[Magdalen] trying to sell my house

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Ann Markle

>Coal.  Back when.  Usually a small room with a window where the coal truck
>dumped it in.

Yes indeed! the vast majority of homes a hundred year ago were heated with coal. 
Poor folk bought it in bags from street vendors or at the corner variety store; 
Richer people had it delivered and sent down the coal shute to the coal bin. 
Older furnaces needed hand stoking, as did the stoves.

Of course, anthracite was the heating fuel of choice, as when properly stoked, 
made no visible smoke. That was a marketing advantage that allowed the 
anthracite dealers to charge more for their coal. And the Anthracite railroads 
*who owned the mines) and their local dealers pushed hard for clean air laws 
that would ban other types of home-heating fuel; they were the granddaddy of the 
clean air movement.

But coal heating required daily work (even with the advent of automatic stokers 
in the 1930s). So most consumers switched to oil or natural gas as soon as it 
became available. In Syracuse NY, the number of coal dealers dropped from 11 to 
2 within three years of the arrival of a natural gas pipeline in the mid 1950s.

But the most important legacy of the coal business is that most northeasterners 
switched to oil heat.  Today, that means cap and trade would hit New England, 
New York, New jersey and Pennsylvania the hardest. And wouldn't you know, the 
idea of cap and trade came from a conservative think tank, known for wanting to 
stick it to liberals where the live.

One other legacy is that with the elimination of the coal bin and its attendant 
dust came the birth of the DIY and Hobbies --  the basement workshop, the model 
trains and the like.

And an interesting sidelight is the number of coal bins that were blocked off 
with brick and forgotten until 2-3 generations later  -- who "discovered" them 
and decided their house must have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. 
Charming local history (and an important reminder for many people in an era 
where the flag of treason, sedition and defense of slavery is called a mere 
"tradition") stories but pretty much all all worthy of a Snopes entry <g>.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie