HEATING AND LIGHTING UTENSILS IN NATIONAL MUSEUM 89 



STOVKS OF THE INVHNTIVB PBUIOD 



It is an almost imperceptible barrier between the simple stoves 

 described and the first examples which are placed in the inventive 

 period. This is due no doubt to the survival of the older forms. 

 Thirty-five years ago in Washington, and no doubt in other parts of 

 America, small cast-iron fire-pot stoves were common; and as the 

 hot chestnut vendors used them, most of the population was familiar 

 with them. Artisans generally required these stoves, which have 

 now practically disappeared. These stoves belong in the period 

 when cast iron was coming into wide use. A specimen of the supe- 

 rior quality of the castings from the Lebanon Valley, Pa., is in- 

 scribed " Gotscher." In shape it is like some of the pottery stoves 

 figured. The grate is circular and removable and the handles are 

 wrought iron cast in. (PI. 7Sh, fig. 1; Cat. No. 325605; donor 

 unknown; probably a boat stove from the U. S. Fish Commission; 

 9.3 inches diameter, 7.1 inches high, (23.5 cm., 18 cm.).) A more 

 elaborate stove of this character is of thin and good cast iron. It 

 has a flaring rim with three ribs on which the pot is set. It has a 

 regular grate and also a grating of open work over the fire. The 

 stove is mounted on three feet, has a hearth ornamented on the edge, 

 and an iron bail. This stove was used on whaling ships, the speci- 

 men coming from San Francisco, Calif., where it was collected by 

 the United States Fish Commission. (PI. 787;, fig. 3; Cat. No. 

 163632; 13 inches diameter, 9.5 inches high (33 cm., 24 cm.).) The 

 Museum lately received from Mrs. Frances Roome Powers a toy 

 fireplace of cast iron with andirons, hanging pot, and spider. 

 Family tradition places this relic to the " time of Washington's 

 father and mother." There is no other history, but the specimen 

 represents the period when fireplaces smaller than the great fireplace 

 were cast entire with hearth, an improvement on the old fire backs 

 figured by Henry C. Mercer,^ and especially common in Pennsyl- 

 vania. The fireplace lining may have suggested the first Franklin 

 stove of 1742 and appears to indicate a marked development in iron 

 casting in the eighteenth century. (PI. 78&, fig. 2; Cat. No. 328725; 

 Virginia, Mrs. Frances Roome Powers; 4.5 inches wide, 4.9 inches 

 high (11.5 cm., 12.5 cm.).) 



Before the disappearance of the great fireplace an interesting 

 series of adaptations had been built into its capacious dimensions, 

 in many cases closing it up. These were ovens, hot-water tanks, 

 and finally a grate, the latter often the survivor in a blank wall 

 which hid the fireplace. Sometimes in tearing down old houses 



» Henry C. Mercer, The Bible In Iron, or The Picture Stoves and Stove Plates of the 

 Pennsylvania Germans, with Notes on Colonial Pirebacks in the United States, etc. Pub- 

 lished for the Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa., 1914. 



