Charged with Fire: The Old Kentucky Home’s Coal Furnace
“…the great chill tomb of Dixieland, particularly in winter, since Eliza was most sparing of coal.” — Look Homeward, Angel
W.O. Gant grumpily observes in Look Homeward, Angel “Your mother has let the Old Barn to Mrs. Revell until she gets back. I went in the other day and found it warm for the first time in my life. She keeps the furnace going and she’s not afraid to burn coal.” The “Old Barn” is Eliza Gant’s Dixieland, aka Julia Wolfe’s Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse. At one time, in the cellar, heat rose from a coal furnace manufactured by the Thatcher Furnace Company of New Jersey. Long abandoned, it once roared with fire as it sent hot air into vents throughout the sprawling house. Relying on the simple physics of rising heat, multiple pipes channeled hot air from the cellar to floor and wall vents placed throughout the boardinghouse, earning this type of furnace the nickname “Octopus Furnace.” In Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe remembers the furnace provided “when charged with fire, a hot dry enervation to the rooms of the first floor, and a gaseous but chill radiation to those upstairs.”
Installed in 1906, the central furnace was a substantial improvement over traditional heat sources and represented an important stepping stone toward more efficient heating of American homes. The Old Kentucky Home was first heated by coal-burning fireplaces in the bedrooms, dining room, and parlor. When Julia Wolfe purchased the house, plans had already been made to install central heat. The deed of sale included an existing contract for the installation of a furnace. The contract states that the grantors “…do further sell and convey to the said Julia E. Wolfe, all their right and interest in and to a contract heretofore entered into between the said T.M. Myers [seller] and W.A. Boyce to install a furnace in the said premises of №48 Spruce Street, and guarantee that the said Boyce will fulfill said contract and install said furnace according to the agreement….”
W.A. Boyce was the treasurer for the Blue Ridge Coal and Wood Company, located at 48 Patton Avenue in 1906. The company was acquired by the Southern Coal Company in 1909, which continued to operate beyond the demise of the furnace in the boardinghouse in the early 1920s. The Thatcher Furnace Company had been a prominent name in furnace sales since John M. Thatcher’s development of the “Tubular” furnace in 1850. The heating company would also remain in business well beyond the lifespan of the Old Kentucky Home’s furnace.
Julia Wolfe’s Thatcher Tubular furnace ceased functioning sometime in the early 1920s, and Julia never bothered to replace it. Perhaps she neglected to invest in regular maintenance and repairs. Perhaps the furnace broke down from overwork. Specifications for this furnace describe it as able to heat up to 40,000 cubic feet, whereas the Old Kentucky Home is estimated at around 60,000 cubic feet. In its place, throughout the Old Kentucky Home, several coal/wood stoves were connected to chimney flues, moving the house back to an older form of heating. Some of the circular flues are still visible from the stove connections above fireplace mantles. Remnants of the old furnace, once “charged with fire,” now sit silently in the cellar invisible beneath the footsteps of the house’s daily visitors.
The house continued to prove expensive to heat and declining business at the boardinghouse made it still more difficult. By the mid-1930s the house was failing to produce enough income to pay for utilities. By the winter of 1938, Julia was practically confined to the front parlor to keep warm. In a letter to Thomas Wolfe, she wrote “I feel the cold but I dress like an Eskimo, to keep from suffering, but can’t get any work done for I have to stay close to the fire here in the living room, even sleep here.” Limited resources in subsequent decades left the Old Kentucky Home without heat until the early 2000s when extensive rehabilitation of the house provided a new furnace.
For More Information:
https://www.oldhouseguy.com/heating-old-octopus-furnace/
https://jerseyhistory.org/guide-to-the-thatcher-furnace-company-papers-1882-1968mg-1647/
