Fire Department "Shorts"

AMOSKEAG HORSELESS FIRE ENGINE

Amoskeag Horseless Engine

  In 1897 it was suggested in Buffalo to run a horseless fire engine.  Fire Commissioners Davis, Malone and Grattan accompanied by Chief McConnell departed for Boston December 5th to witness a test of the Amoskeag horseless fire engine.  The Commissioners did not regard it as a desirable thing. It weighed 17,000 pounds and ran on wheels with iron teeth which, it was thought, would ruin some of the fine asphalt pavement.
   The membership of the Fire Department in 1889 was 275 men. The equipment included, twenty one engines(including fire boat), 20 hose wagons, four chemicals, and six hook and ladder trucks, with two steamers and one chemical in reserve.
  In October, 1837, in accordance with a prayer of petition long before presented to the common council by Millard Fillmore and others, a bell was bought and placed on the terrace market, to be used for fire alarms and other emergencies.  This is all that was used until the telegraph fire alarm system was put into use in 1865.
  September 10, 1895, Edward Gardner was the first person in Buffalo to be convicted of turning in a false fire alarm. Fined $50 by Justice King. In November of 1816 a special meeting of trustees was held. The meeting directed the trustees to adopt measures for securing a supply of water for fire purposes, "by means of water courses, aqueducts, reservoirs or otherwise." At the same meeting they were directed to "obtain twenty ladders and two fire hooks;"  and every occupant of a house was required to "provide himself with a good leathern fire bucket, and all chimneys were required to be cleaned every two weeks."

Fire Boat in Action on Buffalo Waterfront

   Like a swan the fire boat W.S. Grattan, September 1, 1900 sped on it's initial trip from it's cradle at Nixons Ship yard, Elizabethport  NJ.  The fireboat was christened the W.S. Grattan, in honor of the Fire Commissioner, as little Miss Lucia Grattan stood at the bow and smashed a bottle of wine on the nose of the boat as it slid down the ways amid the cheering of 1,000 people, and the blowing of many whistles in the Harbor. The Fire Commissioners were all present on the stand, as was also Chief McConnel. The boat is 118 feet long and is built entirely of steel.  She is able to make over fourteen knots, and will crush ice twenty inches thick.

Driver John H. Downing of Engine 13 
Answers an Alarm

Be sure to visit my other fire fighting links: FIRE FIGHTING IN THE HORSE DRAWN ERA post, and the the fire fighting in the horse drawn era special Video Page in the EXTRA EXTRA SECTION in the right hand column.

Look Ma, No Horses!

  The first public test of the 

Elieson Motor in the United States was made on the tracks of the 

Buffalo Street Railroad Co. March 10, 1888 

The Commercial Advertiser March 4, 1888

The accompanying picture shows the electrical locomotive which it is proposed to test soon off the tracks of the Buffalo Street Railroad Company. This car is a reproduction of a photograph showing a locomotive which was-and is believed still is-at work on the lines of the North Metropolitan Tramway Co., London.  It was built under the patents of the Elieson Electric Company Limited, of No. 31 Liverpool Street, London. A locomotive like the one in the picture has arrived in New York from London, destined for Buffalo. In use an ordinary street car is hitched to it. It is understood that the motor will reach Buffalo in a few days, when the test will be made, and the public, no doubt, be given a chance to judge of its suitability for Buffalo Streets.

It is not claimed that the new motor is cheaper than steam, but it is noiseless, and can therefore be used in the streets. It is claimed to be cheaper than horses, and both cheaper and more trustworthy than the cable system. The motor was shipped to this country at the expense of the Elieson Electric Co., of London, England, who have had their system in successful operation at home for several months.

Buffalo Morning Express  March 11, 1888

     If anything were needed to convince the Buffalo Street Railroad Company that the city is ripe for rapid transit, conclusive proof was furnished yesterday in the general outpouring of the population to witness the exhibition trip of the new electric motor. A regular circus-day crowd lined the main street sidewalks from Seneca Street to The Genesee, and never was the triumphal chariot at the head of a glittering cavalcade hailed with greater demonstrations of delight than were seen on all sides when the imported precursor of better street car facilities finally made its appearance. We are looking forward with longing to the time when we can sell our horses, put in a big engine and a lot of dynamos, and become an electric railway from end to end, said President Watson. But such radical changes ought not, on Elieson as a matter of business policy, to be made until it is conclusively proven that electricity can be economically used as a substitute for horse-power.

