Winter in New England, Part 1: Lamp and Lantern Season

Quicksearch

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Monday, November 5. 2012

Winter in New England, Part 1: Lamp and Lantern Season

We are re-posting this series from past years -

We lose our power fairly often in late fall and winter storms. Besides flashlights and candles, I have a good supply of oil lamps around the place. I don't have a generator, and don't plan on getting one like the yuppies do.

When we bought this house, we found a couple of old Victorian oil lamps in the attic, similar to this blue one. Perfect for a whorehouse, we feel. This site sells repro oil lamps.

And I have one just like this Kosmos Lamp in my study:

My favorites are a few 50 year-old Dietz wagon lanterns that I keep in the garage and down in the barn. They still make them, but in China now, and are distributed by Kirkman, which has tons of lamps and lanterns of all sorts.

Here's the history of the R.E. Dietz Company. Its fortunes track the electrification of America.

When I was a kid in CT, we kept a spouted barrel of kerosene in the garage. It had many uses (including for burning the garbage in the garbage pit - think Hell - Gehenna).

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 14:03 | Comments (25) | Trackbacks (7)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

Winter in New England #2: Keeping the humidor humid in winter
A re-post from last December - it's not snowing here yet - Part 1 was Lamp and Lantern Season Still snowing heavily up here. Lovely evening for a smoke or two and a Scotch or three, and, as usual in the winter, I am encountering the problem of maintaini

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Oct 08, 16:50

Winter in New England, #3: Jump Starters
Part 1 was Lamp and Lantern SeasonPart 2 was Keeping your humidor humid in winter Winter in central New England entails jump-starters, oil lamps and lanterns, snow-blowers, snow plows, flashlights, snow shovels, plenty of firewood, hats and lon

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Oct 19, 19:43

Winter in New England #8: Do you need snow/mud tires?
We all must adapt! With Global Cooling hastening our certain death and doom by freezing to death, we offer this final post in our Winter in New England series. The prior posts in this annual series were: Winter in New England, Part 1: Lamp

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Oct 28, 12:32

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Oct 28, 12:35

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Oct 10, 13:45

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Oct 25, 15:16

Oil lamps for winter, and for any stormy season
Candles and flashlights are never sufficient for when your power goes out for a day or three. We have discussed the topic on our annual post, Winter in New England, Part 1: Lamp and Lantern Season. Our pal Gwynnie likes Coleman gas lanterns. I like

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Feb 22, 14:01

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

A 15 inch post like this on the front page serves one purpose: It shoves vibrant, active comment threads into archive.

Do you all not want discourse on this blog?
`

#1 Meta on 2008-10-22 12:02 (Reply)

Of course we want discourse! But we have a thing about oil lamps!

#1.1 Bird Dog on 2008-10-22 12:05 (Reply)

I think the political ramifications of this post are obvious, even to a dunderhead like me.

As the global apocalypse nears, and the Age of �bama threatens to throw an invisible cloak of impenetrable wool over our very eyes, the proprietors of Maggie's Farm, in an inspired act of optimism, are attempting to shine a light on the landscape, and in an artistic manner, no less!

Let us move now to a discussion of the global price of lamp oils, both scented and non-scented, please.

This little light of mine... I'm gonna let it shine...

#2 Pajak on 2008-10-22 12:29 (Reply)

You made me snort. hahahahaha... You gave me a flashback and I saw myself with my hands swinging in the air singing the hell out of that song. I had on a Sunday school dress with patent leather shoes...

Thanks! :)
`

#2.1 Meta on 2008-10-22 12:45 (Reply)

Meta: Honey, I shrunk the lamps.

#3 Bird Dog on 2008-10-22 12:40 (Reply)

haha. :} I see you did. Nice job!

#3.1 Meta on 2008-10-22 12:43 (Reply)

On a serious note: how do these kerosene lamps compare to cost and upkeep of propane lamps?

#4 njartist49 on 2008-10-22 18:32 (Reply)

I have no idea.

#4.1 The B on 2008-10-23 07:29 (Reply)

I'll run my generator. Clumsy as I am, I might knock a lamp like that over and burn the house down.

#5 feeblemind on 2008-10-24 01:19 (Reply)

Thanks for the link to Dietz's history, Barrister. I see elsewhere on the site that the W.T.Kirkman "Heritage Series" is claimed as being made in the USA, making this the only US kerosene lamp manufacturer I have been able to find after much searching.

I still have a kerosene lamp bought by my grandfather or great-grandfather, more likely. Good stuff.

#6 Skookumchuk on 2009-10-03 15:33 (Reply)

What? A thread on lamps with no mention of Alladin - with their thorium impregnated mesh that generates more light than cotton-wick lamps?

#7 Ben-David on 2009-10-03 16:37 (Reply)

Unfortunately, you cannot buy kerosene in my neck of the woods these days. Environmental and/or safety prohibitions I assume. The best you can do is "lamp oil" from hoity-toity interior design stores that will charge you $20 for a little bottle.

