THE BEGINNING OF WARMTH AND COMFORT 75 



and children were provided with foot warmers, sheet-iron boxes 

 containing live coals (Fig. 65). 



80. The First Stove. The first stoves ever used by our 

 American forefathers were made about 40 or 50 years 

 before the Revolutionary War. The stove was merely a cast- 

 iron box with a door in one end and an opening in the upper 

 side through which the smoke could escape. ( The back or 

 side of the fireplace was removed and this box was slipped into 

 the space beneath the chimney. A very peculiar thing about 

 this stove, as it seems to us, is the fact that the end containing 

 the door was left on the outside of the house. What we should 

 call the back of the stove projected into the room and the 

 operator was obliged to go out of the room into the wood house 

 to feed it. It was, however, a great improvement over the 

 open fireplace because it overcame the strong draft, which, in 

 the open fireplace, sent most of the heat up and out of the 

 chimney. 



81. Franklin's Stove. In 1742 

 Benjamin Franklin invented his 

 " Pennsylvania Fireplace" (Fig. 66). 

 He called it "an open stove for the 



Front view. The bottom plate. Side view showing the smoke flue. 

 FIG. 66. Franklin stove. 



better warming of a room." It was really an open stove which 

 was placed within the old fireplace. The air of the room 

 became heated when it came in contact with any portion of 

 the stove. Franklin said: "The use of these fireplaces in very 

 many houses, both in this and neighboring colonies, has been 



