Page 22: "Wednesday, May 21, 1902 - Dining Party" - Windsor Forge, home of Miss Blanche Nevin; Crowd on lawn at Windsor Forge; Windsor Forge built 1735; Windsor forge dining room; Little Conestoga Creek near Windsor Forge; Dining room fireplace at Windsor Forge.
Provenance
First of two Diffenderfer family albums. Compiled by Frank Reid Diffenderfer, a former member of LCHS and an editor of a Lancaster city newspaper. Album documents his family as well as that of his neighbors on North Duke Street, Lancaster, between 1901 and 1903. Neighbors include Charles Fondersmith, Robert Slaymaker, and his daughter, Ida, who married Frank Fondersmith.
Firebacks were of cast iron, usually with a decorative motif on the front side. They stood against the back wall of the fireplace to prevent undue deterioration of the bricks. Original examples are very rare, and most of them seem to have gravitated to museums or restored houses. Courtesy of the Dey Mansion.
Dining room with small brick fireplace and mural of a ship painted on the wall. "Vermont House Dining Room" written on back. Courtesy Shelburne Museum.
The paneled room end in the Vermont House at Shelburne Museum came from an early 18th century house near Essex, Connecticut. An arched lintel is an uncommon feature of a New England house. The ball and steeple andirons are of the late 18th or early 19th century. Courtesy Shelburne Museum
Hope Lodge, near Philadelphia, was built in the first half of the 18th century. A bedroom fireplace is framed with tiles from Holland, as are several others. The use of two horizontal panels over the fireplace is a typical procedure of the period. Courtesy Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.