Stove, Wood Heating

Description

Base plate with four legs and bracing (a), a fire box top (b), a fire box door with draft door at the front (c), and another door into the top, also with a small door at one end (d). Circular flue in back, at the top.

Notes

The door on top of the stove box distinguishes this stove from others commonly associated with the Shakers. The door would have facilitated loading and igniting the wood and cleaning the stove. In addition to the customary door at the end of the box, the stove also features a small door to better control the draft and heat of the fire. The top and sides of the body consist of a single casting. This stove incorporates all three primary methods of iron working. The body was cast from pig iron in a mold that was made around a wooden model of the stove. Pig iron refers to bars of iron cast in sand directly from the furnace, and then sent to other foundries or forges to be remelted and worked into finished forms. The hearth and doors were cast in the same manner as pig iron, in sand depressions on the foundry floor. Molten iron flowed into the depressions through channels fed from the bottom of the furnace. The legs, stretchers, hinges, and latches were all wrought by hand. The blacksmith hammered each shape out from pig iron on an anvil or with a trip-hammer. Due to the crystalline nature of iron, wrought iron is much stronger than cast iron and can be formed into shapes much thinner and more delicate. The slender legs, stretchers, and height of the stove off the floor is unusual for Shaker stoves. The stove has been thought to be Shaker-made, but it is doubtful that the Mount Lebanon Shakers had a foundry. More likely, the stove was Shaker-designed, and the foundry patterns for the stove components were Shaker-made, but the actual casting was done at a Pittsfield, MA foundry.