Let there be light, whether it’s by candle, lantern or bulb

Overnight guests at our home in the country often comment on how dark the nights are. On moonless nights it is impossible to walk about without a flashlight. During electrical power outages, candles and lanterns are pressed into service, but it is still practically impossible to read or perform normal household chores.

Our ancestors in the pre-Edison era knew how to survive in a world of darkness after the sun set.

Before electric lights became available in the 20th century, Arkansans and many Americans depended on candles and oil lamps for lighting. Farm animals were fed by the light of a lamp; students studied their lessons by candle or oil lamp; women gave birth in the dim light of candles; and ministers preached sermons in the gloom of ill-lit churches.

Criminals were also active in the dark. In June 1857, Edward W. Parker of Arkansas County wrote a letter to his mother back east telling of a murder at Arkansas Post: “Don’t know who killed [George] Oakley, no arrests made, there were seven persons in the room, the candle was blown out and the deed done.”

The most basic lighting in a frontier home came from fires in the fireplace. Wayman Hogue, who grew

up in rural Van Buren County in the years following the Civil War, recalled a childhood home where “the usual way of lighting our house by night was with pine.”

He continued: “A pine knot thrown into the fire lighted the whole room.” The pine knots had the advantage of being free for the taking from local forests. Hogue recalled that when out of pine knots, or during warm weather, “we used candles which we molded ourselves.”

Hogue also remembered that his frugal mother improvised lighting: “I remember seeing my mother put sycamore balls in a saucer of grease and light the end of the stem. This made a dim flickering light.”

Well before the Civil War, many American cities and towns built plants to manufacture gas, usually from coal. The gas was used for lighting homes, public buildings and especially the streets. Little Rock began lighting its streets with gas lamps in 1860, tended at sunset and sunrise by men carrying short ladders.

Getting about after dark was a real challenge for those living on unlighted streets, and many accidents befell the unwary. In September 1877, the Arkansas Gazette ran an editorial deploring the condition of the streets and the dangers they presented: “At the northeast corner of Gaines and Markham, a wooden sewer or draining ditch has fallen in, making it very dangerous for nocturnal pedestrians, especially as this portion of the city is unlighted by gas.”

Prosperous families in Little Rock and other towns having gas plants used the new technology to light their homes. Peter Hanger, a successful Little Rock businessman, had his home brilliantly illuminated with gas. The home, at 1212 Scott St., still stands. About 30 years ago Charles and Becky Witsell restored the house, including the gas chandelier in the parlor, which I was fortunate to see blazing brightly during a tour.

Kerosene lamps were introduced just before the Civil War and were in widespread use in Arkansas and across the nation for another century. The town square in Fayetteville was lit with “lamp posts at the four corners of the square, topped by glass enclosed oil lamps,” according to early

Fayetteville historian William S. Campbell.

In 1878, the Hempstead County sheriff was authorized to purchase “suitable [kerosene] lamps, reflectors and brackets, said brackets to be fully 12 inches or more long” for use in the elegant new county courthouse in the historic town of Washington.

Generations of Arkansans grew up in homes lighted by kerosene lamps. In 1964, when Gov. Orval E. Faubus faced Republican challenger Winthrop Rockefeller in a heated campaign, he reminded elderly voters that it was Rockefeller’s grandfather, Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, who was responsible for the high price of “coal oil.”

In research on lighting history, I came across a wonderful description of a “lawn party” on the grounds of the State House in Little Rock in August 1875. The purpose was to raise funds for an Arkansas exhibit at the coming centennial fair in Philadelphia. Described by the Gazette reporter as a “fairyland,” the grounds “were brilliantly illuminated with gas-jets, locomotive headlights, lamps and Chinese lanterns …”