|
Genealogy For You
|
 |
|
|
Genealogy Spotlight
|
Start your journey with a Free Trial to
Ancestry.com
* GenealogyBank.com - search Historical Newspapers 1690 - 1977, Historical Books 1801 - 1900, Historical Documents 1789 - 1980, America's Obituaries 1977 to current, and Social Security Death Index 1937 to current
* Search USA Genealogy on World Vital Records
* Search Newspapers on World Vital Records
|
|
New Netherland, New York Genealogy
Obsolete Occupations of the Netherlands
© Cor Snabel
For centuries people have been almost powerless to do
anything about big city fires. Some towns never had any
professional fire brigade; organizing a group of panicking
citizens to work together was very difficult. So often the
fire could rage till there was nothing left.
Fireman (brandweerman)
As we can see in history almost every town had its city
fires, which could destroy major parts of those cities. The
authorities issued strict regulations to prevent dangerous
situations and ordered every citizen to have a few leather
buckets handy, which were inspected regularly. Amsterdam had
fire watchmen situated all over town in every tower; they
alerted their colleagues with the sound of a trumpet and
pointed out the direction of the fire with a lantern and in
daytime with a special flag.
For centuries the only equipment used to fight a fire were
leather buckets, hooks, ropes and ladders. The buckets of
water had to be handed over by two rows of people and by the
time a bucket reached the fire, it was almost empty. If
extinguishing with buckets of water failed the houses were
pulled down with the ropes and hooks, in later years fire
blankets were introduced to protect the adjoining
properties.
In about 1650 the first fire pump was used, an invention of
German citizen of Neurenberg, called Hans Hautsch. The
principle of this machine was like the simple plant spray we
still use. Pushing the piston down meant spraying water, but
the jet of water stopped if it was pulling up again. This
pump had to be transported by horsepower and pumping was a
hard and dangerous job, because the men at the pumps had to
stand close to the fire. Apart from that aspect, the copper
water container, in which this pump was installed, had to be
filled with buckets and like in the old days, most buckets
were empty by the time they reached the machine. In 1672 Jan
van der Heijden did some inventions, which were a big
improvement, he invented the leather fire-hose, so the
machine could be positioned near the canal and only a few
men were needed to fill the water container. The second
advantage of using the fire-hose was, that the firemen could
go to the seat of the fire, instead of wait till the flames
reached the street. He also improved the fire pump and in
1698 he even invented a suction pump, which could suck the
water out of the canals.
>Choose from the following ancient occupations
Baker |
Beachcomber |
Beguine |
Candlemaker |
Dumpman |
Executioner |
Fanmaker |
Fireman |
Gravedigger |
Innkeeper |
Laundrywoman |
Nightwatch |
Peddlar |
Porter |
Seat Caretaker |
Ship Shanghai |
Soapmaker |
Streetpaver |
Tolltaker |
Pharmacist
|
Your Name in History |
Find out if your Surname is part of the Our Name in History Collection! Just type your surname into the search box
|
| |
Search Olive Tree Genealogy Family of Websites
|
|
|
marks FREE genealogy records.
