W.C. Davis & Co. Cast Iron Waffle Iron with Low Base

STEVE’S SEASONED CLASSICS

SSC Museum Collection

The Ancestor of Favorite Piqua Ware — W.C. Davis & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio — c. 1842–1880

Marked: W.C. DAVIS & CO • CINCINNATI O

SSC Catalog No. SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001

Complete Set — Paddles + Original Low Base

SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001 — Top view, closed. W.C. Davis & Co. cast iron waffle iron with original low base. The concentric ring design on the top paddle exterior and the low profile of the base are characteristic of mid-19th century stove-top waffle iron design. Complete three-piece set: two paddles and original matching base. W.C. Davis & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, c. 1842–1880.

Catalog Record

SSC Catalog No.:  SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001

Maker:  W.C. Davis & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio

Object:  Cast iron waffle iron with original matching low base — complete three-piece set

Marking:  W.C. DAVIS & CO • CINCINNATI O — raised casting on upper paddle exterior

Period:  c. 1842–1880 (the active marking period for the W.C. Davis & Co. name; see the note on the founding date below)

Material:  Cast iron throughout — paddles and base

Grid Pattern:  Classic American square-grid with dot/nub pattern at each intersection — four quadrants divided by a cross member — consistent with mid-19th century American waffle iron design

Condition:  Original surface throughout. No cracks. Hinge intact and functional. Low base original to the set. Paddles open and close as designed. Surface wear and oxidation consistent with 19th century age.

Completeness:  Complete — both paddles present with original handles, original matching low base, hinge intact. No missing components.

Acquisition:  eBay, seller thriftworld — Order 08-14652-93413, Item 306934615737, May 17, 2026

Museum Collection:  Pre-1905 Collection

Note on the object:  Marked W.C. Davis & Co. pieces are not commonly encountered in the collector record, and the firm’s name was applied to marked production only from its origins through about 1880. This example is a complete set retaining both paddles, both handles, a functioning hinge, and its original low base.

SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001 — Maker’s mark detail. W.C. DAVIS & CO / CINCINNATI O cast in raised lettering in the annular ring of the upper paddle exterior. The marking is sharp and complete.

Physical Description

The W.C. Davis & Co. waffle iron is a complete three-piece cast iron set: two hinged paddles and an original matching low base. The set is circular in form, consistent with Cincinnati stove-top waffle iron production of the mid-nineteenth century.

The upper paddle exterior presents the maker’s mark in raised lettering arranged in an annular band around a central circular boss: W.C. DAVIS & CO arcs across the upper right, CINCINNATI arcs across the lower, and O follows at lower right — the standard abbreviation for Ohio used in Cincinnati ironwork of this period. The lettering is crisp and well-defined. The central boss and surrounding concentric ring create the characteristic profile of mid-19th century Cincinnati waffle iron design.

The interior cooking surfaces of both paddles present the classic American square-grid waffle pattern with a raised dot or nub at each grid intersection, divided into four quadrants by a central cross member running both horizontally and vertically across the paddle face. The grid walls are well-defined and the dot pattern is consistent and complete across both paddle faces.

The hinge connecting the two paddles is cast iron, functioning as a fixed hinge that allows the paddles to open fully for loading and close completely for cooking. The hinge is intact and operational. The handles extend from the outer rim of each paddle and terminate in the loop form typical of 19th century Ohio stove-top waffle iron design. Both handles are present and undamaged.

The low base is the original matching base for this set. Low bases were designed for use on wood-burning stoves, where the iron could rotate over an open stove eye without clearance obstruction from a tall base. The base carries the iron at cooking height over the stove eye and provides the rotational pivot that allowed the cook to flip the iron during cooking without removing it from the stove. The base, paddles, handles, and hinge are all present and original to the set.

SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001 — Paddles open, cooking surfaces visible. The classic American square-grid pattern with a raised dot at each intersection, divided into four quadrants by the central cross member, is clearly visible on both paddle faces. The pattern is consistent and complete across both cooking surfaces. The hinge mechanism is visible at right.

