May 1, 1897: SWAMPSCOTT, MA The 25 members of the Swampscott Fire Department went "on strike" over the removal of their fire chief and the appointment of another. The members removed nearly all the furniture in the engine house, including billiard and pool tables, chairs, even the clock. As the firemen emptied the building of their property, the town Selectmen were meeting and attempting to muster new men. An arrangement was made whereby Lynn would cover in the event of a fire.
May 1, 1897: BREWER, ME Spontaneous combustion was blamed for a fire that destroyed the Carey Tannery. The blaze leveled the building, putting 30 men out of work.
May 2, 1897: PITTSBURGH Shortly after midnight, a blaze broke out in the T.C. Jenkins & Co. wholesale warehouse and quickly spread. The mammoth retail store of Joseph Horne & Co. was soon engulfed and the flames began to leap from building to building. During the height of the blaze, walls began to fall and firemen, stubbornly battling the fire front, were caught in a shower of bricks and building debris. One fireman was killed and four others were injured. Nineteen buildings were damaged or destroyed as were seven freight cars loaded with meat.
May 4, 1897: PARIS Fifteen hundred people were pressed into a charitable bazaar in the Rue Jean-Goujon when a fire broke out. The flames caused a wild panic and many people were crushed by the stampede. The entire wooden structure was burning when the firemen arrived and despite their heroic efforts a collapse soon followed. Women and children raced into the streets, their hats and dresses ablaze. Reports stated that firemen were operating with their coats on fire and their horses getting burned nearby. More than 200 people were killed with as many as 300 injured or missing.
May 6, 1897: NEW YORK CITY A policeman noticed smoke seeping through sidewalk "dead lights" (glass blocks that allow light into cellars) and notified firemen at their quarters across the street. Within a few minutes, three alarms were struck for an extremely smoky fire in the cellar of 161 Chambers St. The cellar was filled with cardboard, paper and twine and the smoke chugging from below was as thick as firemen could remember seeing. Chief Bonner sent companies to several locations in an attempt to get water on the fire. Engine 7 moved a hose into the cellar during what appeared to be a lull in the belching smoke. The men were enveloped in a wall of noxious smoke and stumbled blindly for the exits. They tried dragging one of their comrades back but nearing unconsciousness themselves were unable to pull him clear. For more than half an hour, firemen volunteered to enter the cellar (there was no mask protection) in an attempt to find the missing man. One by one they were lowered by rope into the smoke-filled cellar. When the man was finally removed, more than 20 firemen were hospitalized with smoke inhalation. The missing man was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour later. Thirteen engines, four ladders and the crew of a fireboat were needed to extinguish the fire.
May 6, 1897: NEW ROCHELLE, NY One of the area's best-known landmarks, the old Col. Lathers Mansion in Winyah Park, was destroyed by an early-morning fire. A maid woke to the smell of smoke and roused all those asleep in the mansion. The new owner, Col. Green, re-entered the burning mansion in an attempt to save some valuables. He had to be rescued by his coachman, who then ran a mile and a half to call the fire department. Green offered a reward to arriving firemen if they could rescue some paintings still inside the burning building. Chief Ross and two firemen entered the building but were soon driven back by the flames. The 35-room structure was a total loss.
May 6, 1897: Major forest fires burned near ASHLAND and GREEN BAY, WI. Major fires also burned in the mountains of EASTERN KENTUCKY and WEST VIRGINIA.
May 21, 1897: HOBOKEN, NJ A fire believed to have started in a factory on Thirteen Street soon spread to nearby tenements. Jersey City fire companies were called in on mutual aid and one company not assigned to respond went anyway and the captain was reportedly facing charges from the chief.
TIME CAPSULE
May 1821: Firehose Improvements
In May 1821, Mr. J. Boyd of Boston applied for a United States patent to protect his improved method of manufacturing firehose. Boyd's hose was rubber lined with a cotton web exterior.
Firehose was first made of leather and had its origins in Amsterdam, Holland, as early as 1672. There, Superintendent of the Fire Brigade Van der Heiden began stitching leather together to fashion lengths of firefighting hose. This method stayed in use until two Americans, James Sellers and Abraham Pennock, volunteer firemen in Philadelphia's Hose 1, used brass rivets to bind the seams. This greatly reduced the leaking problem inherent in the stitched hose seams.
Fire apparatus builder Patrick Lyon then built a special carriage to carry the new hose. It was a wooden box measuring six feet nine inches by two feet six inches and could accommodate 600 feet of hose. When all the hose was deployed, the box doubled as a water reservoir. The "jumper" style of hose carriage (a cylinder on two wheels) soon followed and was an immediate hit. This new, sturdier hose led to a change in firefighting tactics as it allowed the development of suction rather than hand feeding water into the hand pumpers. Sellers and Pennock went on to manufacture the first fire apparatus with suction hose and fittings in 1822.
The new hose made distant water relay more practical. Water could be suctioned by one pumper, then pumped to another closer to the fire. In 1825, the mayor of Boston noted that 100 feet of hose did the work of 60 men with buckets. In New York City, Chief Harry Howard used a relay of 30 engines to pump water a mile and a half to a fireground.
Rubber for firehose was finally perfected by Charles Goodyear. In 1844, he patented his vulcanization process, which was immediately infringed on by many competitors.
Paul Hashagen
Compiled by Paul Hashagen
