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.