American LaFrance as it existed for so many decades was, like many of the successful and long-lived motorized vehicle manufacturers in the United States, the end result of decades of corporate evolution. Clever inventors and engineers built products that in turn built companies, and companies combined with companies, sometimes more than once, building into what eventually became a successful colossus.

In American LaFrance’s case, John F. Rogers’s hand-pumped fire engines begat in 1832 a firm soon sold to William Platt and Nicholas B. Doe, who were in turn bought out in 1834 by Lysander Button. Button partnered with Robert Blake to build the aptly named Button & Blake line of fire apparatus in the canal town of Waterford, New York. This concern eventually merged with several others of quality in 1891 to create the American Fire Engine Company, which in turn eventually folded into the International Fire Engine Company, which evolved (finally!) in 1903 into American LaFrance as it was known by generations of firemen.

The example offered here is one of the finest surviving specimens of the Button & Blake apparatus, a hand-drawn and hand-operated pumping engine of the type known as “a Button” that made the company’s early reputation with its precision engineering and exceptional water delivery. The latter was due to one of the company’s innovations, a domed brass “anti-pulsation chamber,” which equalized the flow of water through the pump, preventing the uneven spurts produced by earlier hand-operated piston pumps.

The apparatus was restored for the American LaFrance Corporate Collection by Andy Swift of Firefly Restorations in Hope, Maine, one of the country’s best-known, most respected and knowledgeable authorities in vintage fire engines. In this instance the very high-quality restoration extended to such a level of detail that correct and authentic wood was used to restore the body, which was finished in correct colors with proper gold leaf decoration and wood inlays. Aside from minor cracking in areas it remains in very good overall condition, and still clearly demonstrates the superb workmanship that went both into its original construction and its Swift restoration.

This is a very impressive machine and the “grandfather” of the American LaFrance Corporate Collection. In many ways, it all began right here.