 “Do not expect too much of it. In the first place, the wheels are lighter and the flanges much narrower than our standard car wheels, and for this reason it is apt to jump the tracks unless great care is exercised. This will materially reduce the possible speed. Then, again, Mr. Robison, the expert electrician, who will operate it, is wholly unacquainted with the route over which it will travel, and has had no experience in running it over our tracks. So, from beginning to end it will be a cautious trip, with no attempts to make the possible 12 miles an hour.”  The Press party, President Watson, and some of the street railway employees took their places in the car, the starting-bell was rung, the lever thrown over, and the exhibition trip was begun.

Main Street Buffalo

    A crowd of from 200 to 300 had gathered at the barns, and the teams standing in the street and hitched to the fences suggested a country fair. The small boys ran along on the sidewalk on either side shouting and gesticulating, fresh recruits taking the places of those who fell out, thus keeping up the excitement. At every street corner a large assemblage was gathered, and as the first exponent of coming rapid-transit swept by,  the men cheered and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs. It was more like the march of an army with banners than a simple test of a new propelling device.

   Electrician Robison stood in the front door of the motor cab with his right hand upon the speed regulator, while with the other he grasped the cord of the warning bell.  While rounding curves and crossing switches, as well as at the intersections of the principal streets, the speed was brought down to a snail's pace as a precautionary measure; but while traversing the long blocks where the track is in excellent condition, the Motor was permitted to bowl along at the rate of eight or nine miles per hour for short distances, to show what it was capable of doing in actual service. Up and down the grades it moved at about the same rate of speed, the power being shut off wherever gravity would give the requisite propulsion. The motion of the car was pleasanter and less jerky than where horse power is used, particularly in starting and stopping, while the noise was reduced sufficiently to permit of easy conversation without raising the voice.  

    Finally, just at five o'clock, the excursionists reached the waiting-room at the corner of Niagara and Main Streets once more, and the party dispersed, pleased and happy in the thought that the feasibility of rapid transit, so far as the public is concerned, has been demonstrated at last in the streets of Buffalo. Yes, the people turned out March 10, as they might be expected to a circus parade, as the mayor and aldermen enjoyed the first trip in the United States on the street railroad tracks of Buffalo by motor power.

Rapid Transit Moving Up & Down Main Street Around 1900

    The motor is of the storage battery style, carrying a charge of electricity lasting four hours. It is about 10 ft. long, nearly 11 ft. high, and weighs 6 tons. It takes four hours to charge the battery, which contains 90 secondary cells, each, one inch long, 12 in. wide and 5 or 6 in. thick. Each cell contains from 10 to 13 metal plates. The whole battery weighs about 2 tons. It is placed in the motor between double floors. As soon as the motor has ran its four hours the battery is taken out and another, ready charged, slipped into place. 

  The electricity is transmitted by means of a cog wheel 4 ft. 6 in. in diameter, which runs horizontally. This controls a series of smaller cogs, which in turn drive a crank that imparts the motion. It is not claimed that the new motor is cheaper than steam, but it is noiseless, and can therefore be used in the streets. It is claimed to be cheaper than horses, and both cheaper and more trustworthy than the cable system. The trial trip of 21 miles was made in half an hour, and was a decided success. While rounding curves and crossing switches, as well as at the intersections of the principal streets, the speed was brought down to a snail's pace, but, while traversing the log blocks, the motor was permitted to run at the rate of eight or nine mile per hour for short distances. If the Buffalo company is satisfied with the experiments which it will make daily, the question of putting the electric machinery in its own cars will be considered, for it can be placed in any car.

