Over the next few months we will be spotlighting notable historic details in one of the most popular rooms in the house – The Kitchen!
Article by House Committee member Jonathan Brush with greatly-appreciated assistance from the Research Department of the Boston Public Library.
(Click any photos to see them larger.)
The magnificent coal stove on the south wall of the kitchen was made by the Cyrus Carpenter Company, located at 44 Hanover Street in Boston. This massive and finely-finished black coal stove has numerous fascinating features, including warming areas above the cook top, and six areas for pots to simmer. An 1898 advertisement shows a very similar stove, with a connected water heater. Carpenter stoves were sold nationwide.
Cyrus Carpenter was a well-known manufacturer of stoves and other cooking apparatus who lived at 171 Marlboro Street in Boston. He founded his company in 1840 and overcame some financial setbacks (apparently declared bankruptcy at one point) but paid his debts “100 cents on the dollar” nevertheless.
In 1893 at age 72 Mr. Carpenter was run over and killed instantly by a Back Bay horse car at the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets. The Carpenter company was then taken over by a partner, Benjamin P. Lovejoy of 141 Highland Avenue, Somerville. Mr. Lovejoy had been with the company for over 40 years when he became sole proprietor. Unfortunately he died of pneumonia 12 years later, on February 2 1905.
Our stove appears to have been made in 1901, during the Lovejoy era. The Carpenter Company continued producing stoves until at least 1923, when the company must have been doing well, because they moved into the “Carpenter Building” at 325-327 Newbury Street. At that time a new model, the ‘Sterling Range’ is described as “The Range that Bakes a barrel of flour with a single hod of coal”. This stove could be used with coal, or gas, or a combination of the two.
We hope you will come in for a tour or during one of our upcoming events to get a closer look at our treasured stove!
Also, in case you haven’t heard, we are planning to restore our kitchen and have a GoFundMe to raise funds to complete this important project.
