The Vergennes Pump House

The Vergennes Pump House. "People of Vergennes at the mercy of the flames". , In Need of Water , Fire was the scourge of downtowns all across America in the nineteenth century. Buildings were destroyed by fire time and time again. Water often had to be transported from nearby rivers. Firefighting efforts were frequently in vain as fires were doused by hand-held buckets and hand pumps.

A City Waterworks , In 1868, Vergennes took its first steps to construct a city waterworks for fire protection by installing three turbine-powered water pumps at the base of Otter Creek Falls. The pumps proved unreliable, however. The City soon contracted with John P. Flanders, owner of the Vergennes Machine Company, to build a better pump. Flanders designed, cast, machined and subsequently patented all the parts of a unique double-acting piston pump. To house the new pump and turbine, the City constructed a 30 square-foot building in the Italianate style on an island at the top of the falls in 1874. The three foot thick walls were built of limestone quarried in Essex, New York.

The Flanders Water Pump , To power the pumps gears, cranks, and pistons, water from Otter Creek was diverted through a large water turbine in the lower level of the pump house. Water from the creek also was piped to a cistern in the lower level, where the sediment settled out before it was pumped to factories and other users in the city. The pump remained in service until the 1930s, when the City developed a new water system as part of the Depression Era Works Project Administration project.