An historical essay by Bill Venrick.
The little miner’s lamp above has been in my possession since I was about 13 or 14. On a rare visit, my Great Uncle John White, was telling the usual tall tales at our house when visiting my mother. My mother’s family made quite an impression on my life which probably contributes to the reason I have had this little lard oil lamp for over sixty years.
In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, this incident was probably the first among assorted promises about which I had my doubts. My mother’s Uncle John White was the kind of relative you weren’t really sure what to believe or how much to count on. I can’t recall ever having seen him except this one brief time as a young teenager. As he wove his yarn about this miner’s lard oil lamp hanging on the wall of his cabin in Pine, Colorado, he saw my excitement and said he would send it to me when he got back home. I suppose the incidental comments by my parents tainted my expectations a bit and was I surprised to receive that promised miner’s lamp a few weeks later. It came through the mail in a little cloth bag, with a drawstring tightly tied and a card-label attached. I doubt if anything comes through the mail like that anymore.
The “lard oil lamp” as he called it, was the predecessor to carbide lights (or lamps). The fuel for this lamp was melted lard and some entwined cord was fed down through the spout into that reservoir of lard. Once the entwined cord had become soaked with lard (oil) it acted as a wick and when lit would produce a large flame. I can still remember the rancid smell of that old lamp wick. Not only did the lamp have an unpleasant odor the smoke was another issue. It was easy to figure out why a different light was invented and carbide lights quickly became the better way to see in a coal mine.
I remember playing with carbide lamps. Once I recall play became rather serious when I didn’t get the bottom screwed on tight enough. When I rubbed the flint wheel on the lamp face with the palm of my hand the whole thing became a big flame for just a second until I decided I was done messing with it and threw it to the ground. (Let’s face it, that was over half a century ago and the details escape my memory) The mechanism in those carbide lamps was a little valve opening to allow water to drip into the lower part of the lamp where chunks of carbide were placed. This process produced acetylene gas which was forced out of a little orifice in the center of polished concave reflective surface. Igniting the lamp was simple, a little knurled wheel rubbed against flint making a spark to ignite the gas. It was a boy-thing toy at the time and I recall something about the “popping” sound of the flame being regulated by how long you kept your palm across the front of the lamp before igniting the gas.
I suppose I had that lard oil lamp forty years before I became a curious adult wondering where it was made. The identification on the lamp was brief: “What Cheer Tool Company, What Cheer, Iowa ” There was a logo on the spout of this lamp with two letters: GB. I wrote to the town of What Cheer, Iowas and hoped for the best. Sure enough, some weeks later I received a letter from the mayor of What Cheer, Iowa, and in that letter he gave me a brief history of the company that made my little lamp. One fact I uncovered in my Internet search in Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia was the explanation of how the town got its name, What Cheer. It was not local Indian name as I had supposed but an American Indian name from New Jersey!
Only recently when I came across this old lamp in a box of antiques was my curiosity aroused even more. It was easy to find something on the Internet and Dave Johnson, a collector in Minnesota wrote, “It is a driver’s lamp – a lamp used by mule drivers underground, as opposed to the smaller face lamp – a lamp used at the working face of the mine.” Early lamps like mine and later carbide lamps were attached to the miner’s cap. Technology changed of course and batteries became the energy (or fuel) to provide light simpler and perhaps a little safer as well. Mr. Johnson also wrote, saying, “Colorado had a large number of hard rock mines and many coal mines as well.”
The What Cheer Tool Co. was a manufacturer of mining and other tools in What Cheer, Iowa. The lamps with their name were actually made by Grier Bros. Mfg. Co. of Ottumwa, Iowa, which is why the GB appears on the spout. ”I have 5 different What Cheer oil wick cap lamps in my collection of more than 1200 different mine lamps,” collector Dave Johnson wrote.
Dave Johnson’s website of antique mining artifacts and pictures may be of interest to you if you would like to see dozens of such miner’s lamps mentioned above: http://miningartifacts.homestead.com/ OR — http://miningartifactsii.homestead.com/MiscLamps.html
Now what from the maze of my memories can I dig out of some dusty box to write about next?
THE WORDWRIGHT — Thanks for visiting!