History of Rochester and Monroe county, New York, from the earliest historic times to the beginning of 1907, Part 19

Author: Peck, William F. (William Farley), 1840-1908
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: New York, Chicago, The Pioneer publishing company
Number of Pages: 648

USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > History of Rochester and Monroe county, New York, from the earliest historic times to the beginning of 1907 > Part 19

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"The names of all the subsequent chief engineers will be found in the civil list.

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CATARACT, FIRE ENGINE, No. 4. ROCHESTER, AS IT AP- PEARED ON THE DAY OF GENERAL REVIEW OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. OCTOBER 11, 1839.

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it was again disbanded in 1858 and again reor- ance, sometimes the most brilliant heroism and ganized on the same day ; when the Civil war broke self-sacrifice. They have had their day, and they made the most of it. out and President Lincoln called for volunteeers an entire company was raised out of its members for the "Old Thirteenth," and the residents of the third ward saw them march away with min- gled pride and satisfaction; in the army the com- pany lived up to its reputation, for it was con- tinually in trouble of its own making and at last several of its officers and members, being tried by court-martial, were sent to the Dry Tortugas with ball and chain. In 1838, also, "Osceola 8' was chartered, being known after successive dis- bandments as "Columbia 8" and "Live Oak 8," the machine being stationed on Alexander street, near Mt. Hope avenue; the group of engine com panies under the volunteer departinent was com- pleted by the organization of "Champion 9,' formed in 1848, broken up in 1853, located on Main streeet between Clinton and Cortland.

Forty-five years ago the paid fire departinent superseded the old volunteer system, to the better- ment of the city's interests in every way. Tho# who worked under the old plan constituted a class by themselves, the like of which is unknown te the present generation. Peaceable, orderly citi- zens, most of them, in their ordinary vocations. when the fire-bell rang they became in their own estimation outside the law and above it, amenable only to the orders of their respective foremen and regardless of the rights of other people. While a conflagration was raging they convceived that their duty lay not alone in the extinguishment of the flames but also in preventing rival companies from accomplishing that result. The consequence was that on those occasions fights were engaged in and carried on with great ferocity, the police being powerless to intervene, and the conflict would cease only when both sides were too ex- hausted to continue it further. At the very time when sobriety was most needed they were too apt to stimulate themselves with liquor, particularly if the day were a very cold one. Sometimes a fire would be started by the very hands that would afterward try to suppress it, and one fire- man served a long term in state prison as a punish- ment for that pernicious activity. At the same time they had their virtues; hand in hand with their turbulence, their insubordination, went the highest courage, the most uncomplaining endur-

There were three connecting links between the old department and the new, overlapping both of them. After the destructive fire in August, 1858, when the system had shown itself to be quite in- adequate, calls were issued in the daily papers for a mass meeting of citizens to take the subject into consideration. At this was formed what was always known as the Protectives, its official title being Protective sack and bucket company, number 1, which had for its object, according to the first article of its constitution, "the removal of prop- erty from burning buildings or buildings in dan- gerous proximity to fire and the protection there- of by an efficient and responsible guard during the confusion incident to such occasions; also, the extinguishing of fires when practicable." Forty members joined this organization at once, the officers elected being George W. Parsons, foreman; William A. Hubbard and James Terry, assistants; Roswell Hart, president; A. M. Hastings, vice- president ; George H. Humphrey, secretary; Wil- liam H. Ward, treasurer. The apparatus consist- ed at first of a four-wheeled vehicle, containing pieces of canvas, several sacks and a number of leather buckets, which a few years later were superseded by chemical extinguishers; two mod- ern carriages also took the place of the original concern, but they were both drawn by hand and it was not till 1882 that the executive board fur- nished & patrol wagon with horses and two drivers. The company was at first housed on the ground floor of Corinthian hall on Mill street, but in 1866 the members purchased a lot on the northeast cor- ner of Market and Mill streets and erected a three- story building with bunk-rooms and other con- veniences. In time, however, the company out- grew those quarters and in 1881 a house was built for it on North Fitzhugh street near West Main the city appropriating about fifteen thousand dol- lars, the insurance companies and the business men giving nearly four thousand more for its equipment ; there the Protectives remained till their disbandment a few years ago. They did most admirable service during the life of the as- sociation, preserving an enormous amount of prop- erty that would otherwise have been lost to the owners, and the policy of letting them go was of

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doubtful expediency. The department of public safety took their house and the houses of the two other private companies for the occupancy of paid engine companies.