PEOPLE COUNT - Making Sense Out of the Census

                                          Herman Hollerith,

At 20 years of age

    American inventor, born February 29, 1860 in Buffalo, New York, and graduated  from Columbia in 1879. Through a friend he got a position at the Census Bureau as a statistician to help solve problems analyzing the enormous amounts data generated by the 1880 census. He joined MIT in 1881 where he taught Mechaniclal Engineering and devised a system of encoding data on cards through a series of punched holes. He left MIT in 1883 and worked at the U.S. Patent office  as an assistant patent examiner. He resigned a year later and received a patent for his machine in 1884. 
  Following the 1880 census, the Census Bureau was collecting more data than it could tabulate. As a result, the agency held a competition in 1888 to find a more efficient method to process and tabulate data. Contestants were asked to process 1880 census data from four areas in St Louis, MO. Whoever captured and processed the data fastest would win a contract for the 1890 census.
  Three contestants accepted the Census Bureau's challenge. The first two contestants captured the data in 144.5 hours and 100.5 hours. The third contestant, a former Census Bureau employee named Herman Hollerith, completed the data capture process in 72.5 hours.
  Next, the contestants had to prove that their designs could prepare data for tabulation (i.e., by age category, race, gender, etc.). Two contestants required 44.5 hours and 55.5 hours. Hollerith astounded Census Bureau officials by completing the task in just 5.5 hours!
  Herman Hollerith's impressive results earned him the contract to process and tabulate 1890 census data. This system proved useful in statistical work and was important in the development of the digital computer. Hollerith's machine, "read" the cards by passing them through electrical contacts. Closed circuits, which indicated hole positions, could then be selected and counted. 

  Each Hollerith tabulator was equipped with a card reading station. Clerks opened the reader and positioned a punched card between the plates. The 1890 Hollerith tabulators consisted of 40 data-recording dials. Each dial represented a different data item collected during the census. A sorting table was positioned next to each tabulator. After registering the punch card data on the dials, the sorter specified which drawer the operator should place the card. The clerk opened the reader, placed the punch card in the designated sorter drawer, reset the dials, and positioned a new card to repeat the process. An experienced tabulator clerk could process 80 punch cards per minute.

   The Hollerith system was clearly a great leap forward. It took years of hard, patient work to complete the invention. He joined the Census Office in 1879, but didn't file his first patent until 1884. He first put his machines to work in 1887 in Baltimore—just about the time the Census Office was limping through the final stages of manually tabulating the 1880 census. At that rate, the 1890 census would be out of date by the time it was completed. 

   The population was growing about 25 percent a decade, to more than 60 million in 1890. And more information was needed on each of those 60 million people.  It really proved itself in the real census of 1890. Complete results were available two years sooner than the previous census. The data was more thoroughly analyzed, too, and at less cost—an estimated $5 million less than manual tabulation, nearly ten times greater than the predicted saving and a smaller amount of manpower than would have been necessary otherwise. The system was again used for the 1891 census in Canada, Norway and Austria and later for the 1911 UK census.

   In 1896, Hollerith formed the Tabulating Machine Company, opening a shop in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. This international company leased and sold tabulation machines to census bureaus and insurance companies.  He provided machines for the 1900 census count, but had greatly raised his leasing prices. Hollerith, secure in his monopoly over the technology, knew that the Census Office would have to pay whatever he demanded. It did, but when the office became the permanent Census Bureau in 1902, it began to explore other options.   Barely skirting patent restrictions, Census Bureau employees were able to create their own tabulating machine, more advanced than Hollerith's, in time for the 1910 census. Census Bureau technician James Powers was able to secure the patent for this machine, and he started his own machine tabulation company in 1911.

   Hollerith's company continued to grow as it adapted its machines to do more jobs. For example, in 1906, Hollerith added a plugboard control panel so that new machines would not have to be rebuilt to do new tasks. Business continued to grow, and so did the company. In 1911, Herman Hollerith merged Tabulation Machine Company with three other companies to create Computing Tabulating Recording Company. In 1924, the company was re-named International Business Machines Corporation, better known as IBM today. Modified versions of his technology would continue to be used at the Census Bureau until replaced by computers in the 1950s. 

   Although Hollerith worked with the company he founded as a consulting engineer until his retirement in 1921, he became less and less involved in day-to-day operations. Hollerith retired to his farm in rural Maryland, where he spent the rest of his life raising Guernsey cattle.  He died of a heart attack in November 1929 in Washington D.C. and buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown.