Early Firefighting in Ithaca

In 1828, a man named Phineus Bennet was commissioned by the town of Ithaca to build a log aqueduct running from Six Mile Creek to the corner of State and Tioga. This was part of a series of laws passed by the president of the village, Daniel Bates, to protect against fires. Other laws included building requirements for leather buckets to carry water in case of fire, as well as sanitation laws that prohibited pigs from running untethered in the streets. Fire protection was an important issue in the local government. In 1823, under the advisement of Village President David Woodcock, Ithaca purchased its first fire engine and organized a company of twenty-four men. The fire engine cost $300, which is about $6,500 in 2021. In comparison, modern fire engines can cost upwards of half a million dollars.

Fire engines in the early nineteenth century were much different than fire engines today. They were often hand powered, requiring firefighters to both carry the fire engine to the site of the fire, and then hand-pump water from a creek or aqueduct. This was the rationale that supported Phineus Bennet's aqueduct: if water could be made available as far east of Six Mile Creek as Tioga Street, there was a much better chance that the fire engine would make it to the aqueduct to pump water to throw on a fire.