1600s

Innovation of the Era: Peter Stuyvesant

You might think it odd to name a person as an "innovation." But, Peter Stuyvesant was an innovator, as he single-handedly made the Dutch colony of New Netherlands a fire safe colony. Through the use of laws to encourage fire safety, to the appointment of men to check chimneys, to the appointment of men to patrol and look for fire, to making colonists pay a property tax that was used to purchase firefighting equipment, Stuyvesant made sure that the colony of New Netherland was fire safe.
Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant, Director General (Governor) of New Netherland. Due to the forward thinking of Peter Stuyvesant and the continuation of his methods by the English, who later ruled the colony, the colony went for over 80 years without a major fire.