USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Braintree > Town annual report of Braintree, Massachusetts for the year 1891 > Part 16
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And you are directed to serve this warrant by posting up attested copies thereof in not less than nine public places in this town, seven days at least before the time of said meeting, and by pub- lishing once in the Braintree Observer.
Hereof fail not, and make return of this warrant with your doings thereon to the Town Clerk before the time of said meeting.
Given under our hands at Braintree, this seventeenth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one.
ANSEL O. CLARK, NATHANIEL F., HUNT, J. FRANKLIN BATES, Selectmen of Braintree.
NORFOLK, SS. BRAINTREE, Aug. 24, 1891.
Pursuant to the within warrant I have notified the inhabitants of the town of Braintree, herein described, to meet at the time and place and for the purposes within mentioned by posting up attested
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copies of this warrant at more than nine public places in said town of Braintree, seven days before the time set for said meeting, and I have caused the said warrant to be published in the Brain- tree Observer once before the time set for said meeting.
HORACE FAXON, Constable of Braintree.
A true copy. Attest :
SAMUEL A. BATES, Town Clerk.
BRAINTREE, Aug. 25, 1891.
In accordance with the foregoing warrant, the meeting was called to order and the warrant read by the Town Clerk.
Under Article 1, George H. Arnold was elected moderator by the use of the check-list, and sworn by the Town Clerk.
ART. 2. Thomas A. Watson in behalf of the committee on electric lighting submitted the following report.
BRAINTREE, Aug. 25, 1891.
The committee appointed at the last town meeting to investigate and report on the subject of electric lighting has performed its duty and submits the following, as a report of progress in the per- formance of its duties.
We find-on investigation that Braintree is the only town of her size within a radius of twelve miles, and with very few exceptions within a radius of twenty miles of Boston, that is without some sys- tem of street lighting. To persons passing through Braintree on the trains, our dark streets are made more noticeable by the fact that every town on the Old Colony Railroad, as far out as and in- cluding Cohasset and Scituate, has its streets lighted except Brain- tree, and with one or two exceptions the same can be said of the towns on the main line of the road to an equal distance from Bos- ton. Our dark streets must have had and will have the effect of repelling would be settlers who are naturally attracted by the other advantages of our town which is second to none in Eastern Massa- chusetts in beauty of situation, healthfulness, railroad facilities, and everything else that goes to make up an attractive place of resi- dence.
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Taking these things into consideration, there can be no doubt of the advisability of the immediate adoption of some system of light- ing that will make our streets safe and pleasant to travel on after dark. And we believe that the town ought to look at the cost of a lighting system as in the nature of a good investment, sure to return dividends in increase of population and value of real estate, and not merely as an increase of town expenses.
As to the means to be adopted for lighting, there is no question whatever as to the advantages possessed by the electric light. They are so great that we could not seriously consider anything else. There are two general systems of electric street lighting, the Arc and Incandescent, and in some towns both are used together. Your committee was prejudiced in favor of the incandescent system when they began their investigations, and they also find that some of our citizens have a similar prejudice, but we have consulted with a great many men experienced in electric street lighting, and with- out exception they recommend the arc system as being in all respects the better, both as regards brilliancy of light, simplicity, and cheap- ness. We have also visited several towns lighted with both sys- tems, and are entirely convinced of the superiority of the arc system.
The prejudice in favor of the incandescent lamp is almost en- tirely confined to this vicinity and is due to the fact that in our neighboring towns the arc lamps have been placed so far apart that there is an unlighted space between them that seems much darker on acccount of the brilliant light in the immediate vicinity of the lamps, while the incandescent lamps having been placed much nearer together give a continuous though much weaker light.
