APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES. 485 



from abroad was prohibited. An industry was not only started 

 but encouraged by law one that has increased and spread in all 

 parts of the country, embracing the manufacture of more im- 

 proved apparatus at a later day, until now it is the greatest 

 industry of its kind in the world. 



Although begun in New York and Boston, the making of fire 

 engines was soon established in Philadelphia, where for over a 

 century it flourished to a greater extent than in any other city in 

 the country. From the history of that city by Messrs. Scharf 

 and Westcott, we learn that in 1768 Richard Mason, on Second 

 Street, began the manufacture of fire engines. His quaint ad- 

 vertisement appears in a copy of the Massachusetts Centinel of 

 Saturday, November 7, 1 789, published in Boston : 



" Fire Engines made on the newest and most approved con- 

 struction ; warranted for seven years, and sold as cheap as they 

 can be procured from Europe. The business is now extensively 

 carried on in all its various branches, by the subscriber, in Union 

 Street, Philadelphia ; where Engines of any size may be had ; and 

 towns and fire companies supplied therewith on the shortest 

 notice." After mentioning small engines for house, garden, and 

 ship use, the advertisement goes on to state : 



" He has several good second-hand engines for sale, at low 

 rates : and makes fire-buckets of the neatest and best sort, which 

 he supplies, handsomely painted with any device required, at a 

 short notice. 



" The strictest attention paid to orders from any part of the 

 continent, or elsewhere; and the utmost punctuality and dis- 

 patch may be relied on." 



A list is given of the five sizes made, varying from one of eighty 

 gallons, throwing water eighty feet and worked by six men, to one 

 of one hundred and seventy-five gallons, throwing one hundred 

 and seventy-five feet and worked by eighteen men. The prices 

 varied from 40 to 120. The advertisement closes as follows: 



" N. B. The main body of water will not be thrown to the 

 above distances, and a greater number of men may be applied to 

 the large engines if occasions should require." 



Mr. Mason was the first one to place the levers upon the ends 

 instead of upon the sides of the engines, and thereafter they were 

 spoken of as the Philadelphia levers. 



The first ladder companies possessing trucks on which to 

 carry their ladders and hooks were formed in New York in 1772, 

 and were numbered one and two. There had been two trucks in 

 the New York department previous to this, carrying no name 

 or number. These were probably the first pieces of apparatus 

 of this kind used in the United States, for a careful scrutiny of 

 different records fails to show an earlier one. 



