from abroad was prohibited. An industry was not only started but encouraged by law—one that has increased and spread in all parts of the country, embracing the manufacture of more improved apparatus at a later day, until now it is the greatest industry of its kind in the world.
Although begun in New York and Boston, the making of fire engines was soon established in Philadelphia, where for over a century it flourished to a greater extent than in any other city in the country. From the history of that city by Messrs. Scharf and Westcott, we learn that in 1768 Richard Mason, on Second Street, began the manufacture of fire engines. His quaint advertisement appears in a copy of the Massachusetts Centinel of Saturday, November 7, 1 789, published in Boston:
"Fire Engines made on the newest and most approved construction; warranted for seven years, and sold as cheap as they can be procured from Europe. The business is now extensively carried on in all its various branches, by the subscriber, in Union Street, Philadelphia; where Engines of any size may be had; and towns and fire companies supplied therewith on the shortest notice." After mentioning small engines for house, garden, and ship use, the advertisement goes on to state:
"He has several good second-hand engines for sale, at low rates:—and makes fire-buckets of the neatest and best sort, which he supplies, handsomely painted with any device required, at a short notice.
"The strictest attention paid to orders from any part of the continent, or elsewhere; and the utmost punctuality and dispatch may be relied on."
A list is given of the five sizes made, varying from one of eighty gallons, throwing water eighty feet and worked by six men, to one of one hundred and seventy-five gallons, throwing one hundred and seventy-five feet and worked by eighteen men. The prices varied from £40 to §120. The advertisement closes as follows:
"N. B.—The main body of water will not be thrown to the above distances, and a greater number of men may be applied to the large engines if occasions should require."
Mr. Mason was the first one to place the levers upon the ends instead of upon the sides of the engines, and thereafter they were spoken of as the Philadelphia levers.
The first ladder companies possessing trucks on which to carry their ladders and hooks were formed in New York in 1772, and were numbered one and two. There had been two trucks in the New York department previous to this, carrying no name or number. These were probably the first pieces of apparatus of this kind used in the United States, for a careful scrutiny of different records fails to show an earlier one.
