The main feature of the keeping room in the Orange Johnson House is the fireplace. Steve Frasier, an expert in traditional fireplace cooking, has cooked in many fireplaces including at OldSturbridgeVillage in Massachusetts, has said that the keeping room fireplace in the Orange Johnson House is exceptional. This fireplace, probably based on the Rumsford design popular in the nineteenth century, heats well and vents well.
Fireplace at the Orange Johnson House
The beehive bake oven (on the left side) is not safe to use any longer. The extreme heat of a fire inside the oven might cause it to collapse. According to Frazier, the fire built inside the oven could shoot out when the door was opened, as cool air rushed in. A bucket of sand or soil to dowse the flames was always nearby when the fireplace or oven was in use.
The Society has a large collection of cooking utensils, which flank the fireplace; however, few families would have had so many pots, pans, griddles and skillets. In the early 19th century it was common to trade goods such as eggs or butter with a blacksmith for pots, pans and tools and for tinware such as a reflector oven with a tinsmith.
Many of the pots and pans used in the fireplace had legs so that they could sit among the hot coals. A skillet with legs, called appropriately a spider, was an essential tool for frying. The gridiron, used to grill meat, was also essential. One can easily see that the design of the gridiron has given us the name for the football field. And of course, there is a toaster with its spider-like legs and swiveling fancy grillwork. The toaster at the Orange Johnson House is unusually fancy. Also, sitting on stout spider legs is a Dutch oven, handy for the quick-baking of cornbread, biscuits, cookies or even a pie.
The tin kitchen or reflector oven, Frazier emphasizes, needs to be very shiny so that it can reflect the heat onto the chicken or goose baking inside, browning and cooking it evenly. Flour and other ingredients for gravy would be placed in the bottom of the oven where the juice and fat dripped from the roasting meat.
Jeri Arent, V/P Education
If you would like to see the fireplace being used, it is in use at all of the events scheduled in December.
