''William Frederick Havemeyer'' was
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
's first
fireboat
A fireboat or fire-float is a specialized watercraft with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipme ...
.
[ The vessel entered service in 1875, and retired in 1901. She was named in honor of a recent ]mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
, William Frederick Havemeyer
William Frederick Havemeyer (February 12, 1804 – November 30, 1874) was a German American businessman and politician who served three times as Mayor of New York City during the 19th century.
Early years
Havemeyer was born in Staten Island, Ne ...
.
Design and commissioning
The vessel was ordered in 1874, around the time Havemeyer died.[ She was a wooden-hulled, steam-powered vessel. She was long, with a beam of , and a ]draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...
of , and her pumps could throw 6,000 gallons per minute. She was staffed by a crew of ten, and had accommodation for her crew to live on board. She cost $23,800.
Operational life
Confrontation at the sanitation docks
On May 18, 1895, the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reported on a confrontation between ''William Frederick Havemeyer'' and , a tugboat
A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...
chartered to the city's Sanitation Department.[ A fire had broken out at the Sanitation Department's "dumping wharf". The wharf, a large wooden wharf near 46th Street was used to load ]barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...
s with the city's garbage. Tugboats, like ''Restless'', would then tow the barges out to sea, where it was dumped.
A colony of homeless men the ''New York Times'' called ''"wharf rats"'', lived in spaces within the wharf, where they supported themselves by salvaging bottles, rags, and other refuse that had resale value.[ The ''New York Times'' blamed the fire on cooking fires the homeless men used to cook their breakfasts.
When ''William Frederick Havemeyer'' arrived at the wharf it found that ''Restless'' was already fighting the fire with its less powerful pumps.][ When ''Restless'' refused to get out of the way ''William Frederick Havemeyer'' turned its pumps on it. The ''New York Times'' reported that the smaller vessel was at risk of being swamped. The conflict between the two vessels consumed fifteen minutes, only ending when a senior fire department official convinced a senior Sanitation Department official to order ''Restless'' to get out of the way.
The fire was eventually extinguished when came to assist ''William Frederick Havemeyer''.][
]
References
Further reading
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{{New York City Fire Department
Fireboats of New York City
1875 ships