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The Armory in downtown Auburn, built in 1858-1859.
The Superior Court Building in Newburyport, Massachusetts, by Charles Bulfinch (architect of the original U.S. Capitol) with 1853 ventilators.
One of Auburn’s most distinctive commercial structures is the 1859 Armory building (now occupied by Prison City Pub & Brewery) at the corner of Dill and State streets. In the 1840s to 1860s, many downtown buildings were built in the popular Italianate style — straightforward and functional, but with details recalling features of the vernacular Italian Renaissance: elaborate cornices, segmentally arched windows and prominent window caps, thus giving it a bit of cultural (and artistic) sophistication. But here we also have a distinctive design feature: the corner tower, which accents its location at an intersection, and becomes an “urban marker” for the building. The tower also has a “military” feature: It is capped by battlements! This is, of course, appropriate for a structure erected as a military armory; many armories did have corner towers, recalling medieval castles. The upper floor here would have been the drill hall for the recruits and soldiers (the ground floor offices and store rooms).
But Auburnians or visitors walking by may have noticed a “mysterious” feature on its roof. Is it a fancy metal chimney? Is it a platform for a hawk’s nest? No: It is in fact a rare survival of 19th century advanced scientific technology, an Emerson ejecting ventilator, invented apparently in the 1840s by Frederick Emerson of Boston. The device came in four sizes, appropriate for domestic to “commercial” use. That one has survived here in good shape for over 150 years is testament to its durability — and, perhaps, to its effectiveness.
Among the most pressing concerns of architectural designers beginning in the 1840s were the proper ventilation of houses, and the increased comfort and health of its residents. Central heating, plumbing with indoor flush toilets and bathtubs, and even gas lighting — all products of new technology — were gradually being introduced into the American home.
Andrew Jackson Downing, of Newburgh, New York, was an architectural designer and writer at the forefront of popularizing such improvements for modest dwellings. He published the latest developments in his several architectural design books, avidly read by owners and builders alike. The patented Emerson ejecting ventilator, available from firms in both Boston and New York City, worked on the Bernoulli principle: Air flowing through a constricted space moves faster, creating a suction on the opening below, at the top of a conical frustum. Thus, a ventilator with no moving parts. Such a ventilator would certainly be welcome in a drill hall in the attic of a building.
From left, the Emerson ejecting ventilator atop the Armory in downtown Auburn; the ventilator as shown in figure No. 87 in Downing's "Country Houses" (1850); and Downing's designs for installing the ejecting ventilator on dwellings.
Downing explained the principle behind, and the workings of, the ejecting ventilator (Emerson also had a somewhat similar, but more complex device that helped to force air into a building, his “injecting ventilator”). Downing’s 1850 book "The Architecture of Country Houses" had numerous dwelling designs and plans, but also included information on “the best modes of warming and ventilating” them. Among the volume’s 320 illustrations are those that depicted the ventilator, and Downing’s text explained how it worked. Placed above a hot attic, it could continuously ventilate the space, and if connected by ducts to other parts of the house (and of course to the outdoors), as Downing’s illustrations demonstrate, it could provide “a pure and healthy atmosphere ... at all times” for the whole dwelling.
Although these ventilators are not now commonly seen, they were popular in their day, and some do survive: In Charles Bulfinch’s Superior Court Building of 1805 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, two large ones — like that on the Armory building — were added to the roof ridge in 1853 when the building was modernized and “brought up to date.” Smaller domestic versions are found on homes in Newburyport. And closer to us, in Fredonia, in my surveys of that village, I came upon one of this same design, though of “domestic” size, on the rear wing of a local home. Clearly, they were a popular “modern” improvement in the 1840s and 1850s. Builders in Auburn kept up to date.
Architectural historian Dr. Daniel D. Reiff, a retired SUNY Fredonia distinguished service professor emeritus, lives in Auburn.
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The Armory in downtown Auburn, built in 1858-1859.
From left, the Emerson ejecting ventilator atop the Armory in downtown Auburn; the ventilator as shown in figure No. 87 in Downing's "Country Houses" (1850); and Downing's designs for installing the ejecting ventilator on dwellings.
The Superior Court Building in Newburyport, Massachusetts, by Charles Bulfinch (architect of the original U.S. Capitol) with 1853 ventilators.
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