Evening journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1888-1932, 1914-12-14
New News Of Yesterday
The Man Who Invented
the Wooden Pump
By Holland.

l was driving, some years ago,
through the village Of Concord, Mass,
with citizen of that town who was
familiar with all the places of his
toric interest and who had learned
many anecdotes associated with
Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Mar
garet Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody
Hawthorne's sister-in-law and distin-
guished for her philanthropic and
educational work-and others who
gave distinction to that town in the
mid-years Of the past century.
In the course of our drive he show
ed me the original vine from which
the now famous Concord crane was
first produced by q patient and self
taught student of nature. A little
distance away stood an old-fashioned
wellsweep with a half-decayed oaken
bucket resting upon the fragments of
an ancient covering. IL was a relic
OF the departed years. Nearby stood
an old-fashioned wooden pump which
had been used for many years as
a substitute for the older-fashioned
wellsweep and bucket
My companion said: eff Wood
worth, the poet. who wrote The Old
Oaken Bucket which gained imme-
date and permanent fame for him.
had waited a few years he probably
would not have had occasion to write
It at all. Everybody in this town
and l presume in every other town
up to about seventy years ago, used
the oaken bucket and the wellsweep
when he wanted to get water.
There was a man of inventive
genius who lived in this town, whose
name was Adams. / have forgotten
what his first name was. but | have
been told that he was of distant kin
to the family of John Adams. II he
was. his talent was not for politics,
but for invention. Adams, I have
been told, for a long time turned over
in his mind the plan for a much more
convenient way of drawing up water
from a well than the cumbersome
wellsweep. He worked at his idea
for a good while, and at last went
into a carpenters shop and made
there a model for a wooden pump.
After he had done that, he estab-
lished a pump of this kind over a
we'll in his own yard. He was de-
lighted to see that it worked per-
fectly. With a few strokes of thu
pump handle water was brought W
from the well and then passed
through a little wooden funnel tc
which was attached a knob for the
purpose of hanging a pail on it
Everybody wondered at this inven-
ton, and speedily wooden pumps
we're set up all through the village
Afterward they were sold in Other
villages. and in a little while prac-
tically supplanted the old-fashiOned
wellsweop. You'll a good many oil
them in use now back in the country
/ don't suppose that Adams ever re.
ceived much money for his invention
| It was at least twenty-five years after
Adams devised his wooden pump thai
another man invented the chain pump
which drew the water from the wei
by sort of windlass operated with {
handle like grindstone.
"Of course, as villages grew ant
aqueduct companies we're organized
these appliances were abandoned, bu
I often think there should be som'
memorial TO perpetuate the name o
Adams. who made it possible to sub
stitute a wooden pump for the old
fashioned oaken bucket"
| Copyright. 1914, by e. J. Edwards
All rights reserved).
Tomorrow Mr.. Edwards will tel
of "A Liberal Minded New England
Minister"
/