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As a plumber I can say that the Whitechapel is a tee wrench and your wrench is a wye. So I am going to double down on it being a gas cock wrench and say it is very similar to the other wrench, but not the same. Bronze would be fairly expensive for a wrench to tighten bed frames.

That is an antique bed key wrench for assembling and disassembling antique beds.

My research shows they're from the 19th century.

It was known that firefighters would often carry them to dismantle a family's bed in an effort to save them from a fire, as they were often a family's most expensive possession.

You can purchase these on eBay for about 10 bucks.

I'm thinking that the whole "fireman's" bed wrench is apocryphal. It probably comes from a corruption of "A L Firman". Yes, it is a wrench for square-headed bolts. Beds and many other things could have been assembled with square-headed lag bolts "back in the day." Hard to imagine every "fireman" being issued one of these and harder yet imagining him fumbling and taking the time to disassemble a burning bed. I thin he'd rather smash the bed frame with a proper "fireman's" AX. By the way a real "bed wrench" is a wooden tool for tightening the rope "grid" strung underneath the mattress (hence the term…."Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

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I like how you guys think… it always a pleasure to hear from you.!

I appreciate all the input from this very helpful forum. I am going to lobby for the Lochinvar and to do a pretty significant replacement of the old plumbing.

turn the bolts 1/4 turn and see if they loft out.