By the latter part of the 19th century, there were more than 80 manufacturers of steam fire engines in the United States. Most prominent among them was the Silsby Manufacturing Company of Seneca Falls, New York, which built its first such unit in 1856. In contrast to other firms of the era, which held to old-fashioned reciprocating engines and piston pumps, Silsby employed the innovative rotary pump designed by Birdsill Holly, who also invented the frost-proof fire hydrant. Such was the demand for these strongly designed engines that they survived a parade of mergers that eventually folded Silsby into the soon-legendary giant American LaFrance, which kept the Silsby designs in production for their first two years.

The Silsby offered here is of the company’s final original design, the so-called “ninth model” introduced in 1875, with an arched-frame “crane” configuration, and is of the smaller Fourth-Size with a 500-gallon-per-minute pump. According to a prior owner, it was one of two delivered in 1894 to the Philadelphia Fire Department, and was the first apparatus assigned to the city’s Engine Company 42, organized on 7 December of that year. As was typical in this era, rather than replace the costly machine outright when it became slightly outmoded, in 1909 it was returned to American LaFrance and rebuilt with a new Fox water-tube boiler, then continued in service until 1922. It was only retired due to the motorization of the engine company.

A private owner acquired the fire engine and retained it for 57 years, then sold it to a longtime collector of horse-drawn fire apparatus, in unrestored 1909 configuration and reportedly still complete, save for its Dietz lanterns. A painstaking 15-year restoration followed, with paint and detailing by the multiple AACA award-winning firm Anderson Restorations of Kanawha, Iowa. Afterward it was acquired in 2013 by collector James Scott of Charlottesville, Virginia, then in 2016 was purchased from the Scott stable by its current owner, who is believed to have been the fifth since new. It has since been exhibited as a display piece in his own private museum, never fired up or operated.

The Philadelphia Fire Department purchased 136 steamers over the course of 59 years, the last of which was in 1914 and remained in service until 1927. From 1886 to 1897, the city was one of Silsby’s best customers, purchasing 41 pieces of the steam-operated apparatus. This unit, with its impressively crafted brass fitments and complete history from new, is the only known Silsby pumper remaining of the Philadelphia units, and it is certainly among the best of all survivors of the brand.