At the same time with the Protective, City hose, number 1, was organized, its name being soon changed to that of the Alert hose, by which it was always known. Its original members, who were not numerous, chose the following officers: E. W. Far- rington, foreman (who also acted as president dur- ing the meetings of the company) ; Herbert Churchill, assistant foreman ; John P. Humphrey, secretary; Abram Karnes, treasurer. Like the other company, the Alerts were at first quartered under Corinthian hall, where they remained till they were forced to vacate in 1866, when they lay idle for a few months, but getting weary of that they obtained a new room the next year on the east side of Front street, staying there till 1874, when the city erected for them on North Fitz- hugh street on the site formerly occupied by old "Protection 6," a fire house with carriage room and reading room on the ground floor, on the next a bunk-room with six double beds, bath-room and toilet, on the upper floor a commodious session room. Here the numbers increased rapidly, so that at the grand parade on August 18th, 1882, the last day of the New York state firemen's association meeting. the Alerts had ninety-one men on the rope, besides three officers, one steward, three on the central committee and three marshals of divi- sion, in all just a hundred members. There was al- ways a rivalry between this company and the Protectives, but it was carried on in a friendly spirit and consisted mainly in trials of speed, un- til the latter were furnished with horses, to see which should first reach the scene of the fire; once there the affiliation was complete.

As this gave two of these intermediate organiza- tions to the west side, without any on the east, another came into existence on the 9th of June, 1868. when the Active hose company was formed. with Arthur D. Walbridge as president, Cornelins R. Parsons as vice president. J. Matthew Angle as secretary, P. Frank Quin as treasurer, James Cochrane as foreman and S. W. Updike, jr., as assistant foreman. They did not receive their carriage till the beginning of November, so that their first turnout in response to an alarm was on the 4th of that month. From the time of their

organization till November 5th, 1873, they were quartered on North Water street, next door to steamer number 1, but on the latter date they moved into their new house, which had been built for thein mainly by popular subscription on North St. Paul street, near East Main, and there they remained till, like the other associations, they were dissolved in 1898. All three were most effi- cient adjunets of the department. The services of the members were entirely gratuitous, but they cheerfully responded to every call, no matter how onerous the work might be, and. although they were not legally under the direction of anyone but themselves, they obeyed the orders of the chief with as much alacrity as though they had been his paid subordinates.

In the carly history of the village there was a firemen's benevolent fund, to provide relief rather than maintenance in case of illness and a partial support for the families of those who might be taken away in the line of their duty. But this was not permanent in its nature, the principal, which was raised as occasion required it, was small at the best and the interest was often insignificant. At last a real foundation for it was laid in a queer way. In the year after the city was incorporated Colonel Thomas S. Meacham, of Pulaski, Oswego county, offered to give for the purpose a mammoth cheese weighing several hundred pounds, which had been made in his dairy, the only conditions which he named being that it should be sold at auction and the proceeds "set apart as a fund for the relief of the widows and orphans of firemen and for disabled firemen." The gift being ac- cepted on those conditions the colonel presented the cheese at a special meeting of the common council held October 13th, 1835. It was afterward cut into small pieces, which were sold to spirited bidders, the sum realized being $958.27, which became the nucleus of a permanent fund. To take care of this fund the Firemen's Benevolent asso- ciation was organized and was incorporated in 1837 : its first officers being Erastus Cook, presi- dent; Peter W. Jennings and William Blossom, vice-presidents; John Williams, treasurer; William R. Montgomery, secretary ; A. J. Langworthy, col- lector; William S. Whittlesey, Edward Roggen, Isaac Hellems, John T. Talman, E. B. Wheeler, William Alling, William Brewster, James Brad- shaw, Hemau Loomis, directors, one for eneh fire

