During the 139th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., last Sunday, February 2, 2025, Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume announced that Punxsutawney Phil has forecast six more weeks of winter. Fortunately, on February 6, 1877, William Tell Steiger received U.S. Patent No. 186962 on a Foot-Warmer that might make these 42 additional days of winter a little more comfortable:

William Tell’s invention, which he called “Pedal Calorification” aims at economizing and utilizing the wasted heat in warm breath using “any simple contrivance for conveying it to our feet, where it is so much needed.”

William Tell Steiger was born on April 10, 1801, He lived in Howard County, Maryland in the 1860’s and 1870’s, and died on September 21, 1888, in Laurel, Maryland, and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.