Below the grate is a small brass fender to prevent the ashes from scattering, and around the fireplace is a fender of iron wire with brass rails and feet. The hob-grate was more in use in the South than in the North.
In 1745, after many experiments, and goaded to it by the smoking chimneys and wasted heat of the fireplace, Franklin invented the stove in use ever since, called the Franklin stove or grate. Illustration [319] shows a Franklin stove in the Warner house at Portsmouth. The fireplace, faced with tiles, was originally built to burn wood, but when the new-fashioned Franklin stove became popular, one was bought and set into the fireplace, the front of the stove projecting into the room. The stove is made of iron, with the three rosettes, the open-work rail at the top, the large knobs in front and the small knobs at the back, of brass, which every good housekeeper kept as brightly polished as the brass andirons and the handles of the shovel and tongs. At each side of the fireplace are the original brass rests for the shovel and tongs.
Later in the century the fireplace was filled in with a board or bricks, and what was called a fire-frame was used. It was similar to the upper part of a Franklin stove; the back and sides of iron, somewhat larger than those of the Franklin stove, resting directly upon the stone hearth, giving the effect of an iron fireplace in front of the old one. Oftentimes in an old house may be found a large fireplace filled in, with the iron fire-frame in front of it, that in its turn superseded by a stove placed with its pipe passing through the fire-frame. Illustration [320] shows a fire-frame in the Wayside Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts.
Illus. 319.—Franklin Stove, 1745-1760.
Candles and whale oil, with pine-wood knots, provided the light for the Pilgrim fathers, aside from that thrown out by the great wood fire. Candlesticks formed a necessary part of the furnishings of a house. They were made of brass, iron, tin, pewter, and silver, but candlesticks of brass were the ones in most general use.
Illus. 320.—Iron Fire-frame, 1775-1800.