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![Seybold LSide.JPG - W. SEYBOLD PATENT - Steel lamp marked W. SEYBOLD, with inner spout liner, base dia. 1 15/16 in., height to top of lid 2 3/8 in., 3 in. spout, with rolled piece of age-darkened paper inside stating the lamp was used by miner W H N at the Hill Farm Mine (the Hill Farm Mine and Coke Works was established in 1865 near Dunbar, Fayette Co., PA) [The very rare Seybold lamp is the first patented oil wick lamp in the United States. Patent No. 35,264 was awarded for an improvement in miners’ lamps to William Seybold of McKeesport, PA on May 13, 1862 during the height of the Civil War. Seybold’s improvement was an inner spout to house the wick such that tallow rather than lard oil could be burned in the lamp. The inner spout would provide additional heat to the tallow such that it would liquefy near the wick and be drawn up and burned. The remaining tallow in the lamp would remain non-liquid and thus would not spill out and create a flaming or explosive safety hazard as the miner moved his head and the lamp during mining activity. It’s interesting that Seybold chose as a typical miners’ lamp a Scottish looking lamp which likely had been brought to the US by an immigrant miner.]](Seybold LSide.JPG) |
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| Seybold LSide | W. SEYBOLD PATENT - Steel lamp marked W. SEYBOLD, with inner spout liner, base dia. 1 15/16 in., height to top of lid 2 3/8 in., 3 in. spout, with rolled piece of age-darkened paper inside stating the lamp was used by miner W H N at the Hill Farm Mine (the Hill Farm Mine and Coke Works was established in 1865 near Dunbar, Fayette Co., PA) [The very rare Seybold lamp is the first patented oil wick lamp in the United States. Patent No. 35,264 was awarded for an improvement in miners’ lamps to William Seybold of McKeesport, PA on May 13, 1862 during the height of the Civil War. Seybold’s improvement was an inner spout to house the wick such that tallow rather than lard oil could be burned in the lamp. The inner spout would provide additional heat to the tallow such that it would liquefy near the wick and be drawn up and burned. The remaining tallow in the lamp would remain non-liquid and thus would not spill out and create a flaming or explosive safety hazard as the miner moved his head and the lamp during mining activity. It’s interesting that Seybold chose as a typical miners’ lamp a Scottish looking lamp which likely had been brought to the US by an immigrant miner.] |  Original Image |
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