Pat Lyon had at his shop a little cubby-hole of an 

 office, warmed by an old wood burning ten plate 

 stove, around which he and his men would congregate 

 of evenings to crack jokes, smoke their pipes and 

 drink their grog. On a shelf in this office was a 

 working model of folding levers with the long, wooden 

 hand handles hinged to studs on crossbars between 

 the side levers, that in an instant could be thrown 

 open, grasped and firmly retained in clasps. They 

 had additional out-riggers that on emergency could 

 be attached, increasing the physical force by some 

 twenty or twenty-four men. Pat never tired of work- 

 ing and exhibiting this model and expatiating on the 

 great value of the arrangement, always attributing it 

 to his friend Adam Eckfeldt. 



The fire engine and hose companies were generally 

 separate companies, but worked together. That is, 

 hose companies, although professing to furnish water 

 to the first engine on the ground, managed that their 

 favorite one should be so considered. This often led 

 to severe and sometimes bloody contests. Among 

 these volunteer companies there were distinctive 

 social grades. For instance, the Philadelphia Engine 

 and the Philadelphia Hose Companies, having their 

 houses next to each other, were worthy of the Quaker 

 element. They were rich companies, and indulged 

 in the finest kind of apparatus regardless of cost. 

 Their great oilcloth coats and capes, and broad- 

 brimmed japanned hats, were a peculiar and dis- 

 tinctive uniform. The Resolution Hose Company, a 

 near neighbor, was mostly of the French element — 

 sons, junior partners, and clerks of the large French 

 importing firms. 19 All their equipments were the pink 

 of perfection. The Phoenix Hose was another of the 

 aristocratic companies, and had many of the younger 

 generation of Quakers in its organization. The 

 Diligent, the Assistant and others of the city proper 

 companies were composed of solid men of the city. 



The position of foreman of the companies was 

 highly prized, as was also that of pipe men to the 

 engine companies. Two of them on the gallery of the 

 engine would direct the pipe to throw the stream of 

 water onto the roof or through doors and windows of 

 burning buildings — much of it to be dissipated in 

 vapor without reaching the burning mass, and doing 

 but little effectively towards extinguishing the fire. 



The companies in the Liberties, or outside of the 

 city, as then incorporated, had not the wealth to 

 lavish on fine apparatus and show but what they 



lacked in wealth they made up with vim and zeal 

 rarely equalled and never excelled. This produced 

 a rivalry that frequently led to rather serious results. 



Franklin Peale, at that time the manager of the 

 Philadelphia Museum, 20 that had its home in the old 

 State House or Independence Hall, arranged a 

 system of bell signals to indicate the direction of a 

 fire from the State House — one stroke on the great 

 bell, repeated at intervals, for north; two strokes with 

 regular intervals, for the south; and so on for the 

 cardinal points and intermediates. 21 On an alarm of 

 fire being carried to the State House, the great bell 

 would call out the entire fire organizations. Then 

 came the great rush, the madding races, the ringing 

 of the bells on the engine and hose carriages, the 

 bellowing "Fire" through speaking trumpets that 

 every fireman was armed with; it was pandemonium 

 broken loose. 



The heavy fire engines or hose carriages, with their 

 i,ogo or 1,200 feet of hose, were like a feather's weight 

 to the string of men and boys who manned their long 

 drag ropes. It was the fouling of the engines or 

 carriages in these furious races — contests for possession 

 of the nearest fire-plug or hydrant — that led to the 

 most disastrous conflicts, in which costly apparatus 

 was damaged, hose spanners and speaking trumpets 

 playing a conspicuous part, as many a scalp wound 

 could testify. 



Philip Garrett, a prominent watchmaker and 

 jeweler, 2 * a member of the Society of Friends, was 

 the foreman of the Philadelphia Fire Engine Com- 

 pany. He was in his element when fighting fires. 

 I well remember that he was admitted by every one 

 to be the par excellence of city firemen. 



Often as a boy have I listened with great interest to 

 conversations between him and my father as to the 

 most effective mode of extinguishing fires. One 

 point they were certainly agreed on; that was that by- 

 water the fuel or combustible matter and not the 



" Confirmed in Scharf and Westcott, vol. 3, p. ii 



20 Franklin Peale was employed in the museum from 1822 to 

 1833 (Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willsnn Peale, 2 vols., 

 Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1947, vol. 2, 



PP- 345. 382)- 



21 The bell signals for fire are given in "Regulations of the 

 State House Bell in case of Fire," Desilvir's Philadelphia Direc- 

 tory . . . for i8?g. 



22 Later, but at least as early as 1832, builder of steam engines, 

 small lathes, etc., and from 1835 to his retirement in 1840 part- 

 ner of Garrett, Eastwick, and Harrison, locomotive builders 

 (Scharf and Westcott, cited in note 14 above, vol. 3, p. 2258; 

 Joseph Harrison, Jr., The Iron Worker and King Solomon, with 

 a Memoir and an Appendix, 2d ed., Philadelphia, 1869, p. 119). 