In these towns the arc lamps are often placed 1,200 to 1,500 feet apart, while the incandescent lamps are placed 250 to 500 feet apart; but in towns we have visited where the arc lamps are placed 600 to 800 feet apart the result is very satisfactory as the rays of one lamp meet and cross those of the next lamp and the lighting is continuous and brilliant. The arc lamp generally used has a power of 1,200 candles, and the incandescent lamp has a power of only twenty-five candles. Four of the latter having a to- tal power of 100 candles require the same steam power as one of the former with a candle-power of 1,200, so that very much more
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coal is required to be burned under the boilers to produce a candle- power in an incandescent lamp than in an arc lamp. There is un- doubtedly a large economy of coal in favor of the arc lamp when the cost per candle-power is considered. The yearly cost of car- bons consumed in a system of arc lamps is about the same as the cost of renewals of the carbon filaments and bulbs in an incandes- cent system. The arc system has been adopted for street lighting by every town that has availed itself of the new electric lighting law.
The following extract from a letter written from Brockton to the Boston Herald is interesting in this connection : ---
" BROCKTON, Aug. 15, 1891 .- It is considered remarkable, but nevertheless true, that the incandescent street lights cost more money than arc lights - nearly twice as much. The city has 529 incandescent lights, of a total candle-power of 8,555. These cost $682.09 every month. Last month the city burned about 25 arc lights of a total candle-power of fifty thousand, and the cost for the same was only $371.88. The city is poorly lighted, and the incandescent service is considered very bad, as regards street lighting. It has been suggested that the incandescents be replaced by arc lights, which will be a better and cheaper illumin- ator."
The next point that we considered was the advisability of the town's establishing and operating its own plant, and we have endeavored to sink all prejudices and look at the matter impar- tially. The law passed by the last Legislature gives any town in Massachusetts the right to construct, establish, and maintain a plant for the manufacture and distribution of electricity, for fur- nishing light for municipal use, and for the use of such of its inhabitants as may require and pay for the same.
The law as passed is as favorable as could be desired to such towns as have not already a public electric lighting plant owned by private individuals, established in its limits, as all that is needed in such towns is a two-thirds vote of the citizens at two town meetings, called for the purpose of accepting the statute, the sec- ond meeting to be held not less than two months after the first meeting. Such towns, however, as have a privately owned plant must purchase the existing plant at an appraisal that takes into
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consideration, as an element of value, the present earning capacity of the business.
We are glad to be able to report that the condition of affairs in Braintree is such, that it can avail itself of this new law very easily and simply, as there is absolutely nothing in the way of an exist- ing plant that the town must purchase. The town has granted to a few of our citizens, the right to cross certain streets with wires, in order to do their own private lighting, but. this in no sense constitutes a plant that the town must purchase, even if those to whom this right has been given wished to sell their plant, which they do not.
There are two companies chartered to establish an electric light- ing plant in Braintree, but neither of them have done any practi- cal work, and under the law have nothing the town must buy.
There are many reasons why in our opinion it is better for a town to own and operate the electric plant, but the chief reason is that a town can supply itself with light from its own plant cheaper than it can buy light from any company.
A committee from the city of Scranton, Penn., obtained statis- tics from over fifty towns lighted by private companies, and from 18 towns operating their own plant. The average cost per light per year in the former towns was found to be $105, in the latter, $52.
A committee appointed by the Council of Kansas City, Missouri, a few months ago, have made an independent investigation and report that the average cost per light per year under municipal ownership is $58, while under the contract system it is more than double that amount.
The reason for this great difference in favor of town ownership is obvious when it is considered that the towns have to allow only for interest at 4% on the actual cost of the plant, while the private companies must pay at least 6% on a capital that is almost always much larger than the cost of the plant. The economy of town ownership becomes more apparent as the system is extended and more lights are used, as the operating expenses do not increase in proportion to the increase in the number of lamps. In towns where a private company does the street lighting for a stated yearly price for each lamp, each additional lamp costs the town the
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same as those originally installed. This fact and disputes as to the quality of the light have already caused much friction between towns and lighting companies, and several towns that will have to buy already established plants have nevertheless voted to do so and avail themselves of the new law.
