"What the heck is that?"
It’s pretty common for visitors at the Boston Fire Museum to stop in front of this late 18th-century piece and wonder the question posed above. Some-20 people surrounded Boston No. 1, known as “The Thayer,” a hand tub fire engine built in 1792. According to the museum, it was crafted by Ephraim Thayer (an apprentice of Paul Revere) at Revere’s brass foundry.
In colonial Boston, every household kept two fire buckets ready in case of emergency. Compared to those simple buckets, The Thayer was cutting-edge technology. Firefighters would pull it by hand to the scene, fill it with water from buckets, and operate a manual pump to send water onto the flames.
Today, it stands as one of Boston’s earliest fire engines—and a fascinating reminder of how far firefighting has come.
Close-up photo of drawing under The Thayer.