The Maker: W.C. Davis & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio

Origins: Hunt Street

The works that would become W.C. Davis & Co. were started in Cincinnati by William C. Davis, on Hunt Street, growing to employ around 100 hands. A contemporary Cincinnati industrial account placed the start of the works in 1842 and described the firm as one of the most extensive branches of the city’s iron industry, in a city it credited with leading superiority in stove manufacturing. (Note on the founding date: the 1842 figure comes from that period account; some later collector references date the firm’s founding to 1848. Both are secondary, and no incorporation or directory record fixing the exact year has been confirmed, so the founding is best given as the early-to-mid 1840s.)

The works moved over the following decades as they grew: first to the corner of Pearl and Butler Streets, then in 1861 to Front Street below Baker Street, and finally in 1878 to the location that would serve the Favorite Stove Works era. By the time W.C. Davis registered the “Favorite” trademark in June 1878, the firm had been in operation for more than three decades.

William C. Davis was a Cincinnati industrialist with a broad commercial reach across iron stoves, hollow ware, and other ventures, and the historical record describes him as a man inclined to create or buy enterprises and then sell them. One often-repeated claim deserves correction here: Davis is sometimes said to have held a patent for metallic burial cases (metal caskets). In fact, the patent — U.S. Patent No. 5,920, granted November 14, 1848 — belonged to Almond D. Fisk of New York. W.C. Davis & Co. was one of two firms licensed (c. 1849–1850) to manufacture the Fisk case in the West; it was a licensed manufacturer, not the patentee. The coffin-making side of the Davis works was sold in 1853 to Crane, Barnes & Co., which reorganized as Crane, Breed & Co. — the origin of the well-known Cincinnati casket maker, whose casket business continued into the twentieth century. So Crane & Breed inherited the Cincinnati Fisk-case operation; there is no support in the sources reviewed for Davis personally holding or selling a burial-case patent. The W.C. Davis & Co. name on cast iron hollow ware represents the stove and cookware branch of this broader industrial career.

The Foundry’s Place in Cincinnati Iron

Cincinnati in the mid-nineteenth century was the dominant stove-making city in the American Midwest. The Ohio River gave the city access to pig iron from southern Ohio and Kentucky furnaces; the canal system connected it to the grain markets that drove demand for kitchen equipment; and a dense community of German immigrant craftsmen and mechanics provided the skilled foundry labor that made precision casting possible. W.C. Davis & Co. operated at the heart of this industrial environment, described in contemporary accounts as a leading agency in building up the stove trade of the city.

The company’s own 1872 trade catalogue — W.C. Davis & Co.’s Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue, and Wholesale Price List of Stoves, Farmers’ Boilers, Hollow Ware, etc. (Cincinnati: Applegate, Pounsford & Co., printers, [1872]; 72 pp., illustrated; held by the American Antiquarian Society) — confirms from the firm’s own records that it produced stoves, farmers’ boilers, and cast-iron hollow ware. The catalogue’s specific hollow-ware listings have not been examined directly. The individual items attributed to the firm — skillets, gem pans, tea kettles, waffle irons, and dutch oven covers — are recorded in the Steve Stephens–compiled foundry listings, published both as the WAGS (Wagner and Griswold Society) foundry list and the Cast Iron Collector foundry database. (These are the same compiler in two places, not two independent sources.) Of those, skillets and waffle irons are additionally confirmed by surviving marked examples, including this piece.

Collector and researcher literature on Favorite Piqua Ware traces the company’s lineage back to W.C. Davis & Co. as the founding entity from which the later Favorite line descended. The W.C. Davis & Co. name appears on marked hollow ware only into about 1880, when the Favorite Stove Works succeeded it.

The Corporate Lineage: W.C. Davis to Favorite Piqua

The succession from W.C. Davis & Co. to Favorite Piqua Ware is one of the more important corporate genealogies in Ohio cast iron history, and it runs directly through the SSC piece. The timeline, reconstructed from Cincinnati city directories, newspaper accounts, trademark records, and collector research, is as follows:

•      early-to-mid 1840s — W.C. Davis & Co. starts a stove works on Hunt Street, Cincinnati, employing around 100 hands

•      1865 — Great Western Stove Works name appears in Cincinnati directories under W.C. Davis as proprietor (collector-sourced; directory advertising for the name is documented from about 1870–1871)

•      1872 — W.K. Boal purchases the stove foundry from W.C. Davis and enters a partnership with Samuel P. Cheseldine

•      1878 — W.C. Davis registers the “Favorite” trademark (USPTO); the works move to a new location

•      c. 1879–1880 — the “Favorite Stove Works” name appears; the W.C. Davis & Co. name begins to recede from marked hollow ware

•      1882 — Favorite Stove Works Company organized as a stock company, with W.K. Boal as President and Samuel P. Cheseldine as Secretary/Treasurer, succeeding W.C. Davis & Co.

