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Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

DOMESTIC BUILDING CONSTRUCTION 
AT THE FORTRESS OF LOUISBOURG, 1713 - 1758

By

Eric Krause

1996 Draft Report

(Fortress of Louisbourg
Report Number H G 10)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

FIREPLACES - CONSTRUCTION

Home-owners of all building types preferred the rubblestone fireplace. Finishing their jambs, mantles, breasts and stacks with a simple mortar rendering (often whitewashed) also kept costs to a minimum. Less frequently did they choose a fireplace of New England or poorer quality local bricks. Some also used local sandstone, though those in the King's Bastion barracks would suffer the same fate as locally produced bricks: rapid deterioration in a fire.

Fireplace designs also included some of local flatstone and some of local or imported cut stone. The body of a fireplace and chimney of a military building on Isle Saint-Jean, for example, were of flat rubblestone. Its bonding mortar was the standard one-third lime, two-thirds sand mixture. The jambs and the three-piece mantle, however, were of local cut stone. Supporting the mantle, which in turn supported the rubblestone breast, were iron bars. Similar, iron bars were at times forked or arched - 4 pouces in one case.

Brick hearths were common and, although bonding patterns were unspecified, it is known that bricks were being set edgeways producing a hearth 4 pouces thick. The bonding material was again the standard mixture of lime and sand. Other materials were possible too, but only one is actually mentioned: an unknown square-shaped material for the proposed fireplaces in the barracks of the Royal Battery. Set in plaster, the material was possibly similar to the square paving stones that were designated for flooring elsewhere in the building.

Fireplaces more highly decorated than the above were rare. Among the exceptions were three fireplaces in the engineer's house that had imported cut stone cornices and plinths, and several fireplaces, one in the residence of the commissaire-ordonnateur, that had surrounds of Quebec black marble. Generally though, fireplace surrounds, when of a more elaborate design, were of wood.

In 1753 a military contract specified oak or mérisier planks, 10 to 12 pouces wide, 2 pouces thick reduced to 1/4 pouce of thickness for the wooden surround work of fireplaces. In 1742 prices showed such work to have been relatively expensive: 4l 1/4 livres a square pied. Not all decorative work was equally costly, however: the wooden surround work in a Block 32C house, along with its wooden shelve, for a fireplace cost 24 livres; for wooden surround work alone the cost was even lower, only 6 livres in a house on Block 34C. In the latter building, as well, several fireplace mantles were of 4 by 4 pouce pine members. These fireplaces had wooden shelves as well.

Builders did not attempt to have a fireplace in every room. Instead they were concerned with heating the main room only, and so most often chose a back-to-back fireplace configuration, with one such group to a stack. On the other hand, a one-over-one single fireplace configuration was popular where they wished to beat rooms one above the other, in two different storeys. Far less common, however was a one-over-one back-to-back fireplace configuration, as in a 2 1/2 storey masonry residence on Block 34C. Indeed, this building had eight fireplaces, requiring two such arrangements grouped about two stacks.

Sometimes a building had only single end wall fireplaces, with perhaps the same system in the rooms immediately above. In one case, the masonry work of the fireplace stack sat outside the building. The area occupied measured 6 pieds 6 pouces by 2 pieds.

An usual fireplace arrangement was in a piquet building in Port Toulouse in 1749. In that case a back-to-back fireplace was placed, in whose side was set a third, smaller fireplace. The additional fireplace was for heating an officer's room.

Louisbourg fireplaces, though sometimes described as large or small, were not excessive in size. A brick fireplace that, for example, stood in the main room of a private 5A house, measured only 4 pieds by 4 pieds to the mantle. Other brick fireplaces in this building with the same dimensions had their widths and heights taken on the outside of the fireplace instead. Dimensions in fact varied throughout the town, ranging in widths from 3 pieds 4 pouces to 5 pieds, heights from 3 pieds 6 pouces to 3 pieds 8 pouces, and depths from one pied 6 pouces to 2 pieds 2 pouces.

Cast iron firebacks, which were rare and often limited to just one or two fireplaces even in a house that had them, were somewhat reflective of fireplace sizes. Those in the barracks of the King's Bastion, for example, were 2 1/2 pieds wide by 2 pieds high. Others in 1741 measured 2 3/4 pieds by 2 pieds 2 pouces high.

More popular than cast iron firebacks were iron bars. The kitchen fireplace of Louisbourg's second administration complex, for example, required two bars and seven crampons. Iron bars were also used in fireplaces throughout the engineer's residence, everywhere that is except in the kitchen. There, the engineer chose a fireback made from 7 pieds of local cut stone. Lining a fireplace with bricks as in the Block 13 hospital or King's Bastion barracks was yet another technique for protecting a fireplace. Unfortunately, local bricks were good for general purposes, but were too thin to last long in a fire.