Fire Engines Fire Engines
Seagrave completed this 65-foot horse-drawn water tower, serial #3294, for Worcester, MA, in March, 1909. The photo above shows this tower when it was delivered to Worcester in 1909. This is one of only three surviving water towers that were never motorized; oddly, the other two also served in MA (Lawrence and Lowell), but both of those are of the patented Hale design.
A private collector near Worcester let this Seagrave tower sit outside deteriorating for many years after its retirement, as shown in the photo below. Then Arthur Gillette of Cairo, NY, found this Seagrave and bought it in the 1970s. About 1985, this water tower, and several other horse-dawn vehicles that Gillette owned, were turned over to the Altamont Fairgrounds in Altamont, NY, for restoration and display in a planned carriage museum. In 2000, the American Museum of Firefighting in Hudson, NY, was attempting to purchase this tower for permanent display in what ranks as one of America's three largest museums of antique fire engines (the other two are Hall of Flame at Phoenix, AZ, and Fire Museum of Maryland at Lutherville, MD).
This page was last updated on March 14, 2001.