What's It Wednesday -

Engine #134. Sound the alarm!

At the end of this past August, Ballardvale, Andover, MA opened a new fire station. A long time coming, the station replaces the 134-year-old Ballardvale Station that could only accommodate one engine and a rescue boat. That station, a historic site at the junction of Andover and Clark Streets, is one of the first fire stations to be built in Andover.

And this was the first fire engine.

Known as a Hunneman, hand-drawn tub pumper, it is Engine #134, manufactured by William C. Hunneman in Roxbury MA, in 1829.

It was first sold to the town of Cambridge as their Engine #1, but then sold back to Hunneman in 1859, when Cambridge bought an updated fire engine model.

That same year, 1859, J. Putnam Bradlee of Ballardvale purchased the pumper for use in protecting his Bradlee Mills. The engine was repainted “Ballardvale No. 1” over the Cambridge name. And the date of 1859 was added.

“Cambridge” paint still shows beneath the faded “Ballardvale”. Detail of ACHC #1950.070.1

The Ballardvale pumper was housed in garage specially built for it.

Bradlee Mills Hose House ACHC Collection 1989.591.1

The Hose House was built on the east side of Andover St., opposite the Bradlee Mills, just at the base of the hill coming down Andover St.

The Ballardvale Andover Fire Company also had purchased an engine from Hunneman & Co. It was known as the Shawsheen engine. That Hose House was on the west side of the river. It isn’t known what happened to that Hunneman pumper. However, the Shawsheen was probably sold or may have been traded back to Hunneman & Co. in 1896. That’s when a brand-new, horse-drawn, Hunneman-made, steam fire engine was purchased by the town for the cost of $1400.

New Horse Drawn Fire Engine in front of Ballardvale Station Horses were named Sam and Jerry ACHC Collection #2014.040.2

Devastating fires were quite common at the time. Many buildings in New England were made of wood. Open fireplaces and candles provided the only source of light and heat. In the 1600s-1700s, the only way method of fighting fires was using a bucket brigade to pass filled buckets of water from the nearest stream to the inferno to doss the flames. Not often the most successful method.  Many structures burned.

William C. Hunneman (1767-1856) See photo credit below

William Hunneman had apprenticed with Paul Revere, working in Revere’s foundry and trained as a coppersmith. In 1790, Hunneman started his own business in Boston. He made housewares – bedwarmers, pots and kettles, as well as hardware for ship building and clockmakers.

Hunneman & Co. 20 Union St. Boston, MA See photo credit below

In the late 1790s, William Hunneman thought to design a fire engine as a possible solution to the problem.  His design was the tub pumper. It was so named because the main part of the engine body was a tub made of thin copper sheets. Hunneman had learned about copper sheets when he worked in Revere’s foundry. The sheets were used on the bottom of ships to keep water out.

Hunneman used the sheets to line the rectangular box on his pumper to hold the water in. He made a pump that was installed in the engine body to pump the water out through a hose. The wooden box had a hole on the side to attach the hose line. Water could be pumped in to fill the tub and reversed to send a stream of water out.

Initially Hunneman pumpers were pulled by men. It took a crew of 15-22 men to pull and operate the pumper. The Hunneman engines were considered superior in design.

Drawing by James Batchelder of the Ballardvale Hunneman Tub Pumper ACHC Collection #1950.070.1  

Hunneman wasn’t the only one building fire engines in the early 1800s. There were many similar designs built by others. In 1802, Hunneman purchased the patent designs from Jacob Perkins and Allan Pollock to increase the superiority of his designs.

1802 Patent Purchase from Jacob Perkins

Hunneman expanded the business to have his own foundry and brought his sons, Samuel and William C. into the business in 1838. By 1840, the company had made almost 200 pumpers. Hunneman and Co grew to be the largest manufacturer of fire engines at the time. After William died in 1856, the company, was run by sons and then grand-sons. It finally closed in 1907. Company records showed that in 113 years, the company had manufactured 716 hand engines and 29 steam fire engines.

Although, the Ballardvale Hunneman Tub Pumper no longer serves to fight blazes in Andover. It is displayed proudly at the Andover Center of History and Culture. It lets us share the history of fire-fighting in New England and the transition from fire buckets to modern day fire trucks.

In the Amos Blanchard House Barn ACHC Collection #1950.070.1  

Thanks for reading ! Please comment and share your stories below.

If you want to watch a hand pumper in action please watch the following YouTube video.

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Photo Credits:

From Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines by Edward R. Tufts, Fire Buff House Publishers, 1995

Resources:

Hundreds of Hunnemans by Edward R. Tufts, A Hearthstone Book, Carlton Press, Inc, New York, N.Y. 1978

Hunneman’s Amazing Fire Engines by Edward R. Tufts, Fire Buff House Publishers, 1995

Andover Center for History and Culture collections and research library

Andover Historic Preservation website 

1850 Hunneman Fire Equipment Demonstration, Mark Young, Outside the Box