144 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



April, 1907 



papers in 1767 stated that Edward Smith owned a beautiful 

 country-seat about a mile from New York. The dwelling- 

 house contained "five rooms, four of which have fireplaces, 

 with a good oven in the kitchen"; and, in 1760, Joseph 

 Bowne's house in Flushing was described as a large dwelling 

 "furnished with nine rooms, five of which have fireplaces 

 with a large kitchen adjoining to the same." 



Among the cooking articles advertised in the New York 

 newspapers from 1750 to 1765 are coffee mills, "wafel 

 irons," corkscrews, bread baskets, sugar cleavers, polished 

 copper chafing-dishes, baskets for plates and baskets for 

 knives, copper tin kitchens with stands, and "japanned plate- 

 warmers, very necessary in this frigid climate." The plate- 

 warmer, however, was not a novelty, for as early as 1729 

 it appears in the inventory of Governor William Burnet, 

 whose kitchen also contained "a plate rack, a horse for dry- 

 ing clothes, an iron coffee mill, and a screen to set before 

 meat at the fire." 



An interesting kitchen of this period is in the Van Cort- 

 landt House, near Yonkers, now Van Cortlandt Park, New 



mon planters live in pretty timber houses, neater than the 

 farmhouses are generally in England; with timber also are 

 built houses for the overseers and outhouses; among which 

 is the kitchen, apart from the dwelling house, because of the 

 smell of hot victuals, offensive in hot weather." 



The Southern inventories show that the Colonial settlers 

 of that part of the country owned a great deal of pewter, 

 brass, and copper of considerable value. Two examples will 

 suffice. 



Colonel Stephen Gill, of York County, Va., in 1653, had 

 in his "kitching" one copper kettle, one old brass kettle, one 

 brass pott, three brass candlesticks, one brass skillitt, one 

 small brass mortar and pestle, one brass skimmer, one brass 

 spoone, three old iron potts, one small iron pott, three pesites, 

 one ffrying pann, two spitts, two pair of potthangers, three 

 pair potthookes, one iron ladle, one fflesh hooke, three tinn 

 cullunders, forty-six pounds of pewter, four old porringers, 

 nineteen pewter spoons, four old pewter tankards, one 

 fflaggon, two salt sellers, six tin candlesticks, two dozen old 

 trenchers, and two sifters. Colonel Gill had seven slaves. 



The Hearth 

 of An Old 

 Rhode Island 

 Kitchen 



With Warming 



Pan and 

 Bread Shovel 

 Still in Use 



York City. This house, owned by the Colonial Dames of 

 New York, was built by Frederick van Cortlandt in 1748. 

 The heavy oak beams and the fireplace, with its brick oven, 

 are original; but the articles have been collected from various 

 sources. The dresser on the left came from Perth Amboy. 

 A good clock without a case hangs on the wall, and beneath 

 it is a warming-pan. Next to the lanterns and above the 

 bread-shovel are three waffle-irons. Other utensils are ar- 

 ranged on the chimney-piece, and among them is a powder- 

 horn. Various fire-irons hang above the fireplace, to the left 

 of which is a pair of bellows. On the extreme right is a 

 churn. A brass kettle and candle-molds stand on the table. 

 The floor is covered with a rag carpet. 



In the Southern States the kitchen was universally situated 

 in a separate building some distance from the house, to which 

 it was often connected by a covered way. The separate 

 kitchen is noticed as early as 1734 by Hugh Jones, who pub- 

 lished "The Present State of Virginia" in London that year. 

 "The gentlemen's seats," he writes, "are of late built for 

 the most part of good brick and many of timber, very hand- 

 some, commodious, and capacious; and, likewise, the com- 



Comparatively few old kitchens are left in the South. The 

 example from Washington's loved home at Mount Vernon, 

 reproduced by the courtesy of the Mount Vernon Ladies' 

 Association, has suflered little change. The brick floor and 

 fireplace date from the building of the house in 1743. 



An old Rhode Island kitchen is shown in two views. The 

 fireplace is well shown in one, where the pots hang properly 

 on the hooks and the andirons or fire-dogs are of simple iron. 

 On the right are a warming pan and bread shovel. A view 

 of the same oven is shown in another view where the cook 

 is putting a pie in it. 



Another photograph represents a somewhat fancifully ar- 

 ranged kitchen of the nineteenth century — an attempt to re- 

 vive the old kitchen living-room. The beams, wall, and 

 stairway of the ancient room are preserved. In the center 

 of the room stands an oak table of the "thousand legged" 

 variety; an old clock and mirror adorn the walls, and also 

 some pewter platters, which should be arranged in a dresser 

 or in a rack. A lantern hangs from the beams, which is per- 

 fectly correct, but the place for the foot-warmer is certainly 

 on the floor. 



