'II

This

This is a

a fair copie of ye Soyen arrived_

in

y? City hall

y: board. and 9 feete

from London and now I fecte wide on

Newsletter of January 6th, 1732, gives, under the head of news from New York, an account of a fire which occurred. in the city on the 7th of December preceding. It is in these words: "Last night, about 12 o'clock, a fire broke out in a joyner's house in the city. It began in the garret, where the people were all asleep, and burnt violently, but by the aid of the two fire-engines, which came from London in the ship Beaver, the fire was extinguished, after having burnt down the house and damaged the next."

Some person, little apprehending that it would descend as a memorial to our day, made a rough pen-andink sketch of one of these engines, which, though rude and badly drawn, is sufficient to indicate its structure, and the manner in which it was worked. The sketch, having been put in the hands of a mechanical draughtsman, he has skillfully reproduced it in a proper drawing, which will convey an exact representation of what may possibly have been the first fire-engine in America. By the resolution of the Common Council, the engine was to be complete, with suction-pipe and all materials thereunto belonging. The suction-pipe was then known, and both Newsham and Foroke state in their advertisements that their engines feed themselves "with a sucking pipe;" but, if we judge by this pen-and-ink sketch, these engines had no suction-pipe, or the use of it had been given up, as persons are represented in the act of passing buckets of water by hand to supply the engine.

Beneath this pen-and-ink sketch is the following description of the drawing: "This is a fair copie of ye ingen, arrived from London, and now in ye City Hall, seven feete wide on ye board and nine feete on workepoole, thirteen feete long in ye whole, manned by twelve tug-men, eleven bucket-men, and one pipe-man."

The experience of the fire of the 7th of December