492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a paid department, which she did in 1860. New York did the 

 same in 1865, and Philadelphia in 1871. Other eastern cities 

 rapidly fell into line, but some of the southern cities, though 

 equipped with the most modern apparatus, continue to the present 

 day with volunteer firemen, New Orleans having only recently 

 adopted a paid force. 



When the success of the steam fire engine became an estab- 

 lished fact the demand increased rapidly. Not only did many of 

 the hand-engine builders begin their manufacture, but almost all 

 the locomotive works and many machine shops did the same. 

 Also many new firms sprang up. In almost every eastern and in 

 many western States men went into the business, while in some 

 cases the volunteer companies, notably one in Pittsburg, had the 

 steamers built under their own supervision at the shop of one of 

 the members. Philadelphia kept up her long-standing reputation 

 by soon having ten or more competitive firms engaged in the 

 work. Some of these numerous makers built but one engine, 

 some of them only a few, while others continued in the business 

 for several years. 



The Portland Company Locomotive Works, of Portland, Me., 

 made steam fire engines from 1859 until 1870. At the time their 

 engines had the most powerful suctions of any in the market, and 

 one of them, that is still on duty in Bangor, ably keeps up its repu- 

 tation in this respect. The work was discontinued because the 

 complicated nature of the machinery rendered it impossible to set 

 a competitive price. In 1858 Thomas Scott and N. S. Bean, of 

 Lawrence, Mass., made an engine for the Boston department. 

 The business thus established was absorbed by the Amoskeag 

 Manufacturing Company, of Manchester, N. H., and their engines 

 are now built by the Manchester Locomotive Works. 



Silsby, Mynderse & Company, of Seneca Falls, and Clapp & 

 Jones, of Hudson, N. Y., were extensive builders, and their suc- 

 cessors have combined with the successors of the Button Com- 

 pany and the Ahrens into the American Fire Engine Company. 

 The multitude of firms in the eastern and a few in the western 

 States that went into the business are too numerous to mention, 

 and most of them soon discontinued the making of engines. The 

 Philadelphia firms one by one dropped out, and that city's reputa- 

 tion in this line is a thing of the past. Ettenger & Edmund, of 

 Richmond, made in 1860 an engine for St. Petersburg, Russia. 

 This was one of the first American engines sent abroad. 



These early machines were of all models and sizes, either large 

 and cumbersome self-propellers or small and light to be drawn by 

 men. Engines drawn by horses were not generally introduced 

 until some years later. The different makers evidently made ex- 

 periments to find the most satisfactory arrangement of the ma- 



