Civil War Officer's Tin Oil Lamp, same in Gettysburg Museum collection (SOLD)

This is another nice item being offered, it is an early 19^th century tin Whale Oil Lamp. It stands approximately 6 3/4 inches high with a 5 1/4-inch diameter base. These lamps are famously associated with Benjamin Franklin, whose patent on the two-tube lamp burner, declared that two closely adjacent flames produced more than twice the light of a single tube.

The two-tube whale oil burner was popularly used through the Civil War era. Per Hayward’s Colonial & Early American Lighting, a tinned whale oil lamp of the style offered here is known to have been shown in the New York exhibition of the “Lincoln Log Cabin”. That lamp had history of ownership and use by President Lincoln in his early Illinois law office (see pictures).

There is another similar example of this lamp in the NPS Gettysburg Museum collection (see pictures). This is a nice original example and would go well in a Civil War Officer’s display.