APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES. 49 1 



and it was stored away, and New York's fire protection was lim- 

 ited again to the old hand tubs. 



Such a marked improvement as a steam fire engine, however, 

 could not long remain unadopted by the progressive people of this 

 country, even though their protectors, the volunteer firemen, in- 

 sisted that hand power was the only means that should be used. 

 In 1852 Messrs. Latta & Shawk, of Cincinnati, placed a steam 

 boiler and cylinder in connection with the pumps of a hand engine 

 belonging to the Cincinnati department and mounted the whole 

 contrivance on wheels and frame. A public trial was made of this 

 crude affair, and it worked very successfully. In the short time 

 of four minutes and ten seconds steam was raised from cold water, 

 the engine started, and water discharged through three hundred 

 and fifty feet of hose to a distance of one hundred and thirty feet 

 from the nozzle. Although this exhibition was naturally looked 

 upon with dislike by the volunteer firemen, the city government 

 was greatly pleased and immediately contracted with the makers 

 for a complete steam fire engine. This was built and put in 

 service with a company organized and supported by the city. 

 Thus the first paid fire company in the world to operate by 

 steam power was brought into existence. 



The volunteers made great opposition to the change in affairs, 

 but the chief engineer of the paid department, Miles Greenwood, 

 was so energetic and persevering that with the help of other 

 level-headed men the opposition was overcome and the trouble 

 adjusted. To Mr. Greenwood is due much of the credit for intro- 

 ducing the steam fire engine into this country. The firm of Latta 

 & Shawk passed into different hands, until controlled by the 

 celebrated Ahrens Manufacturing Company, which in turn has 

 been absorbed by the American Fire Engine Company. 



The fame of the Cincinnati engines spread, and other cities en- 

 deavored to introduce the system, always meeting with the most 

 violent opposition from the volunteers. The press, however, advo- 

 cated the change, and called for its universal introduction. A 

 Boston gentleman, having visited Cincinnati, wrote in the Boston 

 Transcript of August 7, 1857, that he was amazed at the efficiency 

 of the Cincinnati department, and believed it had demonstrated 

 the impossibility of extensive conflagrations. He was disgusted 

 to return to Boston and find men and boys dragging hand tubs to 

 fires, after having discarded a steam fire engine without giving it 

 a fair trial. But the steam fire engine was bound to come. Chi- 

 cago and other western cities closely followed Cincinnati by or- 

 ganizing paid departments equipped with steam engines. The 

 more intelligent volunteers in the east began to see the error of 

 their ways, and replaced their hand engines with the more modern 

 apparatus. Boston was the first of the eastern cities to organize 