Furthermore, if the town should grant a franchise to a private electric lighting company they would place themselves in the power of what is necessarily a monopoly, as the streets of a town will only afford accommodation for a single set of poles, and the policy of the State is not to allow a second company to start where one has occupied the field, consequently the town can never avail itself of competition in order to get low prices. Finally as a large share of an electric company's business and consequently its income must be the public street lighting, it certainly seems as if the as- sumption of this business by a town is even more advisable than town ownership of its water system, for the town really uses for public purposes a much larger proportion of the electricity pro- duced, than it does of the water pumped. Towns and cities in other States have had the right to establish their own plants, and there are many cases, especially in the West, where they have availed themselves of the privilege. We have seen letters from the mayors of several cities, that were used as evidence before our last Legislature during the investigation that preceded the passage of the new law. A few extracts from these will be interesting.
FROM THE MAYOR OF PARIS, ILL.
1. Number of lights in use, 60.
2. Number of hours they are run, 9.
3. Candle-power, 2,000; and average cost per light per year, $25, yearly expenses.
4. Cost of plant, $10,000.
We like it very much, and it costs less than gas, and we have more light.
FROM THE MAYOR OF HUNTINGTON, IND.
1. Number of lights in use, 53.
2. Number hours run, 13, or all dark hours.
3. Candle-power, 2,000.
4. Cost per light per year, $50.27.
5. Cost of plant, $15,000.
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FROM THE MAYOR OF GRAND LEDGE, MICH.
1. Number of lights in use, 38.
2. Number of hours they are run, 6.
3. Candle-power, 2,000'; and average cost per light per year, $40.
4. Cost of plant, $10,100.
FROM THE MAYOR OF MADISON, IND.
" Your favor of the 20th, making inquiry in regard to our elec- tric light plant, received. In reply, would say we have been oper- ating the plant four years. It consists of one 125 horse-power Corliss engine, three 30-light dynamos. 86 arc lamps, 2,000 candle- power each ; the plant is run moonlight schedule and on cloudy nights. The average cost per year is $5,672.02 ; this is the run- ning expenses, labor, fuel, carbons and repairs.
" This does not include interest on the plant, which cost $23,000. The system is the Jenney, Indianapolis, Ind. Under the system of gas and gasolene, it cost the city $8,000 per year to light the streets. Our streets are 100 per cent better lighted, and our citi- zens are well pleased with the change."
FROM THE MAYOR OF LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
1. Number of lights in use, 112.
2. Number of hours they are run, average, 8 per night.
3. Candle-power, 2,000, and average cost per light per year, $47.50.
4. Cost of plant, $32,000.
FROM THE MAYOR OF LEWISTON, ME.
1. We are using 91 arc lights.
2. We run all dark hours excepting moonlight, which if light, do not run.
3. Our lamps are 2,000 candle-power.
4. We run them at $43 per year per light.
The plant was put in at a cost of $15,000 and has not been enlarged.
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FROM THE MAYOR OF YPSILANTI, MICH.
1. Number of lights in use, 85, last year, 80.
2. Number of hours they are run, till a little past midnight on all nights when there is not a good moon, and on dark cloudy nights till the same time, even if there is a moon.
3. Candle-power, 1,200 nominally, and average cost per year, $30, reckoning only current expenses ; about $47, adding interest on cost of plant.
4. Cost of plant, about $25,000.
The variation in the cost per light in the above cases is not nearly as great as the variation in the charges of private com- panies, and may be accounted for by difference in cost of coal, use of surplus time of other public employees, use of water-power, etc.
Painesville, Ohio, paid a private company $72 per lamp per year. It put in its own plant, and the cost now is $43 per lamp per year.
Bangor, Maine, runs its plant by water power, and the cost of its two thousand candle-power lights, run all night every night of the year, is $57.55 each, per year. The price for private companies for such lamps, run all night, varies from $90 to $150 per year.
The most recent report from a municipal plant is the following, dated Aug. 14, 1891, Columbus, Ind.
The quarterly report for the city's electric light plant for May, June, and July, shows 442 hours' lighting furnished on 68 lamps at a total cost of $575, being an average for the year of $34 per light. Previous to the city putting in her own plant, she paid the Citizen's Electric Light Company $73.33} each for 48 lamps, run on full-moon, Philadelphia, schedule. For the quarter, $800, or $305 more for 48 lamps under the contract system, than for 68 lights owned and operated by the city. Sixty-eight lights under the contract system would have cost $4,986.66, as against $2,300 : ' a direct saving of $2,686.66 per annum ; besides, with the city's plant, we have lighted all dark and rainy hours in addition to full moon schedule.
