Street Lighting

[camgarsky4]

Per 'timeanddate.com', sunset in Fall River on August 3, 1892 was at 6:59pm.

Lizzie got home from Alice Russell's at 9pm and Bridget home at 10pm. So walking the streets after dark was a normal course of action. Does anyone know what type of street lighting system existed back then? I presume they had gas lines for public lighting, but not totally sure.

[camgarsky4]

Just remembered a 'chat' I had with MB several years ago on this topic and pasting his insights below.....

Re: Lizzie Wed pm walk
Post by mbhenty » Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:11 pm

Yes, fall river certainly had street lighting in 1890. Lighting would be gas. Electric lighting started evolving in the late 1890s. And in 1892 some towns had what was known as Electric Arc Lighting. They were placed very high and made to light a good portion of the neighborhood. Don't think Fall River every had it. In 1892 it would be gas. Gas lighting was all over the city. But lights were not that close together and many were on street corners where they did most good.

You can find photos of Rock street in 1890 with gas lighting. Probably two or three lights every block or so. Off course this was where all the people with money lived. And if I have money and I want lighting, I'm going to get lighting.

Don't think Second street had much lighting. Probably on street corners. At least certainly none in front of the Borden house. Also there are no photos of any street lighting near the Borden house in 1892.

[Kat]

It seems you literally want more light on this case…camgarsky…
I think you would like to time travel to 1892, Wednesday early evening, thru Thursday evening, with a drone, hovering about 60 feet in the air above the Second Street and Third Street area looking to get “the big picture.”

[Fargo]

So they had to lite the street lights every night?

[camgarsky4]

This is what I found googling....sounds like until 1930, a 'lamplighter' would manually light street lights. Wow.....

Public lighting
Some of the first public gas lighting in Britain appeared in London’s Pall Mall, in 1807.
By 1850 it had been adopted by towns and cities across Britain. The lamps were
relatively efficient and cheap to run, and were seen to help increase public safety and
reduce crime. At first, the lamps were lit by a lamplighter. The lamplighter would set
off at dusk and light the lamps using a wick on the end of a long pole, returning at
dawn to extinguish the lamp using a small hook. Lamp lighting was an important job
and a respected profession – often passed down from father to son, although the job
was also done by women.
In the 1930s, the clockwork Controller was invented, which lighted the lamps
automatically. Although the lamplighter was no longer needed to actually light the gas,
the mechanism still had to be wound regularly, the glass in the lamp cleaned and parts
repaired and replaced.
Gas was used to light streetlamps until the 1950s when it was replaced in most areas
by electricity.

Fall River Daily Evening News. February 5, 1896.
Article discusses who will replace the recently deceased city lamp lighter, Frank Yarwood....his son Joseph or someone else. Apparently Joseph took up the responsibility upon his fathers illness, but the "committee for street lighting" didn't necessarily agree.

I searched newspapers.com for "lamp lighters" in the 1890's for only the three Fall River newspapers. There are many many many articles on the topic, including new inventions and the politics involved in holding this esteemed position. Amazing what you learn on the Lizzie Borden forum!!

[Fargo]

I guess they shut the gas off somehow during the day

[camgarsky4]

In the google info above it mentions that the lamplighter "returned at dawn to extinguish the lamp using a small hook."

I'm not engineerish enough to envision how a hook would extinguish a light.

[camgarsky4]

After searching Newspapers.com for electric street lighting in Fall River, it appears this was a very hot topic throughout the 1890's as the city and New England in general, transitioned to electric from gas.

On August 2, '92, two days before the murders, the proposed locations of 70 new electric lights was published. The # of new electric lights to be added each year of that decade were high politicized and was a yearly budget battle. Mayor Coughlin was quoted in one article saying, "I don't think we need to lighten cow pastures."

Back to the Borden and Chagnon homes and street lighting....it still seems likely that neither home was well lighted since not located on a street corner.

[Kat]

Found a short account by a resident of Fall River who used to deliver Lizbeth’s Saturday Evening Post, but they both lived on French Street. He was about 12 in the photo, proudly propping up his bike!
This is from the LBQ online, Vol VII No2 April 2000 pgs 6 & 21.Last red bound volume at the archive site- plz see section topic here: LINKS
Mr Fleming interviewed Mr Warner (b.1899) extract:

[camgarsky4]

Thanks.

Seems highly likely that the street light across Second Street from the Borden's was gas and the city lamplighter sauntered down that street every night. Electric lights were probably reserved for key intersections....at least in the early years.