©Terry Marsh 2003
The Daniels Gasoline Lighting Co. was owned and operated by Charles Marcus Daniels from 1910 until the early 1940's. The company occupied the basement of a two-story building at 406 N. Main St., Paris, Illinois, and advertised Farm Lighting plants.
Charles Daniels in the 1950s (photo by Gary Daniels)
With the exception of one lantern, all of the lighting devices seen or found that can be attributed to Daniels Gasoline Lighting Co. are hollow wire lamps. The lantern may have been an experimental version. Most of the lighting from this company has "LITTLE WONDER LIGHT CO." on one side of the burner casting and "PATENTED DEC.28.09" on the other side of the casting. Patent No. 944,775 was issued to Charles Marcus Daniels on this date; the distinctive burner plate has wedge-shaped openings arranged in a circle. Interestingly, Little Wonder Light Co. does not appear anywhere else in the history of this company.
Daniels Gasoline burner (photo by Terry Marsh)
A hollow wire tank owned by Gary Daniels, a grandson of Charles M. Daniels, has a capacity of 2 gallons, half of which would have been gasoline and half pressurized air. The valves and fuel cap on the unmarked tank are the same as those found on the hollow wire lamps and lantern.
Hollow wire gasoline storage tank and lamp (photos by Terry Marsh)
The lantern is over 21" tall, excluding the bail, and 7" in diameter. When first discovered the copper and brass ventilator had deformed from the heat given off by the burners and a second tier of holes had been crudely drilled below the first tier that are arranged in a circle under the top cap of the ventilator. The mica globe was missing. The fount fittings are as on other Daniels Lighting pieces; the fount appears to be a shortened hollow wire tank.
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Daniels Lantern (photo by Terry Marsh) |
As Daniels advertised farm lighting plants perhaps this was sold as a poultry house lantern. With a fount capacity of 0.85 gallons and an empty weight of 8 pounds, this lantern is comparable to the Coleman E20 poultry lantern. The Coleman model had steel wool and a loop of asbestos "rope" inside the collar, apparently to catch fuel leaks or filter dusty air below the globe cage. This model lacks these amenities and there is a good possibility that the Daniels' lantern shown here may be experimental. No other example has been found, and the lantern quite clearly had a significant heat-emitting problem. It would be interesting to discover if other examples of this lantern existed, and if they had the same configuration. |
This page was written by Terry Marsh, who has collated information and materials from: Shirley Bishop, Gary Daniels, Fil Graff, Fred Kuntz, Roger Lang, Craig Seabrook, Fred Smith, and Bob Willard.
Terry has a very informative web site at http://terrence.marsh.faculty.noctrl.edu/lantern/index.htm where photographs of this lantern and many other lighting devices are displayed.
To contact me please go to the mail page.
