At the time of these inventions [of riveted leather 

 hose and riveted leather mail bags] I was a boy of 

 about nine years of age, but like most boys of that 

 period of life, I took great delight in running after 

 "the machine" on every alarm of fire, and not un- 

 frequently, at fires, dropping into line to pass the 

 leather fire buckets, of course on the return line of 

 empty ones. 



To the present generation, who have become ac- 

 customed to our city fire departments with their 

 steam fire engines drawn by horse power to the fires, 

 accompanied by throughly trained and organized 

 men that scientifically attack and conquer conflagra- 

 tions, it may be interesting to take a retrospective 

 glance at the organization and the performance of 

 private volunteer associations, supported by the 

 public spirit and zeal of their members, with but 

 trifling pecuniary assistance from the public crib. 

 For it is to these organizations with their great 

 emulation and rivalry, and to the intelligent and 

 ingenious men belonging to them, that the invention 

 and introduction of riveted leather hose is due. It 

 is the most important improvement of the times in 

 the mode of extinguishing fires. 



At the time I am writing of, Philadelphia had taken 

 the lead of all other cities in America, and I might 

 safely say of Europe, in improved fire apparatus. The 

 old fashioned English Newsham side lever engines 

 were still in use in New York. In Philadelphia they 

 had given place to the more powerful end lever 

 engines on which the men could more directly and 

 effectively apply their force. The general plan of two 

 single acting cylinders, with a center air vessel on the 

 Newsham plan, had not been changed, except by 

 increase in size, the end lever arrangements with 

 their folding arms admitting of an increased number 

 of men to man the engine. 



This change in construction was mainly due to 

 Patrick Lyon, a workman of extraordinary skill for 



Figure 4. — Patrick Lyon, craftsman, at age 

 24 in 1799. This portrait is the frontispiece in 

 Lyon's The Narrative of Patrick Lyon, who suffered 

 three months' severe imprisonment in Philadelphia 

 Gaol; on merely a vague suspicion 0/ being concei ned 

 in the robbery of the Bank of Pennsylvania with his 

 remarks thereon (Philadelphia. 1799). Library 

 of Congress photograph. 



the time. . . . The general plan of the long end lever, 

 with the folding arms or handles, was originally sug- 

 gested by Mr. Adam Eckfeldt, a sound, practical 

 mechanic, and almost a life long chief coiner of the 

 U.S. Mint. At that time he was a member of one of 

 the volunteer fire companies — I think of the Diligent, 

 but of that I am not certain— but it was for that com- 

 pany that Lyon built his first engine of that class. 18 

 It was substantially the same type of engine as after- 

 wards built by Merrick & Agnew, until the time they 

 were superseded by the steam fire engine. 



"" Eckfeldt was president of the Good Will Fire Company. 

 The 1820 engine— which probably was not the first that Lyon 

 built for the Diligent Fire Company, south side of Market, 

 near 8th Street — is credited as Lyon's "masterpiece." (Scharf 

 and Westcott, cited in note 14 above, vol. ;. pp. 1894, 1907, 

 1911.) 



