Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/497

Rh is tolerably certain that it was never used. Bartholomew Weldern also made two engines, neither of which would work. In the same year, however, Thomas Lote made an engine that was more successful. It was used in the New York department, and known as number three. Considering the length of time between 1654 and 1737, in which no mention is made of home-made engines, it seems still more doubtful if Mr. Jenks, of Lynn, did make the first machine in this country, and undoubtedly priority should be given to one of the several New-Yorkers just mentioned.

Benjamin Franklin states in his autobiography that his reading a paper on fire protection before a Philadelphia society gave rise to the forming of "a company for the ready extinguishing of fires, and mutual assistance in removing and securing of goods when in danger." Besides the usual buckets, each member carried a bag made of four yards of osnaburgs or wider linen, with a running cord at the neck. These bags were used in safely transporting valuables and small articles from burning buildings, and



formed a primitive forerunner of the outfits of the protective patrols of to-day. Franklin was a member of the company thus started.

Jacob Turk, who became the head of the New York department in 1739, introduced the style of-leather hat that is worn by firemen at the present day. Despite the countless changes that have taken place in apparatus of all kinds, the fireman's hat remains practically unchanged, and serves, as it always has, for a distinguishing emblem to the profession.

Massachusetts passed a law in 1744 empowering all towns to choose fire wards. The wards were to have for a distinguishing