Leather Buckets and “Musheens”
Although fire is one of man’s most useful servants, it has also been one of his deadliest enemies. Most of the great cities of the world at one time or another have been totally destroyed or badly damaged by fire. The number of lives lost to flames down through history will never be known, but it has been of staggering proportions.
Early attempts in America at doing something about this constant peril consisted mainly of making the best of a bad situation, since technical knowledge was so limited that development of efficient fire-fighting machines was slow. Thus, in the first fire society, organized in 1718, members were charged with salvaging what they could when a neighbor’s house caught fire. Each man in the society carried a large bag, into which he stuffed the householder’s personal effects before they were consumed by the flames. Other equipment included a bed key with which to dismantle the family bed, usually the most valuable piece of furniture the colonist owned.
Benjamin Franklin’s broad genius was to make itself felt in the field of fire-fighting as in others. The inventor-statesman was a co-founder of the first fire-fighting company in Philadelphia, in 1736, and also co-founder of the first successful fire insurance company in the United States, in 1752.
The development of fire-fighting machines cannot be claimed exclusively by recent generations. As early as the reign of the Ptolemies in Egypt, some 200 years before the Christian era, a hand-pump fire engine was constructed which was similar to those later used in the 19th Century. This first known fire engine was described by the Greek writer Heron, who reported that the machine operated through a pump and air-chamber mechanism which forced water out of a spout by means of compressed air. As has frequently happened in the up-and-down course of history, the techniques involved in the manufacture of this early engine were lost.
Richard Newsham of London is generally credited with invention of the first successful fire engine of more recent times. One of his hand-pump machines, an early model in a long line of “musheens” (machines), was imported by the City of New York in 1731 and was the first fire engine to be used in that city. In 1743, the first successful American hand pumper was built by Thomas Lote. For the most part, however, fire-fighting in colonial America was accomplished largely through the centuries-old “bucket brigade.”
The first fire engine used in New York was this machine imported from London in 1731. Water was pumped from the “tub” at the bottom of the engine out through the “gooseneck” hose. Power was supplied by sturdy colonists who pumped the handles, called “brakes.” The engine’s water reservoir was filled with buckets.
The buckets, made of leather, were customarily hung at the front of houses. When an alarm was sounded, citizens racing to the fire would seize the nearest bucket available. Once on the scene of the blaze, they would locate a source of water and then form two lines between it and the fire. One line, usually composed of men, passed the full buckets from hand to hand. The other line, made up of women and children, would pass back the empty buckets for refilling. Anyone who attempted to break through these lines during the course of a fire was subject to a more complete dousing by the fire-fighters than was the blaze itself.
After the fire was extinguished—or when it had burned itself out—the buckets were placed in a central public location and messengers sent throughout the city shouting “Claim your buckets.” This seldom presented a problem, since most householders labeled their buckets by name, and some even emblazoned them with brilliant colors and family coats-of-arms.
As late as 1824 fire buckets were the sole means of combating flames in Dayton. The importance attached to their availability is indicated by an old ordinance which required each citizen to keep two buckets in an easily accessible place on his premises.
Many cities found, however, that their residents were not as dependable in the maintenance of their fire buckets as was desirable. One New Yorker, it is reported, used his fire bucket as a container for beans. Rushing to a fire one night, he forgot about the beans and emptied the contents of the bucket into the water reservoir of an old hand-pump fire engine. The bean soup which resulted clogged up the pump and put the apparatus out of commission for the rest of the night.
Although the largest cities, and many smaller ones also, had fire engines in the 18th Century, it was not until 1826 that Dayton acquired its first hand pumper. This followed a particularly disastrous fire which destroyed two stores on Main Street. Meanwhile a volunteer fire company had been organized to replace the old system in which every man served as his own fire department—with whatever help he could get from his neighbors.
The new Dayton fire engine was hardly a model of efficiency; yet compared with bucket-brigade methods it represented a big step forward. Typical of fire engines of that day, it contained a water reservoir and a pump which operated by means of a crank, water being forced through a leather hose at the fire or at least in its general direction. Fire buckets were still essential, however, since they were used to fill the pumper’s water reservoir.
The Dayton hand pumper shown in an old photograph above, Niagara No. 1, once held the United States record for the highest “throw” of water. On August 5, 1858, at the canal at Library Park it sent a one-inch stream of water through 600 feet of hose and 205 feet into the air. The engine, built in Rhode Island, was an “end-stroke” type. Its suction hose did away with the need to fill the reservoir with buckets, provided a water source was available.
In 1830 another small engine was purchased by Dayton for $300 and a second volunteer fire company of thirty-two men was organized. But the often-singed Daytonians apparently were still not satisfied with the protection offered. Acting on “a very large and respectable petition of the citizens for a good engine for the use of the town,” the Council authorized purchase of a bigger machine. Called the “Independent,” the new pumper had two sets of handles, called brakes, and was manned by twenty volunteers on each side. Pumping it was back-breaking work, necessitating “spelling” of the volunteers from time to time, but results were much improved. To house the Independent, the city erected a building at Third and Main Streets, which became headquarters for the new company of 100 volunteers which was formed to handle the engine.
