The
old stager who lives in his youth again is sometimes awakened with a rude shock
when he compares the present with the past, and as he stands on the street
corner and hears the clanging of the gangs of the fire apparatus and sees the
horses almost flying in response to the strokes of the fire alarm, not needing
the crack of the driver’s whip to quicken their speed, he is willing to confess
that, at least in the methods of putting out fires, the old way was not in it
with the new. Memory takes him back to the days between 1854 and 1860, when the
volunteer system of fire fighting was in its prime in Hamilton. They were a
gallant and self-sacrificing lot of young fellows, who “run wid de musheen,”
for they gave time and endangered their lives without fee or reward; and if
injured while at a fire, they had to stand the loss of time as well as of pay
the doctor’s bill. Where is now the central station of the fire department was
the police station, and in the rear lived Chief McCracken. On this building was
the city bell that rang out the fire alarm as well as to tell the people when
it was time to begin and quit work at morning, noon and night, and also at nine
o’clock in the evening to tell all the good people that it was time for them to
be turning the toes of their shoes homeward. The fire stations were distributed
about the city, and in some of them the boys had bunks, provided by themselves,
where they slept at night in order to be on hand when the alarm came. These
young fellows were not loafers, nor was it necessary for them to bunk in the
engine house, for all of them had good homes, but such rivalry existed as to
which company wouldget first at a fire that the boys would put up with any
hardship rather than miss their place on the drag pole when the engine, or hook
and ladder truck rolled out of the house. There were no telephones then to send
in the alarms, but some belated nighthawk or policeman would run to the police
station and waken Bailiff McCracken and the old man would tumble out of bed,
and in his night shirt, make for the bell rope, not wasting time in putting on
clothing. Before the bell sounded half a dozen strokes down the street would
come No. 1 company with Joe Hoodless at the head of the drag rope, and yelling
through his trumpet, “This way, men,” and the boys running toward the engine
house, hearing the well-known voice of their captain, the rope would be in full
before the engine was two or three blocks from the house. Down King street came
the clattering No. 2, giving Joe Hoodless a close chase. Mr. Hoodless lived on
King William street, in the stone house now used by the Brennen company as a
lumber office, and it was told of the old fire fighter that he always slept
with his boots partly pulled on his feet and his plug hat hanging on the bed
post, ready to drop on his head as he jumped out when the alarm was given, for
no one even saw the captain on No. 1 at a fire, day or night, without that plug
hat hanging on the back of his head. The old fire boys now living will never
forget the genial old Joe Hoodless.
In 1856, Samuel Sawyer of the firm of
McQuesten and Co., iron founders, machinists and manufacturers of farming
implements, who was captain of No. 2 and elected chief engineer of the department,
lived down by the factory at the foot of Victoria avenue. Talk about an
enthusiastic fireman! Sam was one from the ground up. He kept a horse always
ready to slip the bit in his mouth, and the night watchman was on duty at the
factory was specially hired by Sam to awaken him when there was an alarm of
fire. If the watchman got Sam out before the police station bell rang, he got a
dollar, and if the bell sounded first, he was paid only fifty cents. This made
the watchman keep a sharp lookout for the appearance of a fire, as often the
roof would be ablaze before the bell. Then came Sam flying up town at a pace
that would make Lyddite, the winner of the Queen’s Plate, ashamed of himself,
and Sam was generally at the fire by the time the engines got there. We might
mention a score of names that were prominent as fireman in those days, some of
whom are yet active in the affairs of life.
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Early in the fifties, temperance
sentiment was very strong in Hamilton, and we had the Sons of Temperance, the
Cadets of Temperance, the Daughters of Temperance, and, later, the Good
Templars. Many of the leading businessmen were prominent as temperance workers,
and they carried their principles with them into everyday affairs, and in order
to encourage sentiment a brass band was organized with Bandmaster Kelk, an old
army bandsman, as leader, and No. 2 fire company was originally composed of
members of the Sons of Temperance. Half a century is too far back to remember
all the names of the original company, and it would not be well to pick out a
few; but, getting down to 1855-56, we can recall A. J. Campbell, who made a
brave record during the American civil war as a captain in a Missouri regiment;
Be. Hart, Joseph Kneeshaw, George Larish, W. J. McAllister, Charles Smith, the
veteran city messenger. Those few will suffice for the present. Charley Smith
was the machinist of No. 2 company, and kept the apparatus in repair, and in
that year he was appointed to the same duty for the whole department at a
salary of $400 a year. Charley was a nabob then in the fire department, with a
sure income of $100 a quarter coming in, and another member of No. 2 was
elected secretary and treasurer of the department at the munificent salary of
$100 a year. At the time, the city paid $1,000 a year to be divided among the
several companies, according to numbers, and it was the secretary’s duty once a
quarter to get an order from City Clerk Beasley, draw money from the city
chamberlain and divide it pro rata. This money was used as a company fund to
assist in buying new uniforms, etc., the members generally paying the greater
part for their uniforms.
