Waynesburg’s forgotten (and forsaken) fire engines
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second installment in a series about early firefighting in Waynesburg Borough. Information found in this series was obtained from various historical sources, such as “History of Greene County, Pennsylvania” by Dr. G. Wayne Smith and from council meeting minutes.)
In September of 1886, Waynesburg Borough Councilman Fred Illig was appointed to reorganize the fire company as it then existed. No real action seemed to have been undertaken as no mention of it is made again until March of 1887. At the first meeting of that month, council reorganized itself after the previous year’s election and appointed a new committee to reorganize the town’s fire service once again and further ordered it to make all repairs and put the chemical carts in working order; in essence, it gave it full powers to act in its own course.
By April of 1887 the committee had contracted with M. H. Hunnel to replace the wheels on the carts and to paint and put the chemical carts into working order for $23. That in itself was expected but the next part was the most daring step yet taken by the committee because it hit to the root of the problem and to its repair. They suggested making a motion:
“…That a committee be appointed to employ some suitable person to take charge of the fire apparatus and to keep the same in good working order, and to have them discharged about once a month and recharged and that he be held responsible for the good condition of the same, and that he be required to enter into an agreement with the council or the committee for his faithful performance.”
This was the most progressive move made, for in essence it created a paid position within the nominal Waynesburg fire department and that person would be answerable directly to the council. The motion passed and the committee appointed to begin the search for the town’s first fireman. The search would take until November when the council approved the hiring of A. A. Rhinehart, the young son of a prominent town family to the position. He was to be considered an employee of the police department and as time wore on he slowly became more of a patrolman then a fireman.
Meanwhile, the work on the chemical carts continued. In May, Hunnel requested an additional $6 for repairs and the request was granted. However, the mood for such repairs was slowly waning by September. Then the council appointed a new committee of the same members of the old committee to have “the fire apparatus repaired in the fastest and cheapest manner possible.”
By November of that year the water company was ready to hand over the first water main to the borough council and a list of the positions of the first hydrants was given to the borough. They were placed at each southwest corner of High, Greene, Franklin and Lincoln streets and two more were to be planted in front of the courthouse. In December, 600 feet of 2 ½-inch hose and two nozzles was ordered from the Eureka Fire Hose Company with delivery planned sometime in mid-February. The year of 1888 gave members of the committee full hope that soon a real fire department would be in service.
In January of 1888 a committee was appointed to purchase a hose cart. The cart, so ordered, was of a standard design with two wheels enclosing a hose reel 42 inches in diameter and operated with a hand crank to load the hose. It was purchased from R. J. Ripley of Chicago and was listed as pattern No.9. With that order went another order for 100 feet of 1 1/2-inch hose, one half-dozen 1 1/2-inch hose clamps (or couplings) and two 1 1/2-inch nozzles. Hose carts were a fairly common piece of apparatus in the 19th century, most if not all volunteer companies were based around a hose cart. First conceived in the 1810’s, the cart had grown from a simple wagon with hose loaded flat in the bed to the fanciful and delicate axle design with a hose reel. Most could accommodate 600 feet of hose with two nozzles and a small tool box in the rear which had tools for attaching the hose to a hydrant. The idea with these apparatus was to attach the hose to a hydrant and then fight the fire directly off the pressure of the hydrant.
Hose had undergone a revolution in the mid-19th century. That revolution was owed to Mr. Goodyear and his vulcanization of rubber process invented in 1844. Hose had been of a leather riveted style before and had been in use since the mid-17th century in England. Rubber hose was first used in the 1820’s but was unable to become popular until Goodyear’s process lowered the price so that most communities could afford it. For America in the mid-19th century, rubber held a fascination that plastic was to hold a full century later. By the 1870’s the popular cotton jacketed hose, more flexible than its predecessors, made its appearance and has remained in service ever since.
The first test of the new water system occurred at the end of February 1888 when the water company hooked a section of hose up to one of the hydrants near the courthouse. The test was described in the Waynesburg Republican as occurring opposite the Downey house and threw a stream of water up to the statue of General Greene, 135 feet up on the courthouse roof. Further testing in early March was made using all of the hydrants on High Street.
These tests concentrated on throwing a stream over the higher buildings in town, all of which were successful. At the courthouse alone, 114 pounds per square inch was measured flowing from the hoses and two hoses working together were still able to shoot streams over top of the courthouse. The water pressure was almost as good as one could hope for in those days, and it is ironic that the test success was to occur at the same location as the Downey House fire.
NEXT INSTALLMENT: The new system is put to the test.