•      1888–1889 — Boal moves the Favorite Stove Works Company to Piqua, Ohio, citing natural-gas fuel savings; the Favorite Stove and Range Company commences operations in Piqua the week of February 18, 1889

•      1892 — W.C. Davis is bought out by “Captain A.G. West” of A.G. West and Son

•      1916 — Boal’s son expands hollow ware production; the Favorite Piqua Ware cookware line reaches its peak in later decades

•      1934–1935 — Great Depression forces closure; the Favorite Piqua Ware cookware line is sold to Chicago Hardware Foundry Co.

A note on the timeline: the stove foundry itself passed to W.K. Boal in 1872, while Davis-connected ventures continued in Cincinnati under other names until the 1892 buyout — so “W.C. Davis” as a marked hollow-ware name effectively ends around 1880, even though the man’s business activity continued afterward. It should also be noted that the most archival accounts treat the Piqua firm as a fresh start that bought the patterns, tooling, and brand of the Cincinnati Favorite operation, rather than the identical company simply relocating; the brand and corporate descent are well established, the question of strict continuity less so.

The SSC waffle iron predates the Favorite era entirely. It represents the Cincinnati origin point of the lineage that later produced Favorite Piqua Ware.

Relationship to Favorite Piqua waffle irons.  This piece is best understood as a documented ancestor of the Favorite line and a probable design forerunner of the Piqua waffle irons — not the same pattern in an earlier mark. The connection is one of corporate lineage and shared Ohio design tradition rather than proven pattern continuity. The Favorite name passed from Davis to W.K. Boal’s Favorite Stove Works in Cincinnati and then to the Favorite Stove & Range Co. of Piqua (1889); Favorite’s Piqua hollow ware, including its waffle irons, is generally dated to the post-1916 period when the cookware line was expanded — roughly four decades and one relocation removed from this piece. The two share an institutional ancestor and the same square-grid waffle vocabulary, but no evidence reviewed here shows this specific Davis pattern was carried directly into Favorite Piqua production.

W.C. Davis Marked Hollow Ware in the Record

Documentation of W.C. Davis & Co. marked pieces is sparse. The Steve Stephens–compiled foundry listing records the firm as a producer of skillets, gem pans, tea kettles, waffle irons, and dutch oven covers. The Booniehicks Favorite Piqua research guide states that W.C. Davis & Co. produced skillets and acknowledges the firm’s hollow ware production, while noting that most collector-familiar Favorite pieces date to after 1916. Examples of W.C. Davis Company cast iron, dated by collectors to roughly the 1848–1865 range, appear in collector reference photography, and skillets and a gem pan bearing the W.C. Davis marking have been recorded. Marked waffle irons bearing the firm’s name are also documented, this complete set among them.

Significance: Why This Piece Matters in the SSC Collection

Several factors give this piece its place within the SSC collection and within the broader Ohio cast iron record.

A Narrow Marking Window

W.C. Davis & Co. applied its name to marked production from roughly the 1840s to about 1880. After 1880, the firm transitioned through Great Western Stove Works to Favorite Stove Works, and the W.C. Davis & Co. name ceased to appear on marked production. Any piece bearing the W.C. DAVIS & CO CINCINNATI O mark was therefore cast within the pre-1880 era, during a formative period of American cast iron hollow ware production. The marking itself functions as a date bracket.

Waffle Irons Are Often Incomplete

Within vintage cast iron collecting, waffle irons are among the harder pieces to find as complete, matched sets. Collectors observe that bases survived far less often than the irons themselves, since sets were frequently separated from their bases over generations of household use and moves. This is true even of Griswold and Wagner waffle irons, which were produced in large quantities; for a maker like W.C. Davis, working at a smaller scale, a complete set with its original base is correspondingly harder to assemble. This example retains paddles, handles, hinge, and original base together.

The Predecessor of a Celebrated Ohio Cookware Line

Collector enthusiasm for Favorite Piqua Ware is well established, with Favorite Piqua waffle irons commanding $200–$325 and above in restored condition. The firm that became Favorite Piqua started as W.C. Davis & Co. This piece is not a Favorite Piqua waffle iron — it is a waffle iron made by the same Cincinnati foundry before it became Favorite: before Boal took over, before the move to Piqua, and before the sunrise logo. It represents the Cincinnati origin point of that lineage in physical form.

SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001 — Bottom view showing the original low base. The low-profile base was designed for use on wood-burning stoves, where the iron rotated over an open stove eye. The base is original to this set.

Why This Piece Is in the SSC Collection

Steve’s Seasoned Classics documents Ohio cast iron makers, and W.C. Davis & Co. is one of Cincinnati’s foundational cast iron firms — active in Cincinnati from the 1840s into the early 1890s (the stove foundry itself passing to W.K. Boal in 1872), producing stoves, farmers’ boilers, and hollow ware, and establishing the institutional foundation from which Favorite Piqua Ware descended. The piece qualifies on every collection criterion: Ohio maker, Cincinnati location, documented production of cast iron hollow ware (now confirmed by the firm’s own 1872 catalogue), and a clearly marked example.

The significance of this specific piece goes beyond maker identification. It is a complete W.C. Davis & Co. waffle iron — paddles, base, hinge, handles, all original and intact — marked clearly with the firm name and city, dated by the marking to the pre-1880 era, and representing a form of Ohio cast iron that is seldom seen in the collector record.

SSC aims not to speculate beyond the evidence. Where the record is firm — the company’s existence, its Cincinnati operation, its product categories, and its place as the ancestor of the Favorite line — this entry states it plainly. Where the record is thinner — the exact founding year, the specific hollow-ware items in the 1872 catalogue, and the precise nature of the Cincinnati-to-Piqua transition — this entry says so.

The iron endures. The markings tell the truth. The story deserves to be told.

Acquisition Record

•      SSC Catalog No.: SSC-WCDAVIS-WAF-1860-001

•      Platform: eBay

•      Seller: thriftworld

•      Order No.: 08-14652-93413

•      Item No.: 306934615737

•      Date Purchased: May 17, 2026

•      Shipped: USPS Ground Advantage

•      Museum Collection: Pre-1905 Collection

Sources

Primary

•      W.C. Davis & Co.’s Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue, and Wholesale Price List of Stoves, Farmers’ Boilers, Hollow Ware, etc. (Cincinnati: Applegate, Pounsford & Co., printers, [1872]), 72 pp., illus., 18 cm. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. — confirms stoves, farmers’ boilers, and hollow ware.

•      U.S. Patent No. 5,920 (Almond D. Fisk, metallic burial case, Nov. 14, 1848) — the burial-case patent; W.C. Davis & Co. manufactured under license.

•      The SSC object itself — marked physical evidence of W.C. Davis & Co. waffle iron production.

Secondary

•      Steve Stephens–compiled foundry listings, published as the WAGS (Wagner and Griswold Society) foundry list and the Cast Iron Collector foundry database — product attributions (skillets, gem pans, tea kettles, waffle irons, dutch oven covers) and the W.C. Davis → Favorite lineage. (Single compiler.)

•      Booniehicks, Guide to Favorite Piqua Ware — W.C. Davis & Co. skillet production; post-1916 dating of most Favorite hollow ware.

•      Period Cincinnati industrial account (reproduced in collector research) — 1842 founding figure, ~100 hands, location moves, and “Favorite” trademark (June 1878).

•      Standard funeral-history scholarship and reference accounts of the Fisk metallic burial case and Crane & Breed — Davis as Fisk licensee; 1853 transfer of the coffin works.

Evidence notes: The founding year (1842 vs. 1848) and the exact nature of the Cincinnati-to-Piqua transition are unresolved in the sources reviewed. The specific hollow-ware items beyond stoves, farmers’ boilers, and hollow ware as categories rest on the Stephens listing (plus surviving marked skillets and waffle irons) pending direct examination of the 1872 catalogue pages.

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