Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/504

490 The year 1840 marks the beginning of a great era in the development of fire apparatus, although the stupidity of the general public prevented the adoption of the improved methods for several years later. Stationary steam pumps had been used in mills for some years previous to 1842, but up to that time a portable steam fire engine was a thing unknown in this country. In 1830 Captain Ericsson, then of London, but later famed as the builder of the Monitor, designed a steam fire engine, and the firm of Braithwaite & Ericsson built one machine and operated it in London entirely at their own expense in the hopes that more might be introduced. They met with so much opposition, however, not only from the press but forcible interference from the firemen, that they abandoned the attempt. The Prussian Government in 1832 ordered a steam fire engine built that threw a single stream one inch and a half in diameter.



After his failure in London Captain Ericsson thought he would try again with the more progressive Americans, but he was doomed to disappointment. Designs that he made for an engine were awarded a prize by the American Institute in 1840, but no machine was built. The first steam fire engine ever built or used in the United States was one made by Mr. Paul R. Hodge for the Matteawan Insurance Company, of New York. The engine was a self-propeller, and when working at a fire was blocked up so that its hind wheels might be used as balance wheels. When housed it was connected with boilers, and fuel was always laid that steam might be got up quickly. This engine was operated at the expense of the insurance company, but continually met with opposition from the volunteer firemen. Finally, when playing at a fire in Dover Street, the machine did such excellent work that the firemen utterly refused to allow it to be used thereafter,