One April afternoon in 1859, townspeople in Elkton were startled when it appeared that a general alarm fire was raging inside the venerable old seat of justice in Cecil County. The rumbling carriage wheels of the hand-drawn pumper being hurriedly pulled toward the courthouse and the clattering of rushing feet drew curious citizens to the scene of the excitement. Outside the tallest building in town, all the community’s firefighting apparatus, two hand-pumpers, were being furiously worked by crews of strong men who played steady streams of water on the 18th-century edifice. As the crowd swelled, people wondered what was going on as shouts, cheers, and “stentorian vociferations from the fire company” periodically went up while streams soaked the building.
THE RODGERS
This chaotic scene started after the Schooner Iglehort, on its weekly run up the Bay from Baltimore, docked with a precious cargo. It was a modern addition to the firefighting force, a suction engine which could pull water from a stream or pond without needing a bucket brigade to keep it supplied. Manufactured by John Rodgers, the Elkton volunteers purchased it used from that Vigilant Fire Company of Baltimore for $450.
What a grand day it was for the smoke-eaters as they proudly marched through the streets with the new pumper. After parading it around for a while, the young men decided to demonstrate its power at the highest structure in Elkton, the courthouse. Hooking up the suction engine to a cistern, the men, pumping for everything they were worth, squirted water through a simple brass nozzle that shot a stream over the steeple of the place that was often known for high-drama of its own.
About the time they’d successfully pumped that powerful stream some veteran firemen decided a little friendly competition was in order from the machine that had successfully defended Elkton during many a hard-fought fight with flames. They hastily ran out the “Waterwitch,” pulling that veteran engine down to the courthouse. Manning the pumper, ten men exerted hard on its levers while a bucket brigade kept water flowing. It threw a stream higher than the newfangled contraption, despite its advanced age and the lack of suction.
A reporter from the Cecil Democrat described the scene as the competition heated up: “The boys at the new machine, full of pluck again rallied, and this time did better when it was their turn to cheer. The old engine was again put to work, the excitement all the time rising when up went her water ten or fifteen feet higher than before, beating the new engine fairly and decidedly.”
The Old Hydraulion
That elder piece of apparatus came to the Elkton in 1827 at a cost of $700. Technically called a hydraulion because it carried its own hose reel mounted on top, it had been the pride of the firemen of Elkton for over thirty years. James Sellers, a Philadelphia mechanic, built it for one of the volunteer fire companies in that city, where it served for nine years before it the Eastern Shore town purchased it.
“For a time it was feared it would result seriously” the reporter observed, but it subsided and “all relapsed into good humor again.” People now knew that the next time that fearful cry of “Fire! Fire! Fire!” came in the deep of night those old heroes of many a brave fight would stand as their defense. Although the midnight clanging of the courthouse bell still struck fear in the hearts of slumbering residents, the volunteers were equipped to meet the threat.
Although these relics from the past haven’t rushed to a blaze in centuries, they are carefully cared for by the town’s modern organization, the Singerly Fire Company. In the early 1990s, as the volunteers prepared to celebrate 100 years of service, the Hydraulion and the Suction Engines were refurbished by a master Amish wagon maker, Christian Petersheim of the Nickle Mine Coach Shop.