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Colonial and Early American Lighting
By Arthur H. Hayward, James R. Marsh Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1962 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-17016-9
CHAPTER 1
LAMPS OF ANCIENT DAYS
To one who is at all interested in the subject of the development of lighting from the crude primitive lamps of early New England Pilgrim days, the study of artificial illumination from the earliest times is very essential, as furnishing not only a starting point but a fitting background from which the remarkable changes of the last three centuries stand out with great vividness.
If we pick up one of the "Betty" lamps, the little iron open wick lamps which the first New England pioneers brought over on the Mayflower and subsequent ships, and which, filled with rank-smelling fish oil, furnished what little light they had, aside from the blazing logs in the crude fireplaces of the log huts, during those gloomy winter days of 1620 and following years; we must hark back thousands of years, for this Plymouth lamp of 1620 A.D. is identical in design and principle with lamps found in excavating the buried cities of Greece, Rome and other once famous and populous countries of Asia, Europe and Africa — but now only a memory — some of them dating as far back as 6000 B.C. Compare the Plate 2 with Plate 4 showing a collection of lamps from Doctor Norton: the resemblance is startling, which brings us to the astounding fact that while civilization was advancing steadily and at times swiftly, and remarkable progress was being made in art, science, learning and handicraft of almost every kind, such an essential and important thing as artificial lighting remained practically at the same point for at least ten thousand years, and it is only within the last two hundred years that the tremendous advance was accomplished.
The origin of the first lamp is hidden in the dark and mysterious recesses of time at the beginning of history. For myself I can see a picture of some vigorous and powerful specimen of a cave man, returning from a successful hunt, his stone weapons in his hand and his quarry flung across his shoulders. He comes to the entrance of his cave house and flings down his burden while he seeks rest and warmth by the open fire which is carefully guarded and kept alive from the smouldering embers of the last great thunder storm when jagged bolts of lightning started a devastating forest fire. His female companion takes the slaughtered animal, crudely dresses it and props it up in front of the fire for roasting. Idly watching, the cave man sees that some of the fat from the roasting meat has dripped down on the rock and has formed a tiny pool, and into this as he looks, from one of the logs just placed on the fire, drops a tiny bit of dry moss, all ablaze. It floats about on the surface of the oily pool, sending up a spiral of smoke from its tiny flame. His attention is called away by some sounds in the forest yonder and he forgets it for the time. After a bit his eyes idly light on it again to observe that it still floats and burns with increased energy. The meat is now ready and he tears off a portion for himself and then the rest is distributed among the others of his family. When he has finished and he goes to renew the fire which has burned down to a bed of embers, he notices the floating moss still burning with a small, hot, steady flame and then and there is formed the idea of the first lamp. He goes out and picks up from the refuse heap the skull of some small animal, into which he puts some of the hot, melted fat and lighting a piece of dry moss drops it in, and the first lamp made by the hand of man has come into being.
When one considers how much of the world's business and pleasure has been done after the sun has disappeared, it seems strange that the ingenuity of man, so abundantly exercised in other directions, should not have been turned to the subject of artificial lighting and that the absurdly inadequate and crude methods of those very ancient days should have been accepted, apparently without serious protest, almost up to the present. When, however, the change did come, it was most rapid and from the glittering, gorgeous" White Way" of a twentieth century metropolis back to the days of our Pilgrim forefathers seems like a journey of innumerable ages, while it is really only a span of some six or eight generations.
It may be fairly assumed that, next to implements of warfare, stone and clay lamps were among the first articles for domestic use made by the hand of man. Almost all the large museums of the world have collections of lamps which have been found in excavating the sites of cities which have grown to prominence and fame, been the seat of opulence, luxury and the higher civilization of the times and have finally disappeared and been covered by the dust and debris of centuries and then quite frequently furnished the sites of yet other cities which have passed through the same cycle.
This little drawing is of an old lamp of sun-dried clay from the collection of Doctor Norton of Hartford, Connecticut. It was found many feet beneath the surface on the site of the city of Nippur, one of the oldest of the Babylonian cities, near the entrance to the King's Library. As this city was destroyed more than six thousand years before Christ, it makes the age of this lamp at least eight thousand years. Excavations in Egypt, Asia Minor, and southern Europe, in the countries of the older civilizations, among the household utensils often yield lamps, or parts of lamps, which find their way into the museums.
