Why would a fire department in Maine call its fire engine “The Pacific?” “Pacific” is the name on the side of this 1866 Hunneman hand drawn pumper and hose cart from Rockport, Maine, now on exhibit in Gallery One at the Hall of Flame.
Form follows function in this engine, which carries her suction hose “squirrel tail” style on a graceful crane neck frame. The pre-connected suction can be put to immediate use, and the front wheels can turn at right angles to increase mobility. The elegantly curved design of the pump lever allows firefighters to work the pump handles closer to the ground. The attached hose cart, called a “jumper” (sometimes a “crab” or a “spider”) provides several hundred feet of hose. Capacity is about 130 gallons per minute.
The “Pacific,” and an identical Hunneman called the “Atlantic,” were purchased in 1866 and used by the nearby towns of Rockport and Camden, Maine. Since Rockport was four miles west of Camden, its engine was named the “Pacific.” Four miles west, so “Pacific,” get it? The motto “Be Early and Cool” is still used by the Rockport Volunteers.
William Cooper Hunneman (1769 –1856) founded the Hunneman Company in 1792 in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury; it continued making apparatus until the early 1880s. Gallery One at The Hall of Flame also displays an 1852 Hunneman hand pumper that served in Exeter, New Hampshire.
