J.H. Day & Co. Patented Safety Kettle with Fire Shield
Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Hollow Ware, SSC Museum Collection, Pre 1905 Cast Iron Steve Thaman Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Hollow Ware, SSC Museum Collection, Pre 1905 Cast Iron Steve Thaman

J.H. Day & Co. Patented Safety Kettle with Fire Shield

MADE ONLY BY. Four words cast into a hinged iron door mounted on the front of a Cincinnati hearth kettle, backed by two patents filed three years apart — 1874 and 1877. J.H. Day & Co. was not a stove works. They were an industrial machinery manufacturer who also invented a new way to manage fire around a kettle, protected it twice, and put their exclusivity claim in iron on every piece. This is the most complete example known: fire shield intact, hinged, latched, and operational after 150 years.

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Dayton Malleable Iron Co. Patented Smelting Ladle
Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Industrial Tools, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Industrial Tools, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman

Dayton Malleable Iron Co. Patented Smelting Ladle

A brass brush brought it back: DAYTON MALLEABLE IRON CO. / PAT AUG 15 / 1871. Not just the year — the month and the day. August 15, 1871. The same day M. Hose & Lyon, across town in Dayton, patented their own competing ladle design. The dried slag in the diamond-form cup is still there. The thermal patina is still there. SSC will not remove either one. This is what a working foundry tool looks like after 155 years when you choose preservation over restoration.

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Yourtee, Hollister & Co. Cast Iron Stove-Top Kettle
Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Hollow Ware, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Hollow Ware, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman

Yourtee, Hollister & Co. Cast Iron Stove-Top Kettle

Yourtee, Hollister & Co. existed for less than three years. On January 9, 1874, their Cincinnati Commercial dissolution notice appeared. Before that, in 1871, they cast their name and the year into the lid of this kettle. The firm is gone. The iron is still here — marked, dated, and documented for the first time.

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Greer & King Mfg. Co. No. 8 Three-Legged Bail Bean Pot Kettle
Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Hollow Ware, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman Pre-1905 Collection, Ohio Cast Iron, Hollow Ware, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman

Greer & King Mfg. Co. No. 8 Three-Legged Bail Bean Pot Kettle

The Greer & King Mfg. Co. of Dayton, Ohio received their patent on November 3, 1868 — three years after the Civil War ended, when Reconstruction was still unfinished and the western frontier had not yet closed. The bean pot sitting on these three iron legs predates Wagner by two decades and Griswold Erie by more than twenty years. This is the oldest patent-dated piece in the SSC Museum Collection, and one of the primary surviving physical records of a Dayton foundry that the standard reference databases have never documented.

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