The very earliest of these lamps are usually of clay, either sun-dried or kiln- burned, and of course are fragile and easily broken. Later they were cut from rock; and finally when the use of ores became known they were fashioned from iron, bronze and other metals, but invariably the shape was the same, no matter of what material made: a hollow receptacle for the oil, either open or covered, a handle for carrying it, on one side, and opposite it a little trough or gutter in which the wick rested. As civilization advanced the lamps assumed a more artistic aspect. The shapes became less clumsy, the general appearance more graceful and delicate ornamentation began to appear on those carved from stone or cast from bronze or other metals.
Both the Greeks and the Romans made lamps from alabaster and metals which show both in workmanship and design artistic ability of a very high order.
Lamps are frequently referred to in ancient writings. Homer, the Greek poet, writing about 950 B.C. speaks of the lamps and torches used in the temples, and Heroditus in 445 B.C. describes the procession of lamps, a festival held at Sais in Egypt, and remarks upon the vast number and variety of lamps there displayed.
An early mention in the Bible is found in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis — God is making his covenant with Abram and tells him to build an altar and place sacrifices thereon and then the record says:
And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp [or a torch] that passed between those pieces.
Again there is more specific mention of lamps as we use the word in the account in the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus of the directions for making the golden candlestick (or more properly a golden lamp stand) for the tabernacle. In the thirty-first verse we find:
And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold, of beaten work shall the candlestick be made; his shaft and his branches, his bowls, his knops and his flowers shall be made of the same — and six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side thereof and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side.
Then in the thirty-seventh verse:
And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof; and they shall light the lamps thereof; that they may give light over against it.
And in the twenty-seventh chapter, the twentieth verse we read:
And thou shalt command the children of Israel that they bring thee pure olive oil beaten for the light to cause the lamp to burn always.
And again in the thirty-seventh chapter, the twenty-third verse,— "And he made his seven lamps and his snuffers and his snuff dishes of pure gold",— showing that ornamental lamps burning with a wick in olive oil were well known by Hebrew artisans at that early date.
In Greece and Rome at most of the out-of-door celebrations and arena games as well as the larger feasts indoors, the illumination was by torches in metal baskets of resinous woods, fats and other inflammable material, and one of the early Greek writers in speaking of the pale smoky flame from fats and oils says, "One could not enjoy the good things of the table until his indulgence in wine had made him indifferent to the stench of the smoking lamps."
A variety may be found in a very primitive and ancient form of torch or huge candle made up of long stalks of flax or rushes pressed together and saturated with grease or tallow. As this burns freely and rather rapidly, it is kept coiled up and pulled out as fast as it is consumed. These were used at the olden Hebrew weddings and other ceremonial occasions and were undoubtedly what was referred to by Jesus, when He said, "A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench till he send forth judgment unto victory." These rush lights were also used extensively among the poorer people of Europe and also to a limited extent by the early Pilgrims in New England and were made in the same way — hollow reed, or rushes saturated with tallow or fat and made in long ribbons, burning them in rush light holders as shown in Plate 3.
One curious fact is that the only aborigines of this continent known to have lamps were the Esquimaux, whose lamps of stone, clay, or bone were a very important and highly prized part of their household equipment. Oil of the seal, whale, and walrus was burned in these lamps, moss furnishing the wick, and the Esquimaux often made long, hard journeys to the places where they could obtain the soapstone. So highly valued were they that no young man was considered ready to marry unless he could show at least one or more lamps, which became the dowry of the bride and in the family life were the particular pride and care of the women. But no trace of lamps of any kind has been found among the ruins left by the mound builders and other very early inhabitants of this country, and none was known by the Indians roaming the forests and hunting grounds when found by the first white men.
Plate 2 gives views of a very interesting collection of ancient lamps gathered together by the late Doctor C. A. Quincy Norton of Hartford, Connecticut, who became very much interested in the subject of lighting and spent a number of years traveling about the country, gathering specimens illustrating different periods in the gradual development, and particularly lamps having some historic association.
He planned to use his collection to illustrate a book on the evolution of lighting, with particular emphasis on the work of the colonists of America, which should be an exhaustive and authoritative treatise on the subject, but unfortunately he died before his book was completed and his vast store of information on the subject was lost to the world. After his death his collection was dispersed by auction sale in New York and several of the plates in this book are from the catalogue of that sale.
