To the Editor:
The “Glimpse of Guilderland history” in its Jan. 27 headline has “Electricity in town meant brighter streetlights, running water, labor-saving appliances, and flush toilets.” One wonders about the last item.

To date, I don’t have an electric toilet; I just let the town water flow to it. Perhaps Ms. Mary Ellen Johnson, the writer of the interesting column, or the headline writer thought electricity might be necessary to power a pump to bring water to the bathroom.

One statement in Ms. Johnson’s story is that in 1916 “folks were...eager to simply flip on a light switch.” I doubt that was the case then. Rather a pull switch, a chain or twine was used. Later push-button, snap switches, were wall-mounted to turn on or off lamps; I still have one in use in my house. Next followed the lever-operated, snap switches, which finally, in the 1950s were replaced by the smooth, mercury-fitted switches now we can “flip on.”

The Enterprise column describes Altamont’s “dimly lit...acetylene gas lamps.” However, dim and acetylene are not necessarily compatible. Acetylene lighting usually denotes a white, bright illumination. For example, before electric headlights were fitted, motor-vehicle lamps used an extremely bright light (although difficult to maintain). Perhaps the streets in Altamont were dimly lit, but it was not because acetylene gas didn’t provide the needed lighting.

Ms. Johnson notes the generating “Delco” electricity systems used before power lines reached a given property. What she did not note were the domestic acetylene generators used in the early 20th Century before electrification. The acetylene generators, using calcium carbide treated with water, produced the gas that could be sent through pipes to lamps where needed in a building.

A few of these machines have been preserved in museum collections. And there might be a few left in cellars where one would wonder the significance of a cylindrical, sheet-metal device sitting there abandoned.

Geoffrey Stein

Clarksville

Editor’s note: The column states, “In Guilderland Center, home and business owners who could afford wiring also immediately began investigating getting electric water pumps installed, allowing them to have running water, indoor plumbing, and flush toilets — no more hand pumping water or trips to the outhouse.”

It also states “Altamont’s village streets had been dimly lit by 35 acetylene gas lamps provided by the Altamont Illuminating Company. Lit at dusk, they were extinguished at 10 p.m. except on moonlit nights when they remained dark” and says further that residents were pleased with the brightness when the 35 acetylene lamps were replaced with 75 electric streetlights.