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company. Since then the successive presidents have been William Brewster, Martin Briggs, George Arnold, George W. Parsons, William E. Lathrop, John Craigie, George B. Harris, A. S. Lane, Joseph B. Ward, John Cowles, S. M. Stew- art, Law S. Gibson, L. W. Clarke, Thomas H. Husband, Henry W. Mathews, Theron E. Parsons, A. II. Otto, S. V. McDowell, John A. Davis, Har- vey W. Brown, 1 .. H. Van Zandt, Simon Stern Samuel Bemish, A. M. Bristol, John E. Morey, Herbert L. Ward, S. M. Stewart, T. H. Husband, C. E. Sunderlin. Henry W. Mathews has been the secretary and S. B. Williams the treasurer fo: more than twenty years.

Instead of the fund being depleted, az had gen- erally been the case in previous years, it showed a pretty steady increase, averaging more than ten per cent. annually, so that now it is $87,494.59. Only three years have seen a decrease, one of those being the year in which $8,956.89 was taken from it for the monument ; from it has been disbursed for relief about fifty thousand dollars, and fifteen hundred dollars has been paid for the purchase of a perpetual free bed in the City hospital for sick poor of the department. The association was re-incorporated in 1864 under the title of the "Rochester fire department," in order that it might receive the two per cent. of the premiums paid to foreign insurance companies, which those con- cerns had previously turned in to the city treas- urer; it is, however still commonly known as the Firemen's Benevolent.

There is another association, not wholly dis- similar to this, which was organized in June, 1893, under the name of Exempt Volunteer Firemen. It is composed entirely of those who have carned their exemption by long years of ardnous and faithful service: it has now one hundred and twenty-five members in good standing : the presi- dent is William V. Clark.

The monument alluded to deserves a separate paragraph. For many years the firemen, except as their families desired otherwise, had been buried in the old part of Mt. Hope, but the space had become too restricted, there was no room for any more and so a capacious lot was obtained in the new portion of the cemetery, on high ground overlooking the river and giving a fine view of the city stretching out toward the north. The

monument, whch is a beautiful piece of Vermont granite, without a blemish in it and chiseled en- tirely by Rochester workmen, rises from a platform twenty-four feet and three inches square, to the height of fifty fret; on its summit is the figure, eight feet and nine inches high, of a fireman wearing a fire hat, with a coat on the left arm, standing "at rest"; the only lettering on the work consists of the words "Fire department," cut on one of the bases. The dedication took place on the 9th of September, 1880, when all the firemen in the city, exempts as well as those in active service, marched in solemn parade to the end of Grove avenue, together with visiting companies from Brockport, Penn Yan, Auburn, Lockport. Ithaca and Bradford, Penn., most of them with their apparatus and some with their own banda. Andrew M. Semple, the president of the day, a veteran fireman, opened the exercises with a brief speech ; then followed a prayer by Rev. Dr. Riggs, of St. Peter's church; addresses by Mayor Parsons, James HI. Kelly and John W. Stebbins, a poem written for the occasion by Mrs. James G. Maurer and the benediction by Rev. Byron Holley, of St. Luke's.

Although the paid fire department was not ac- tually organized till 1862, the beginning of the end of the old volunteer system was in February, 1861, when two steam fire engines were brought into the city. Their advent caused some hostile criticism and some incredulity as to their effective- ness, but, as this was based largely on their slow- ness of motion, owing to the fact that they were for the first few months drawn by hand, it passed away when horses were introduced. The old hand engines went gradually into disuse and one steam- er after another was procured, until there were four, ready for use at any moment, and most of these turned out for several years at every alarm. When the Holly water works went into successful operation, in 1874, the attendance of steamers was dispensed with on ordinary occasions, it being considered that the .hose carts and the chemical engine would be sufficient, but now only a por- tion of the department turns out at every call of the bell, according to the number of the box, while ten strokes constitute a general alarm, which sum- mons the whole establishment. The Hayes truck with long extension ladders, was obtained in 1883 since which time many additions have been made.