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So great was the rivalry of the
companies in getting to fires that a few scapegraces that belonged to the
department were accused of setting fire to buildings and having enough of the
boys in the company in the secret so that they could get to the fire before the
alarm bell rang. Between three and four o’clock one morning, the department was
called out to a fire down on Victoria avenue. There were but few houses east of
Wellington street north, and two new frame buildings, not yet finished, had
been fired by the incendiaries. It was a long run, and by the time the
department got there, the houses were beyond salvation, as the floors were
covered with shavings and combustible stuff the carpenters had left the evening
before. While the firemen were at work, another alarm was sounded, and this
time the flames were bursting through the roof of St. Mary’s church, down where
the cathedral now stands. There was some delay in reeling up the hose and
getting the engines in readiness, and it being a long run from Victoria avenue
to Park street, the fire had gained such headway there was no hope of saving
any part of the church. In those days, Hamilton had no waterworks, and the only
supply of water was from public cisterns in back yards. In times of drought, it
did not take long to exhaust all of the available water supply, and the firemen
had to stand idly by and see the buildings burn.
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Where now stands the Hotel Royal was
Fisher and McQuesten’s foundry, machine shop and implement factory. The
combined shops occupied two stone buildings, with an alley dividing them. One
night in 1855 or 1856 – dates are hard things to remember – the corner building
caught fire, and it was not long before the entire department was at work
trying to check the flames. The oil that dripped from the machinery to the
floor and the combustible material in the woodworking department made it
impossible to check the progress of the flames in the interior, and the only
thing for the firemen to do was to prevent other houses from taking fire from
the intense heat and the flying shower of burning cinders. Half a dozen members
of one of the engine companies were in the act of running a line of hose from
their engine, which was stationed on James street at a cistern on one of the
corners close at hand, through the alley to the rear of the foundry, when the
great high wall of stone and brick bulged out and four or five of the young
firemen were buried in the ruins. The shock paralyzed the whole department, but
all the men could do was wait till the fire was exhausted and then go to work
to remove the tons of stone and brick from the bodies of their comrades. All
that day and late in the evening, the firemen worked by relays, and nearly
every man, woman and child in the city remained there during the day, for all business was
substantially suspended. The grief of the mothers and sisters of the entombed
firemen was heart-rending. When the debris had been cleared from the alley, the
men who had gone in with the hose were found in a line with their hands caught
in the strap for handling the hose. It was a sad and sickening sight, such a
one as Hamilton had never before witnessed as the result of a fire. Two days
afterward, the firemen were buried, the entire department turning out at the
funeral. When the funeral procession was marching to the cemetery, nearly all
the bells in the city tolled in requiem.
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The night Browne’s wharf was burned
about 1856, it was a long run for the fire department, and hot work when it got
there. One thing the boys were thankful for, and that was a plentiful supply of
water, for all they had to do was back up their engines to the side of the dock
and take suction from the bay. The large warehouse was filled with goods for in
those days, all ocean freight, through Quebec and Montreal, was shipped to
Hamilton and other lake ports by steamboats. While helping to move the goods
from the warehouse to a place beyond danger, some of the boys handled a large
number of baskets of wine, and this brought on a thirst that water could never
quench. They argued that as insurance companies would have to pay the losses,
and they were working to reduce the loss by saving the goods, there would not
really any great moral wrong in cracking a few bottles of wine and getting acquainted
with a liquid that had never tickled their palates before, and it was not long
till the wine began to get in its work, and not less than a couple of dozen
weak-kneed firemen were wobbling about the wharf, and each one with an armful
of bottles of wine, and to make the matter worse, the winebibbers hid a number
of bottles in the engines, preparing for a good time when they got back to the
engine houses. The officers discovered the hidden wine before leaving the dock,
and the police were notified to watch the goods. It was humiliating to the
large majority, and when the companies held their next regular meetings, the
winebibbers were expelled. No. 3 had a couple of people in the crowd, and as
the company had been organized on temperance principles, the members felt the disgrace
more keenly. Alexander Hamilton, the druggist; T. C. Watkins, and some others
who had joined way back in 1851, when the company was organized by the Sons of
Temperance, thought it was time for them to retire and leave the firefighting
to the younger class.
The old department disbanded in 1858,
when Dodger Gray was appointed chief by the City Council. Prior to that time, the
firemen elected the chiefs and assistants, and the City Council satisfied the
choice of the department. Among the Hamilton Old Boys who will come back next
year to the carnival and reunion, there may be many who belong to the fire
department from 1854 to 1858. Probably there is not more than a dozen living
now in the city. One is a member of the present department.
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