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Marblehead, Melrose, Wakefield, Peabody, and North Attleboro have already voted to avail themselves of the new statute.
Looking at the matter in the broadest possible manner we cannot see a single reason why the town should allow this business to go out of its own hands, and we feel disposed to congratulate the town for not having given away any lighting franchise, even though we are perhaps placed a little behind the times by our delay.
We now come to the question of the best plan for the town to adopt for the installation and operation of an electric lighting plant.
We have made ourselves familiar with all the principal styles of dynamos, lamps, and other apparatus that are needed, and if the town votes to establish the plant your committee feel that they are in possession of all the information necessary to enable them to buy the best apparatus at the lowest possible price. We do not think it wise to publicly express our opinion as to the various ma- chines, as it may operate against securing low prices. .
We have carefully laid out the distributing system on a map of the town obtained from the Water Commissioners, and find that with lamps 600 feet apart through all the thickly settled and much travelled districts to 1,000 feet apart in the little used streets and roads, 90 arc lamps of 1,200 candle-power each will be needed. The electric lighting experts to whom we have submitted the map say that it will be a most excellent system, and find nothing what- ever to criticise in it.
We are not prepared to recommend any particular location for a ยท central station, but there are several that will answer every require- ment; and as there is no necessity for any decision on this point for at least two months, the time that must elapse between the two town meetings needed to legally accept the statute, we have thought best to leave this point for future consideration.
It is essential that such a station be placed where coal can be delivered at the lowest price, and near a body of either fresh or salt water to supply what is needed for condensing purposes. The centralness of its location is of much less consequence than the other points. We have considered carefully the plan of combining the electric plant with the pumping station, but we find more dis- advantages in such combination than we do advantages. It will require the building of an addition to the present station, and any
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plan of such addition that we have yet considered, that will not seriously deface the building, has an objection in the fact that a very long steam pipe will be needed to convey the steam to the new engine. The present steam boilers are just large enough to allow the running of the pump and dynamo engine at the same time, but there would be no surplus power, and we should not consider it safe to run the two plants in combination without at once putting in a new boiler. This would have to be placed in the present coal shed, as the present boiler room is not large enough to take another boiler. The alterations and additions would cost nearly as much as a separate lighting station, and might seriously interfere with a future increase in the pumping plant.
The chief advantage in the combination plan would be that one engineer could run both plants, but it is doubtful if he could do this without being overworked, and if a second engineer was found necessary in the future it would do away with this advantage and leave all the disadvantages we mention in full operation. On the whole we favor at present the operation of the lighting plant from a separate station, but if the town continue this committee in of- fice we should give the matter further and most careful considera- tion during the next two months, and would be able to report on this point at the next meeting.
Whether a separate station is built or the pumping station en- larged, room enough should be provided to allow for all future extensions of the plant and we have taken such extensions into con- sideration in getting estimates on the building.
We estimate the cost of the complete system in a separate brick station large enough to allow for an increase in the plant to four times the capacity needed for the street lighting to be $25,000.
This includes the building with a brick chimney, dynamos and other electrical apparatus enough to furnish one hundred arc lights, and a complete steam plant including a one hundred horse-power compound engine, boiler. condenser, heater, piping, etc., all set up in running order, and the complete distributing plant, comprising poles, wires, ninety lamps, insulators, etc., put in position ready to operate.
This amount can undoubtedly be reduced by using the boiler at the Great Pond pumping station for the electric plant, and proba-
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bly it will be possible to use all the material in the pumping sta- tion for the electric light building. This is a matter that can be considered and reported on later. We consider our estimate a lib- eral one and not likely to be exceeded even if all the material used is new.
The estimate does not include the cost of land. We have had a suitable lot offered. to us for $750.
