Now here's a primitive Fireplace

I love my fireplace. A few years ago we installed a fireplace insert and a wood burner with blower.

Wow, the heat savings that we have racked up! I’m lucky enough to only work out of the home about once a week, so stoking the fire is no problem. I just love the atmosphere the crackling fire gives to our home.

The fireplace was the central point of existence in the homes of the pilgrims and colonial America. Although they were constructed of logs plastered with clay or marsh reeds and some type of mortar and thus caused some obvious problems. Fire wardens were employed to periodically check the fireplace and chimney in each residence to guarentee safety for all the town’s residents. We are responsible to check our own chimneys nowadays.

The fireplace was the primary heat source o f the seventeenth and early eighteenth centruies though and a typical one radiated so much heat that someone sleeping six to eight feet away woudl be freezing only on one side of their body. Water could not be left in jugs or crocks or ice would form.

Warming pans or bed warmers of copper or brass attatched to a turned piece of pine were used on cold nights to provide a brief hint of warmth. They would place the hot coals from the fire into the bedwarmer and slip them under the sheets so that their bed would be warm when they slipped in to get a good nights rest.

We’ve come a long way from the pioneer days thank goodness but, these early forms of heat and warmth is what led us to where we are today. The truth is, that these folks weren’t as warm and cozy as we are today but, learning how they lived and what they had to use inspires me. Many people are still attracted to that way of life and surround themselves with wares from times past to capture the feeling of earlier times.

Early Brass and Metal ware

Here’s a link to a site that I enjoy browsing. Very interesting early kitchenwares.

http://www.victorianpassage.com/2008/11/aluminum_cooking_ware.php

This is an exerpt from their page introduction:

Welcome!
A Victorian Passage has published 128 articles on a diverse range of subjects. Most of our growing archive of Victorian Era subjects are taken directly from 19th century sources to achieve a closer look into how our ancestors really lived. We have also been expanding our historical eras to include Early American from

1790-1839 and the Edwardian period of the

early 20th century.

If you found this would you know what it is?

If you find what looks like a little soapstone tablet, just a couple of feet square, with a wire handle on it, then you’ve found a foot warmer. The soapstone block was placed in the stove before a trip. When it was hot, the foot warmer was wrapped in a blanket and placed on the floor of the buggy to make a cold trip a little more comfortable.  They were used from the 1880s through the 1920s. These were also used in cars when there was yet to be heated automobiles.

There are also footwarmers from the 17th century that were used mainly indoors. They were usually made of  some sort of metal, often tin and I have seen some all wood ones as well.’