The fireplace tools colonial Americans used to work their fire places consisted of hand wrought iron tongs and a shovel. These tools were crude and simple in design and usually forged on the property by its landowner or local blacksmiths. The scale of these early tools was small compared to the massive hearths used for cooking and heating the colonial home.
As time passed these tools were fitted with brass knobs and handles.
By mid-18th two mid-19th century, tools had increased in size and design sophistication. These tools had brass handles cast like andirons using the same motif as the andirons of the period. The body of the tongs and shovel made of hand wrought iron were attached to these same cast handles. The shovels had hand wrought pan shaped in the form of graceful urns or keyhole designs. Most 18th and middle 19th century American toolsets consisted of tongs and shovels, rarely was a poker included. (The poker was used by the British.) There were no matching brooms. The brooms were an addition to 1950-1960s sets. By now the sophisticated and efficient toolsets were used as an intrinsic part of fireplace furnishings in American homes.
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