It was about this time that reliance on nearby wells or the Miami-Erie Canal as sources of water was abandoned. Cisterns were built at First and Main, Third and Main and Fifth and Main for use of the fire-fighters. The first successful fire hydrant had been developed about 1820, but was not adopted in Dayton until many years later. From a wooden plug inserted to stop up the opening in the early hydrants, the term fireplug originated.
Shown above is a famous New York hand pumper, the “Old Maid.” One of the most powerful and ornate engines of its day, this “musheen” even had a keg for spirituous liquors attached to the tongue. When their water supply was distant, firemen often pumped water from one engine to the next. Rival companies then tried to “wash” the engine ahead by overflowing its reservoir. A “washed” engine was said to be no longer a maiden. The “Old Maid” received its unusual name because for a long time no rival engine managed to “wash” it.
Called “Mankiller” because it was difficult to pump, this engine was one of the most powerful hand-operated machines ever built. It reportedly could throw a stream of water higher and farther than many steam fire engines built years later. This type of hand pumper was known as a “haywagon” because of its rack-like brakes.
In 1835 the Dayton City Council agreed to pay “fifty cents to each of the sextons of the several churches, as well as to the sheriff, for ringing their respective bells at each fire to give the alarm more generally to the citizens.” It was not until ten years later, in Boston, that the first telegraphic fire alarm was developed. The new system employed fire-alarm boxes, similar to those in use today, which sent the alarm to a central point, from which alarm bells were struck electrically, replacing the old church bell method.
Old-time volunteer firemen often wore flamboyant uniforms, although their habitual attire at fires was the clothing they happened to be wearing when the alarm sounded. The “vamps” bought their own uniforms and took great pride in the appearance of their companies at such public events as parades.
Between 1830 and 1850, hand pumpers were being improved in many ways. The old “tub” engines with water reservoirs which had to be filled with buckets eventually gave way to suction pumpers. These machines still employed a water reservoir but the tank was filled—provided a dependable water source was available—through a heavy hose which drew water into the engine. Unfortunately, a good water supply was not always close at hand. When the water supply was distant, the engines would be formed in line and water pumped from one engine to the reservoir of the next. At one New York fire, more than thirty engines were lined up for a mile and a half in order to produce a single small stream of water.
When operating in a line, the companies usually engaged in one of their most popular contests—that of trying to “wash” the engine ahead of them. An engine was said to be washed when its reservoir was filled to overflowing by the superior pumping power of the engine behind. To allow this to happen was considered a great disgrace. Handicapped by an inefficient engine, men in danger of being washed would often speed up their pumping to the rate of 120 strokes a minute, a pace that could be maintained for only a few minutes even by the most rugged. When thoroughly fatigued, a volunteer would drop off the pump handles and another man would rush in to take his place. During high operating speeds, this could be dangerous, with cuts, broken fingers and fractured arms resulting.
An unfortunate counterpart of the technical gains achieved in fire-fighting during the hand-pump period was the sharp increase in rivalry among different volunteer companies. In many cases this spirit of competition spilled over into acts of violence.
Not content to use fair means of reaching a fire first, some rival volunteer companies put obstructions in front of their competitors’ engines, chopped hose to ribbons and broke into fisticuffs at every opportunity; one famous battle in Manhattan lasted for several hours. Many companies found the sidewalks smoother than the streets; whenever possible they pulled their engines at full speed down the sidewalk, scattering hapless pedestrians aside like ten pin’s. The spirit of the day was “Go as you please” and “Hit a head wherever you see one.” If fists wouldn’t do the job, wrenches and axes were called upon. If they were insufficient, even firearms were sometimes employed.
Such behaviour was not confined only to the largest cities. Dayton historian Charlotte Reeve Conover reported that “Sometime during the fifties the [fire] companies changed in personnel. The solid citizens took to lying abed and letting the boys about town fight fires, with the result that demoralization set in which put an end to the volunteer system. It was competition which ruined them.”
She adds, “It will not be found surprising that in time there came to be something that Daytonians dreaded worse than a fire, and that was the Fire Department.”
The extent of the inter-company rivalry was dramatized by a memorable street battle which occurred in 1856 in Dayton. While fire was destroying a carpentry shop, the “Vigilance” and the “Deluge” fire companies began arguing over which should take the more advantageous position for battling the flames. Eventually the fire was forgotten as the volunteers engaged in a free-for-all. One fireman during the course of the fight was mortally injured when hit on the head with a brick. This incident was only one of several which led to the disbandment of Dayton’s volunteer fire companies in 1863 and the setting up of a regular paid fire department.
It was during the pre-Civil War period of strife, and only forty miles southwest of Dayton, that an unknown mechanical genius named Moses Latta was perfecting the steam fire engine. Although the Cincinnatian’s development would one day make the old hand pumpers as obsolete as the fire buckets which preceded them, it would still be some time yet before the full significance of his work was realized.
Intense rivalry among volunteer companies in the era of the hand pumpers frequently resulted in street fights. One battle began when two companies argued over use of a fire hydrant. The so-called hydrant later turned out to be only a half-buried cannon used as a hitching post.