Van Schaack’s Stove & Housekeeping Store

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Van Schaack’s Stove & Housekeeping Store
Life Span: 1859-1871
Location: 47-49 State Street, State and Couch Place, between Randolph and Lake
Architect: Unknown.

Halpin & Bailey’s City Directory for the Year 1863-64

Van Schaak Henry C.

Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1870
Van Schaak H. C. Jr., hot air furnaces, stoves and housekeeping articles, 82 State, r. 991 Michigan av.

History of Chicago; Its Commercial and Manufacturing Interests and Industry, By I.D. Guyer, 1862

GOING TO HOUSEKEEPING.When the bride’s honey-moon is over and honey-moons cannot last forever she must go to housekeeping. She may board, indeed, at a fashionable hotel, or a private house, or she may live with her old friends. But this will only do for a while. She will find the days grow longer, and at last she will tire of the same room, and the same table, be they the finest. She will tire of course of a private family, and there can be no remedy found for it but housekeeping. We know it is up hill work to keep house in America, where you have to wait on your servants, instead of being waited on yourself. But it is, after all, the smoothest road for the married woman to keep house; and rough as the path may be, all the flowers that never fade in wedded life, grow there.

If you would make a fair start, go to Van Schaack’s great store, No. 47 State Street, in the beginning, and take a deliberate look. He has upwards of thirty thousand different kinds of articles there, a great many of which you must have, before you can keep house half an hour. You have very little idea of what they are you could not think of half of them in a week. But you need not think of any of them, Mr. Van Schaack will anticipate your wants, and .save you that trouble. He set up that large establishment on purpose, and he has talked with a thousand housekeepers, and traveled in every American city or manufacturing town, and paid art a fortune and you get the fruits of all this for nothing. To assist the young housekeeper, he has published a catalogue of the more prominent articles, which are required for housekeeping, from which a list can readily be made out, and old housekeepers gladly avail themselves of this list of housekeeping articles, kitchen utensils, etc., etc. At Van Schaack’s your house can be more completely furnished, with all the modern housekeeping implements, and for half the money it would cost to hunt up the things here and there and everywhere for yourself. This establishment is in many respects a remarkable one; remarkable in its character for the enterprise of its proprietor, and for its rapid success. There is no similar one in this city to compare with its advantages and facilities. Those who have the pleasure of knowing its proprietor (and their names are legion) know of what we speak. Among some of the leading articles introduced by Mr. Van Shaack, we may be permitted to name a few.

First, that indispensable a Cook Stove; of these there are a great variety, both for wood and coal, with prices within the reach of the most limited purse. In looking over this great variety, we were attracted particularly to one, whose ornamental design, was plain and bold the moldings being round and smooth, so as to prevent the accumulation of dust, presenting a substantial and massive appearance, and finished in every respect, in the highest style of mechanical skill; its very name appealed to our admiration, “The Peace Maker,” and we doubt not it would prove such, in the culinary department, even with the usual appendage in that department “poor help.” We were particularly attracted with the roasting and broiling chamber, where the roast is cooked on a spit before the open fire ; and the broiling is performed without the escape of fumes and smoke in the kitchen, from which it escapes into other parts of the house. All this being accomplished without additions being made to the stove. Baking can be done at the same time ‘in the regular oven, while its capacity for boiling is equal to any range. It has a movable reservoir for hot water, and is furnished with hot water pipes, for heating water for the bath room, etc.. Of this one style of Stoves, Mr. Van Schaack has put up over one hundred during the past fourteen months. We also found an old friend here, in the “McGregor Cooking Stove,” called the “Leader,” which has proved a leader among cook stoves, gas burning and ventilating; also the “McGregor Heating Stoves,” for churches, halls, offices, parlors, etc. The large number sold in this, and other cities, and the constant and increasing demand for them, is a sufficient guarantee of a superiority over all heating stoves. These celebrated stoves is expected to appear in a new dress the coming season, the design of which we have seen, and can promise no more ornamental Stove will be in the market, than the “McGregor.” One fire will last the entire season without rekindling.

LITTLEFIELD’S BASE BURNING COAL STOVES. The Secretary’s office of the Board of Trade, several of our city banks, manufacturing establishments, offices, etc., are furnished with this stove, while many of our citizens have their whole houses heated by the Littlefield Base Burning Coal Stove, called “Railway Coal Burner,” “Parlor Furnace,” “Double Heater,” or the “Morning Glory.” In the last two seasons three hundred of the Littlefield Stoves have been sold by Van Schaack, and the sale could have been largely increased the past year, had they been manufactured early in the season.

Nearly every article required for housekeeping will be found collected in one establishment, which is saying, a good deal; still we hazard the assertion, that at Van Schaack’s, no person need to seek further for any article ever made for household purposes—kitchen utensils in Enameled Ware, French Tinned Ware, Iron Ware, Wire Work, Tin Ware, Copper Ware, Wooden Ware, etc. all may be found here, at this bureau of Household Articles. While in fine goods, his stock surpasses that of any other house in Chicago for elegant designs of Tea Trays, Toilet Ware of every description, Britannia Ware, planished and plain Tin Ware, Table Mats, Brackets for Statuettes, Ornaments, Flower Baskets, Book Eacks, Folding Chairs and Tables, Camp Stools, Bathing Apparatus of every description. His Ice Boxes, Refrigerators, “Water Coolers, and Patent Ice Cream Freezers are a simple apparatus, the very name of which in a warm day, “cooleth the brow, cooleth the brain, and maketh the faint one strong again.” Also, Kedzie’s River and Rain Water Filter.

One visit to tnis establishment, will convince the visitor that Van Schaack has something they want. In closing this article, we would mention the workshop connected therewith, where many articles of Tin Ware are manufactured, as well as all the sheet iron work connected with stoves. Van Schaack’s is the place to send for men to put up stoves, repair bell wires, door locks, in fact, nearly every assistance a housekeeper may need. Send an order to Van Schaack’s for aid. Sign of the Golden Tea Kettle, 47 State Street.

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