The engine and boiler would be large enough to run a house lighting dynamo as well as the street lighting dynamos ; but we have not estimated on any apparatus for house lighting, as we think it is better to get the street plant into operation and then add the house lighting apparatus later, which can be done without disturb- ing the plant already in. 'The proposed plant can easily be arranged to furnish electricity for power purposes, for an electric road, or for factory purposes.
The cost of operating the plant for wages, coal, carbons, oil, etc., depreciation, interest, and repairs and insurance need not exceed $4,500, per annum, making the cost, when ninety lamps are run, $50 each per annum ; lamps to be run till midnight twenty-five nights per month as in adjoining towns. The usual charge for such lights is $75 each per year, making a difference in our favor of $2,250 a year which is enough, with the interest, to pay the entire cost of the plant in less than ten years ; and it must also be remembered that any extension of the plant, whether for street lighting, house light- ing, or power furnishing, will enable the system to make a better showing even than this.
If the two-thirds vote needed to accept the statute be not obtained at this meeting, the duties of this committee of course end here ; but if this vote is obtained it will be necessary for the committee to arrange a great many details before the next meeting, two months hence, in order to be ready to make the proper con- tracts as soon as possible after that meeting, for prompt action will then be needed to get the system into operation before the ground freezes.
These further duties we are ready and willing to perform as heretofore without charge for our services ; and in conclusion we venture to express the hope that the vote of this meeting in favor of
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the adoption of the municipal lighting statute will be so nearly unanimous that we can go on with our work without a doubt of the result of the vote at the second town meeting in October.
THOMAS A. WATSON, RICHARD H. LONG, HENRY A. MONK, AMASA S. THAYER, JNO. V. SCOLLARD, Committee on Electric Lighting.
Voted, To recommit the report and instruct the committee to report at the second meeting the cost of a system in which the arc and incandescent lights are combined, including the expense for manufacturing, domestic, and store purposes.
Article 3 taken up.
Voted, To proceed to ballot on the question of the acceptance of the Act of the Legislature of Massachusetts for the year 1891, Chapter 370, Section 1, by bringing in their ballots, Yes or No, with the use of the check-lists. Chair appointed Ansel O. Clark to check the list, and he was sworn by the Town Clerk.
Chair appointed E. E. Abercrombie, John Kelley, and Samuel A. Bates, Town Clerk, to count the votes, and they were sworn.
The Moderator made public declaration of the vote, namely : That there were 122 ballots cast, of which 119 were Yes, and 3 No, and declared it carried by a two-thirds vote.
Voted, To adjourn.
SAMUEL A. BATES, Town Clerk.
NORFOLK, SS. To either of the Constables of the Town of Braintree, GREETING.
In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you are hereby required to notify and warn the inhabitants of the town of Braintree, qualified to vote in town affairs, to meet at the Town Hall, in said town, on Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of October, 1891, at eight o'clock in the evening, to act on the following Articles, namely : -
ARTICLE 1. To choose a moderator to preside at said meeting.
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ART. 2. To hear the report of the Electric Lighting or any other committee.
ART. 3. To give in their ballots, " Yes" or "No," to the fol- lowing question, namely : " Is it expedient for the town to exercise the authority conferred in Section 1 of Chapter 370 of the Acts of the Legislature of Massachusetts for the year 1891, to construct, establish and maintain within its limits a plant for the manufacture and distribution of electricity for furnishing light for municipal use, and for the use of such of its inhabitants as may require and pay for the same, as provided for in said chapter ?"
ART. 4. To see if the town will vote to proceed and establish an electric lighting plant under the provisions of Chapter 370 of the Acts of the Legislature of the year 1891.
ART. 5. To see if the town will authorize its Treasurer to issue bonds, notes, or scrip for the aggregate principal sum of thirty thousand dollars, to carry into effect the establishment and main- tenance of an electric lighting plant within the town of Braintree, as provided by Section 4, Chapter 370, of the Acts of the Legisla- ture of Massachusetts passed in the year 1891, entitled "An Act to enable Cities and Towns to manufacture and distribute Gas and Electricity.
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