to become the Little River. These waterways were critical resources to the Ringville hamlet, providing both power and potable water. Water privileges for dams and mills could be sold independently by property owners.<\/p>\n

The Ring brothers, Elkanah (1809-1899) and Thomas (1812-1863), saw the hamlet\u2019s industrial potential and bought an old oil mill (perhaps linseed oil). The Rings added floor space and began manufacturing window shades (resembling venetian blinds) in 1830. Later they entered the lucrative business of manufacturing \u201cRinger\u201d wagons, forerunners of Conestoga Wagons. They also made baby carriages and children\u2019s sleds, sold nationally. The brothers were active in town affairs, developing houses in the area and starting a mail route between Worthington and the railroad\u2019s mail drop in Huntington. It was around this time that the hamlet became known as Ringville. (A joke ran that Elkanah had three wives, thus three rings, thus \u201cRingville.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In 1858 the Ring brothers\u2019 operation in Ringville, which employed nearly 50 people, was destroyed by a fire. (By this time the Ring brothers had expanded their operations to Knightville.) After the fire, the Ringville mill site was sold. A new mill was built and then sold in 1878 to Hayden & Sons, sled manufacturers. By this time Ringville was considered the industrial heart of Worthington, supporting a number of mills. Ringville had its own post office (one of four in Worthington) and one of the Town\u2019s twelve schools, located on property currently owned by the Rida family.<\/p>\n

\"Exterior<\/a>
Exterior of the Ring brothers \/ Hayden & Sons mill site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A submerged dam is still visible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dave<\/a>
Dave Whitcomb and Pat Kennedy among the ruins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Map<\/a>
Map of the Ringville ruins by Cath Whitcomb.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Plane<\/a>
Plane manufactured by E. and T. Ring & Co. c. 1840s-1850s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Interior<\/a>
Interior of the Hayden-Ring mill site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another lucrative business of the late 1800s was the harvesting of pond ice to cool milk and cream in summer. Traces of an ice pond can still be seen in Ringville, on Watts Stream, just upstream from the Ring brothers\u2019 factory dam. Axe handles, sledges and buggy whips were also manufactured at various times in Ringville. The hamlet\u2019s last viable manufacturing operation was a creamery whose 1903 output was 6,500 pounds of butter. The Ringville Cemetery<\/a>, established in 1866 on Witt Hill Road, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The former ice pond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Foundation<\/a>
Foundation to mill for ax handles, buggy whips, and barrel bands.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chiseled<\/a>
Chiseled ruins of Ringville.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A well head.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Exterior<\/a>
Exterior of the Hayden-Ring mill site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
 <\/h5>\n
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS<\/h5>\n

Dave Whitcomb has been making summer visits to \u201cAunty Flo\u2019s\u201d house and exploring the Ringville property since his childhood in the 1950s. He and Cath have been Worthington residents since 1974.<\/p>\n

Kate Ewald, an amateur photographer and assessor of human health risk for hazardous waste site cleanup, lives in Worthington with her husband, Evan, and serves on the WHS Board.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Old<\/a>
Old postcard of Ringville Cemetery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Posted January 19, 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dave and Cath Whitcomb, with photographs by Kate Ewald On September 28, 2014 \u2013 a glorious fall day \u2013 a contingent of amateur historians and interested residents followed David Whitcomb of Witt Hill Road on a tour through industrial ruins of the Ringville section of Worthington, Massachusetts, at the convergence of Watts Stream and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdAsoD-Co","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2380"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8584,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions\/8584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}