Perhaps his most attractive (to us at least) lamps are those associated with famous men and women — some of those are shown here in this book and will be referred to in later chapters.
His collection of ancient lamps was very interesting. In Plate 2, Numbers 1 and 2 are small lamps, some three inches in length made of sun-baked clay, and were found on the site of the buried city of Nippur in Babylonia. As this city was destroyed at least six thousand years before Christ, it means that the potter's hands who fashioned them worked some eight thousand or more years ago. Numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, while not so old, long outdate the Christian era and were found buried among the ruins of Rome and cities of Egypt and Palestine. Numbers 11, 14, 15, 16, and 17 are also clay lamps of a somewhat later period, most of them of Grecian origin and showing a decided development in form and decoration.
Numbers 21 and 22, while quite similar in shape, were found far apart. They show an open or saucer-shaped lamp of clay with a slight depression in one side for the wick. Number 21 came from Armenia and is supposed to be at least two thousand years old, while Number 22 was found in the north of Scotland and dates back to about the fifteenth century.
These open saucer lamps, either in pottery or iron, are occasionally found here, in New England or in the South, and are often locally known as "grease lamps" or sometimes called "slut lamps", but as they were very crude the number used must have been limited and they were soon superseded by better and more efficient ones. Number 32 is a carved soap-stone lamp from Japan and dates from the twelfth century.
It is interesting to note how closely the lines of these lamps follow one another though coming from places so widely separated.
Numbers 97, 109, 118 are all bronze lamps, probably of Grecian origin, while Number 343 is from Rome.
Number 132 is a very early Christian lamp, bronze, of undoubted Roman make and probably dates from the first or second century. It is in unusually fine condition for one so old.
These lamps, stretching over centuries, from many parts of the world, give us the starting point from which the active minds and brains of our own ancestors gradually evolved, slowly at first, then much more rapidly, keeping pace with the economic and intellectual development of the times, the various lighting devices which are the subject of the succeeding chapters.
CHAPTER 2
EARLY COLONIAL LAMPS —IRON AND TIN
THE first Pilgrim lamp was of the type known to-day as the iron "Betty" as shown in the drawing. Captain John Carver, first Governor of Plymouth Colony, purchased in Holland just before he sailed a Dutch iron "Betty" lamp, the feeble light of which undoubtedly helped to make less gloomy that crowded cabin from which dates so much of our history.
Such small iron lamps, as may be seen, were very similar in shape to the old Greek, Roman and Assyrian ones and precisely the same in principle. The body was usually cast or wrought in one solid piece, with the nose or spout for the wick to lie in at one end, and a short, curved upright handle opposite. To this handle were often attached a short linked chain with an iron spindle and hooked end, and also a slender iron pick to free the wick when it became crusted with soot or carbon. The spindle was used either to hang up the lamp from the top of the chair where the reader sat or to fasten it in position by sticking the sharp end between the stones of the fireplace. Oil was obtained from the swarms of small fish found in great abundance all along the coast; but the light was very feeble, the wick constantly crusting over, and the odor of the burning fish oil anything but agreeable.
Another very common form of illumination in those early days was what is known as "Candle-Wood." Pieces of the resinous pitch pine, so common all along the wooded New England coast, were cut in length and size not unlike large candles and stuck between the stones of the crude fireplaces or in improvised holders. They burned freely, giving quite a bright flame with, however, considerable smoke; and since the only expense was the time and trouble of cutting and drying the wood, they were used very generally for many years. It was common at night to see the family gathered round the big stone fireplace, often in the only room of comfortable size in the crude log house. On the hearth a fire of huge logs briskly burned, and two or three of the resinous candle-wood torches — either stuck in the sides of the fireplace between the stones, or standing upright on the hearth — supplemented the light from the burning logs. By these mingled lights the good man could see to read the Bible, which he had brought with him from the old country; while the mother spun her flax or wool for the family clothing or industriously drove her shuttle back and forth in the big loom over in the corner; and while the children in their seats near the sides of the great fireplace studied from the few primitive books which they had, or did their daily stents in needlework.
Many families laid in each winter a large supply of this candlewood, which for many years in the poorer homes all over New England was the common illuminant for the long winter evenings.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Colonial and Early American Lighting by Arthur H. Hayward, James R. Marsh. Copyright © 1962 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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