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so that now the apparatus consists of fourteen steamers, with one in reserve; six trucks, two of which are equipped with aerial ladders; three hose carts, one chemical engine and one water tower, besides a number of wagons for various uses. The chief of the department is Charles Little, the assistant chief Frank A. Jaynes; the two battalion chiefs are Charles H. Atkinson and William Creegan. The old company of the Pro- tectivea has been reorganized, with Alfred G Wright as captain, and, though still a volunteer institution, it is considered a regular branch of the service. The total number of men in the de- partment is 258. The fire headquarters are lo- cated in a capacious building recently erected on the corner of Central avenue and Mill street, two hundred and fifty feet front, one hundred ano sixty-six on its longest side. In March, 1869, the fire alarm telegraph came in, its construction costing twelve thousand dollars; it is so useful as to be practically indispensable and box after box has been added since then, so that there are now two hundred and fifty-eight in all; B. F. Black- all was in charge of it from the beginning till 1880, when Charles R. Barnes took control of it until recently ; the preseut ineumbent is Harry G. Kennedy. Although not a fireman the fire mar- shal is a most valuable adjunct to the depart- ment; his most important duties are to order the demolition of buildings that are so far gone in deeny as to render them unsafe, to forbid the com- pletion of those in process of construction that are dangerous to human life and to cause the .e- moval of all causes that seem likely to provoke a conflagration; O. L. Angevine was the first fire marshal, holding the place till 1880, when William Carroll had it for four years, then Arthur McCor- mick for nine; John A. P. Walter has filled the position since then.

NOTABLE FIRES.

It would be not only undesirable but impossible to give an account or even an enumeration of all the fires, or even all the large fires that have oc- curred here. The burning of a well-stocked flour mill would produce the brightest kind of a blaze, and the destruction of a lumber yard would en- tail the most prolonged labor on the part of the

department, but neither might call for mention on account of any serious loss to the community or the removal of any ancient landmark. The fol- lowing account will, it is thought, comprise a de- scription of all that, for different reasons, are worth recording in this volume: The little village lind its first fire on Sunday, December 5th, 1819, when the office of the Gazette, just east of the Arcade, burned down; Edwin Scrantom, then an apprentice on the weekly paper, was sleeping there at the time and would have awakened only to his death had he not been rescued by James Fraser breaking through the flames at the risk of his life. On December 2Ist, 1827, the first fatality occurred, when Thomas M. Rathbun, of book and ladder number 1, was killed by a falling chimney at the burning of Everard Peck's paper-mill on South Water street, where the Post Express in now lo- cated. Only three alarms were given in 1836, but two of those were for large fires, Lewis Selye's engine works and Jonathan Child's "Marble block," on Exchange street, just south of the ca- nal. George B. Benjamin and Jobn Eaton, both firemen, were killed by a falling wall at the burn- ing of the Curtis block, on Main street, on August 26th, 1810. On February 20, 1844, the old Man- sion House, on State street, built in 1821, was dle- stroyed and on May 2d, 1846, the ohl stone block on the corner of Main and State, built by Hervey Ely in 1817; replaced by the Burns block and that by the Elwood building; the Democrat office, which occupied a part of it, was ruined. In July, 1842, Grace church, where St. Paul's, now used as a place of amusement and called Colonial hall, stands, was burned to the ground.

Where the Rochester Savings bank, on the cor- ner of Main aud Fitzhugh, now rears its imposing front there stood until a little over fifty years ago the very lowliest of structures-in fact, they were hardly structures at all, being but a line of sheds in which were a great number of coops, where fowls were kept for sale, the poultry market for the people of the third ward. Universally known as "Chicken row," it stood there year after year, the laughing stock of everyone, occupying that valuable site for some reason never explained. Perhaps there was a cloud on the title; if so, it was finally dissipated and the place was offered for public sale. Edwin Scrantom, the auctioneer of those days, created nich amusement by his

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flaming advertisement of the advantages of the spot, ending with the couplet :

"Chicken row Has got to go."

