U - Newton Free Library

2l>6 MISCELLANEOUS.
HAND=ENGINE CONTESTS.
Within three months after the arrival of the
new suction hand-engines in 1842, the West
Newton No. 3 and Nonanturn No. 5 had a contest,
with victory for the West Newton, as
previously mentioned.
On Monday, September 11, 1842, all the companies
receiving new engines that year, West
Newton No. 8, Upper Falls No. 4, Nonantum
No. 5, and Eagle No. 6, assembled at the Baptist
Pond, now Crystal Lake, Newton Centre, for a
general contest.
This was the first hand fireengine
muster on record.
The playing was tub-and-tub ; that is, one
engine went to the draught, and played into
another through two hundred feet of hose,
which in turn played into the next, and so on
to the last, which played through an open but
onto the ground.
Such a trial between engines
of exactly the same size and pattern as were
these four could not produce a decided victory
for any one of them, and it did not in this
instance.
The general verdict, however, was in
favor of Eagle No. 6, Captain A. H. Randall.
This contest was repeated at the same place
and under the same conditions, Monday, August
1, 1845. The same companies, with the addition