Antique & Vintage Postcards

Turrets, wraparound porches, multiple chimneys, and the confident extravagance of Queen Anne Victorian architecture define the residence of Byron Weston, one of the most prominent men in Dalton, Massachusetts — a man who turned paper-making into a political and cultural legacy and served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in the 1880s. His mansion, photographed here in the early undivided-back era likely around 1905–1910, sits behind a low stone wall amid bare-limbed spring trees, its many gables and a corner tower rising with the unhurried authority of Gilded Age prosperity. Dalton was — and remains — the home of Crane & Co., the paper company that has manufactured U.S. currency paper for generations; Byron Weston was a rival paper magnate whose mill made the town's identity inseparable from fine paper. This card was published by Thomas R. Conlin of Pittsfield and is unused.