The western Pennsylvania farmhouse of my childhood was built by my Great-Great Grandfather Moore in 1850. Typical of those times, it was heated by fireplaces, three downstairs and one upstairs in the main bedroom (there may have been another upstairs at one time). I don’t recall any of them ever being used, but I was told that when I was a baby in 1933 or 1934, Dad awoke, smelled smoke, went downstairs, and found that a hot coal had fallen onto the wood floor beside the hearth and had burned nearly through. After that, a coal-burning space heater was installed in front of the fireplace. The only heat upstairs was what came up through the open stairwell, and I remember many a cold morning when I crawled out of a warm bed with great reluctance, grabbed my clothes, and ran downstairs to dress beside the stove.
Solon Robinson (1803-1880) was born in Connecticut, “went west” with his family in 1834, settled in Crown Point, Indiana, and went to farming. Mr. Robinson had received an education and not only had decided opinions on many subjects but eagerly passed those opinions and observations along to various agricultural publications and to newspapers back east in a constant stream of letters.
In March 1847, the Prairie Farmer published the following Solon Robinson letter.
I conceive it to be “one of the inventions of the devil for destroying human life.” “What! Stoves? Why the old curmudgeon! Not allow us any stoves! We should freeze to death,” I hear a thousand tongues exclaim. All of which I don’t believe a word of; for when I was a little boy there were none of these abominable inventions in that part of Yankeedom where I was warmed into existence by one of those good old-fashioned Christian fireplaces, with the “old settle” in one corner and oven in the other. And who ever heard of folks freezing to death in those days?
“But the stoves save so much fuel.” Granted; but it is at the expense of human life! Rooms are made almost air tight, and then the atmosphere, or what little remains shut up, is roasted with a red hot stove, then breathed, then roasted again, and so on without the least chance of renewal, until the occupants of such rooms become so enfeebled that they are in danger of freezing to death whenever they encounter such a blast as our ancestors would have considered only a healthy breeze. As for cooking stoves in a large well ventilated kitchen, I don’t object so much, although the steam and smoke from them, under the most favorable circumstances, is anything but comfortable or healthy.
In a room warmed by a fireplace there is a constant current of pure fresh air kept up by the draft of the chimney. Besides, who can forget those healthy, happy hearths of “auld lang syne”, where we spent the long cheerful winter evenings of our youth, building “castles in the coals” of a great wood fire.
But I have done. I am aware that I am in a heathen land where stoves are worshiped and to avoid “burning my own fingers” I must bow my knee to the national idol. I remain your frozen friend, SOLON ROBINSON.
The editor of the Prairie Farmer added, dryly: Our friend is pretty hard upon the “air tights.” We have used one for three winters and do not see the need of suffering the evils pointed out. It is for their immense power and steadiness that we prefer tight stoves. The room can be heated at once and the door thrown open for fresh air; and thus the air of the room can be changed as often as desired, nor is it necessary to keep the room hotter with this stove than with a fireplace. He did allow, however, that more attention should be paid to ventilation when constructing a new house than was common at the time.
Although stoves made of ceramic, brick, and stone had been around for a long time, Ben Franklin is credited with inventing the iron stove one hundred years before the above letter was written, and his stove was much improved in 1780 by David Rittenhouse. Air-tight stoves, which seem to be the ones that upset Mr. Robinson so much, however, didn’t come into general use in this country until early in the nineteenth century.
Just another tale from those “Good old days” we hear so much about.
Sam Moore
