Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Chilson, Gardner

CHILSON, Gardner, inventor, b. in Thompson, Conn., in 1804; d. 21 Nov., 1877. He received a public-school education, became apprentice to a cabinet-maker in Stirling, Conn., and removed to Providence, R. I., on coming of age. He went to Boston in 1837, and engaged in the manufacture of stoves and furnaces at Mansfield, Mass. As early as 1844 he devised a furnace that received a prize medal at the London world's fair in 1851. Among his numerous inventions are conical radiators, applied to stoves and furnaces (1854), a cooking-range with two ovens placed above the fire, and arranged so that either or both may be used (1858), and an office stove surmounted with a broad disk, which radiates heat toward the floor (1865).