Electric Fire Alarm System, 1852 - Boston, MA
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NorStar
N 42° 21.465 W 071° 03.561
19T E 330404 N 4691552
At this location, by Boston's Old City Hall, the first municipal fire alarm system using call boxes to indicate the location of fire was first successfully demonstrated.
Waymark Code: WMC7C6
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 08/03/2011
Views: 16
In Boston, on School Street, is a plaque on a square post that was placed there to mark the location where the first municipal fire alarm system using call boxes to indicate the location of fire. was successfully demonstrated.
The plaque was placed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 2004. The plaque has the following text:
"Electric Fire Alarm System, 1852
On April 28, 1852, in Johnson Hall, formerly on this site, the first municipal electric fire alarm system using call boxes with automatic signaling to indicate the location of a fire was placed into service. Invented by William Channing and Moses Farmer, this system was highly successful in reducing property loss and deaths due to fire and was subsequently adopted throughout the United States and Canada.
October 2004
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers"
The plaque is located at street level, next to a Starbucks, and near Boston's Old City Hall. The plaque faces the pathway, with the intersection of School Street and Providence Street to the left.
A web page on the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) provides some more information about the event. The system installed incorporated Samuel Morse's printing register. Forty miles of wire were used to connect the components that included the central station, 40 call boxes, and 19 bells in churches, schools, and fire engine houses. When a call box was used, "...the system would transmit an electric impulse from a code wheel breaking the circuit and record a Morse code dot or dash on the printing register. On April
30, 1852, within 24 hours of being placed in service, a fire alarm was transmitted for a fire on Causeway Street."[See NFPA Web Site Link]. In 1855, the Gamewell Company became interested in the alarm and bought the rights to these systems. By the late 1800s, Gamewell owned 95% of the market.
Though there is no evidence of the system at this location, today, you can view other artifacts of fire alarms systems at the Boston Fire Museum on Congress Street. The web site is below.
Web Site:
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visit link)