shops. I do not recollect that he had any plans to 

 attach it to the fire engine pump; I think he only 

 proposed to furnish the driving power. 



Finding a set of light small wheels, I think those that 

 had been used on the Perkins garden engine, he pro- 

 posed to demonstrate the practicability of running the 

 engine to a fire without the aid of men with the long 

 ropes. For the purpose he mounted a kind of buck- 

 board carriage and to prevent firing of this board he 

 placed under his vehicle cylinders a pan containing 

 water. When the explosion took place in the cylinder 

 a flame would shoot through a clap valve at the bottom 

 of the cylinder into the water. At every explosion he 

 would get a vacuum about equal to what was got by 

 the doctors in the old fire cupping process. On the up 

 stroke of Morey's engine, atmospheric] air and vapor 

 were drawn in, the valves closing before the piston 

 had quite reached the end of its stroke, in doing which 

 it forced a small hole opposite to which a lamp was 

 burning, the flame of which was drawn into the cylin- 

 der and its inflammable mixture exploded and the 

 piston descended by atmospheric pressure into the 

 vacuum. 



After Mr. Morey had made what he thought satis- 

 factory yard tests, he had the gate onto Market Street 

 opened that he might mount the seat he had provided, 

 guide the machine and run out Market Street which 

 was then a common road not having been paved with 

 cobble stones although the side gutters were paved 

 with brick, but the narrow paved sidewalks were not 

 curbed. 



In starting the machine, somehow Mr. Morey when 

 about mounting his seat lost his hold, tripped and fell 

 flat. As he gathered himself up calling "Stop her, 

 stop her," which no one seemed ready or knew how to 

 do. the thing ran across the street, through the gutter, 

 over the sidewalk and turned a sumersault into the 

 brick yard where the clay had been cut away several 

 feet lower than the sidewalk, a complete wreck. This 

 was the end of the vacuum engine, [i 7] 



There were some incidents connected with Sellers & 

 Pennock's fire engine shops that, as they had a bearing 

 or influence on my mechanical education, it may be 

 well t<> relate. Charles was more at the shops at that 

 time than 1 was for I seemed to have found my place 

 in the Market Street store weighing and putting up 

 card teeth, giving them out with the leather to the 

 setters, keeping the accounts, taking in, inspecting 

 and paying for the work clone. As near as I can recol- 

 lect, the average number of workers was considerably 



over 200. There was a great register book with names 

 and residences, this book had been kept from an early 

 time, and I recollect once having counted over 3,000 

 entries in it. Charles about that time had begun 

 mould making, and the frequent drawings that I was 

 doing for father led me to the engine shop as often as 

 I could get there. 



I recollect on one occasion seeing a short thickset 

 man walking about the shop looking at the work 

 going on, and he seemed to be explaining what he 

 saw to a smooth faced young chap who was with him. 

 Their dress showed them both to be foreigners and 

 when I got near enough to hear him, it was in German 

 that he was speaking. Somehow I became interested 

 in watching the man and when father came in 1 

 reported the man's actions to him. Father asked if 

 he interfered with the work and when I replied "No," 

 father then said, "Let him amuse himself." 



Soon after I again met the man and was surprised 

 when he spoke to me in good English and said he was 

 a workman looking for a job, that he had been 

 looking around and thought he would like to work 

 in the shop and asked me to whom he should apply. 

 I took him to father who was then in the office and 

 after he had made his application father asked him 

 his trade or what branch he worked at. His reply 

 was, that it did not much matter, he had been looking 

 around the shops and he could do anything he saw 

 being done there. At this reply father had a very 

 quizzical look and asked him what trade he had 

 learned. 



None in particular: in the Polvtechnic he had 

 learned how to use tools and he had been working 

 around in different shops for over two years. Father 

 asked where, to which he replied London, Manchester, 

 Liverpool, five or six months for Kemble at West 

 Point and his last place had been in Allaire's shops 

 in New York. 71 Father made some remark about his 

 wandering habits and told how long some of the 

 hands had been with them. 



"Yes," said the man, "but the more move the more 

 learn and the better work do." Some allusion was 

 made to the young man with him and it was asked 

 if he wanted work too. "No, he go to school when 

 I go to work." 



" Gouverneur Kemble, "The West Point Foundry," Pro- 

 ceedings of the New York Stale Historical Association, (1916), 

 vol. 15, pp. 190-203. James P. Allaire (1 785-1858) is noticed 

 in Dictionary oj American Biography. 



46 



