Burn Lantern Company

In 1890, William Robinson left the Burn & Robinson Mfg. Co., of Hamilton, Ontario, to return to a previous business he had been involved in. This left Walter Burn the only owner of the company. He consequently renamed the company to the Burn Lantern Co. Ernest Schultz, who worked as the superintendent of the Burn & Robinson Mfg co. was promoted to manager of the company.

The Burn Lantern Co. didn’t last long, as Walter Burn went off to pursue other business with his brother in America. He owned the company but did not actively run it, instead leaving Ernest Schultz to run the company. Ernest soon partnered up with another man, a prominent salesman Walter Grose, of Montreal, of PQ, and bought the company off Walter in 1892. Ernest’s new company was called the Ontario Lantern Co.

Identifying a Burn Lantern Co. Lantern

Due to the short existence of this company, identifying these lanterns are quite hard. All the lanterns produced by this company were designed by Ernest Schultz, same with the Burn & Robinson Mfg. Co., and the Ontario Lantern Co., so lanterns made by these companies are hard to differentiate. A few helpful indicators are the bails (handles), Burn & Robinson have bails attached to ‘hoops’ soldered onto the tubes. Burn Lantern Co. lanterns have bails connected by wrapping around the tubes, quite similar to Dominion Tubular Lamp Co. lanterns. Ontario Lantern Co. lanterns have similar bails as well, but Ernest Schultz received a patent June 4th, 1891, it’s quite possible lanterns stamped with that patent date are Ontario Lantern Co. That patent was for the hinge design you can see here.