#8 Jim on 2009-10-03 17:20 (Reply)

Alladin lamps are fantastic -- constant white light, not yellow flickery light.
Pressurized liquid-fuel and propane lamps are pretty noisy, not exactly great for a quiet evening of reading by the fire. Also, each one that I've seen recommends against use indoors.
A great resource for Alladin Lamps is Lehmans Hardware in Ohio. For lams and all things non-electric

#9 DOuglas2 on 2009-10-03 18:50 (Reply)

Yah, but there is nothing like a Tilley. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/munwai/tilley.htm

#10 Capt. Craig on 2009-10-03 20:03 (Reply)

I remember a winter ice storm three decades ago that cut power off for three days. At times like that, one is glad for fireplaces. Even with the fireplace, the fireplace-warmed kitchen and dining room got down to 45 - which wasn't a hell of a lot different from the temperature my parents kept it when the furnace was going full strength. My uncle said of my father, "My brother-in-law is the only person I know who bought a new thermostat because it could go down to 45." (so the main room could be in the low 60s) New England frugality. Long may it live.

#11 Gringo on 2009-10-03 20:05 (Reply)

Capt. Craig@10: Never knew of Tilley, but I do now. Thanks.

#12 Skookumchuk on 2009-10-03 22:25 (Reply)

I use those new crank for 60 seconds and get nearly an hour of LED flashlight. Fabulous. No more batteries.

#13 Fred Zose new on 2010-10-10 01:43 (Reply)

These lamps are not just for the winter months.

Growing up in North Florida, I have been through many hurricanes. Sometimes the power has been off for over a week.

Add in the occassional outage because of thunderstorms and you realize how handy these lamps are even in today's world.

People our area call them "Hurricane Lamps".

#14 Mark M on 2010-10-10 10:29 (Reply)

I recommend Lehman's catalogue for mostly American and, supposedly, Amish made goods. If you're looking to live like the Amish they have everything manual and non-electric that you'd need. As far as lamps go they have all kinds of lamps and especially, replacement parts for all kinds of lamps. On line it's just Lehmans dot com.

#15 Pocono Joe on 2010-10-10 10:34 (Reply)

Please school me-
Is it OK or is it not to burn a kerosene lamp inside a house? What else can be burned in "a lamp" that is OK inside a house?
What lamps need to be pumped to pressurize (and why)? What are the safety considerations? Ventilation, heat,
proximity to flammables and so on?
I, too, have images of Western movies in which these lamps did not always do a homeowner good.
(Amazing that just a few years ago all this was common knowledge to most everyone.)
What was the gas in those gaslight lamps? They were inside as well as outside. However, we should not use propane inside a house or a tent, correct? How about the various fuels? Coleman, white gas, naptha?
I remember using water heaters on a kibbutz in Israel that required starting a flame to a small burner and regulating the "neft".

#16 DavidB on 2011-10-19 19:34 (Reply)

Too many questions!

Kerosene lamps are fine indoors. Some of my lamps prefer "lamp oil" and some prefer kerosene. I even have a quite old one which was made for whale oil, but that is a bit difficult to get these days.

Gaslights in the US, I believe, used to be made from coal gas, from the "gas works."

For the other info, you had best google.

#16.1 The B on 2011-10-19 19:57 (Reply)

You must be on town water or you wouldn't be dissing those of us with generators.

#17 lhf on 2011-10-20 08:44 (Reply)

A couple of years ago, I was getting gasoline in Dubois, PA, when I noticed that in addition to the diesel pump (almost standard in PA and OH), the station had a kerosene pump. Apparently, kerosene consumption in western PA is high enough to warrant a pump and underground storage tank.

In Knox County, OH, we can get kerosene in cans in Walmart, Kmart and most hardware stores. I think Kroger also carries it. But in all these cases it comes in cans.

#18 bob sykes on 2012-11-05 16:48 (Reply)

My parents are missionaries in Africa. Growing up we used kerosene lamps, fridge and freezer. (as well as start fires, naturally) our fridge and freezer we got from a retiring family and was old even in the mid 70s. They were made by a company in Nebraska if memory serves. Other families had newer units that didn't work near so well. Somehow people merely making copies lost the engineering that made ours exceptional.
The same can be said for lamps. Ours were some from here in the states. Later Chinese lamps became available. The main and critical difference is on an American one you can lift the globe (I'm talking about "hurricane" style here) and trim the wick while the flame is lit. This is very important to having a smooth nonsmoking flame. (which will keep your glass cleaner longer) On the Chinese models the "hump" does not rise with the glass. Caveat emptor.
Leon

#19 leon on 2012-11-05 22:56 (Reply)

The Sportsmans Guide has 4 kerosene-burning hurricane lamps for under $18. For all four of them. And GarrettWade dot com has a nice pressurized British military lamp. Pricey, but very nice.

#20 Dr. Everett V. Scott (Link) on 2012-11-06 04:31 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email	(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications. Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u], [url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here. Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Maggie's Farm

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Monday, November 5. 2012

Winter in New England, Part 1: Lamp and Lantern Season