In 1774 each engine in Salem—there were then three—was furnished with a framed canvas screen in three or four leaves, eight feet high. The canvas was kept wet by the use of long-handled swabs, and the screens are said to have been of great service in preventing the spread of fire. Screens of this kind were used in Salem and the adjoining towns until a very late day but they were evidently local in their character, for the records of the departments in other parts of the country do not mention anything of like nature.
At the close of the Revolutionary War in 1782 the manufacture of fire engines that had been established in Philadelphia took a decided start, and soon became such a distinctive feature among the industries of that town that it added greatly to its notoriety. Boston also for some time took a prominent part in this industry. In 1792 the firm of Hunneman & Company, manufacturers of hand fire engines, was established. This firm continued to make hand fire engines until the introduction of steamers threatened to ruin its business, and to save itself it embraced the manufacture of steam fire engines. After continuing to bear the name of Hunneman for almost a century it passed into different hands and the firm is still in existence. As far as can be ascertained, this is the oldest concern of the kind in this country and perhaps in the world.
When Hunneman & Company first established their works the New York authorities decided to make their own engines, and did so to some extent, but also continued to buy elsewhere, the records showing that one was purchased from Philadelphia in 1798. The Philadelphia engines traveled farther from home than to New York. In 1797 Salem, having bought several in England during the previous years, ordered one from a Philadelphia maker by the name of Samuel Briggs. The journey to Salem so injured the machine that it was useless on its arrival, and the maker had to send on an agent to superintend its repair.
The history of the Boston Fire Department states that in 1798 a Mr. Fenno, of that town, made some new hose for engine five. This seems to be the first mention of the making of fire hose in this country. Although the Boston authorities had prohibited the importation of foreign engines, they did not put the same restrictions upon hose. In the same year they purchased two hundred feet of hemp hose from Holland, giving as their reason for so doing that the English and American kinds were unsatisfactory.
The New York firemen saw at an early date the need of something more effectual than land engines with which to fight fires on the water front. Somewhere between 1805 and 1810 a large boat, rowed by twenty-four men, and provided with a fire engine,