Sure enough, it went. Fortunately the savings bank directors bid it in, probably on foreclosure, and on the same night, March 31st, 1833, the flames swept away everything but the earth itself; undoubtedly they were kindled by some of the fire- men who thought that their health would be im- proved by a midnight run; the whole affair was insignificant, but it furnished food for general conversation till it was put out of mind, a month later, by a genuine catastrophe, when the Rochester

- House went up in smoke on the night of April 29th. In the early days of the canal this noted hotel was inseparably associated with the glories of the great waterway; it was a large structure, for it extended on Exchange street from the canal to Spring street; at this time it was kept by E W. Bryan as a temperance hotel and on the clos- ing night there were nearly a hundred inmates sleeping there, all of whom escaped except three women and a man, employees of the place, who. being unable to get out, met their death. Nine months later another tavern, the Blossom Hous; (where the Osburn House was afterward and the Granite building now stands) was destroyed, on January 24th, 1854. the fire beginning at three in the morning and lasting all day; soon after day. light the inercury fell to zero, the hose pipes froze stiff faster than they could be thawed out, firemen and machines alike were almost encased in ice; the matter was made worse by the free use of liquor and one company had to be sent home by Mayor Williams for its mutinous conduct. The Eagle bank block, a fine six-story structure, on the present site of the Wilder building, was burned to the ground November 21st, 1852, two members of engine company number 2 being killed by # falling chimney ; the Democrat establishment, ou the fourth and fifth floors, was again completely. destroyed and the small stone edifice of the Com- mercial bank, next east, was crushed by a descend- ing wall.

For many years 1858 stood out as the great fire year in Rochester history until that lurid pre- eminence was taken away from it as we shall see later. August 13th was the day of the celebration

of the laying of the Atlantic cable, culminating with a torchlight procession and fireworks in the evening, and it is not improbable that some flying spark from this became hidden from view till it had got in its deadly work; shortly before mid- night flames were seen issuing from the livery stable of Heavey & MeAnally, on Minerva place ; the department responded promptly, but they were somewhat exhausted by the long parade and by a hard-fought fire on Water street the night be- fore, besides which the scarcity of water made the contest still more unequal and the morning dawned on a heap of blackened ruins, every building on the south side of Main street from St. Paul to Stone having gone down, including the Third Presbyterian church and Minerva hall, with five business blocks and twenty stores; the loss was $175,000, with insurance nearly two-thirds of that. The Unitarian church, on the west side of Fitzhugh street, where a German Evangelical church now stands, was burned on the 10th oi November, 1859, and the Second Baptist, on the northeast corner of Clinton and Main, just a month later. On November 24th, 1861, the old Bethel church, on Washington street, on a part of the site now occupied by a railroad administra- tion building, was destroyed ; it had long been va- eant, as the congregation had built the Central church and moved into it; a peculiar and brillian' spectacle was presented as the heated air filled the interior of a large tin dome that rose from the roof, causing it to break away and soar off like a fire balloon for quite a distance. When Wash- ington hall burned, on May 4th, 1867, three fire- men fell at their post of duty. St. Peter's church ( Presbyterian) was destroyed on March 17th, 1868, and on the 19th of December in that year the Democrat office underwent a third combustion, be- ing completely obliterated by a conflagration thal swept away much of the old Eagle Hotel block and extended through from Pindell alley to State street, taking in the Union bank building and ad. jacent property. On the 2d of May, 1869, the First Presbyterian, then unoccupied, where the city hall now stands, was burned down, and on the 6th of November in that year the St. Paul street theater or opera house.

In the destruction of the old Hervey Ely mill, at the east end of the aqueduct, on the morning of August 24th, 1870, the city lost one of its oldest

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memorials; the third week in December gave hard work to the department by three successive all- night fires-those of the Boston mill, the Pool building (in which the Democrat job-room was wiped ont) and the rag warehouse of Mclean & Hastings on Exchange street by the canal. Note- worthy as being the first blaze on which a stream from the water-works hydrants was thrown was that in Stewart's block on North Water street, on January 18th, 1824. One life was lost at the burn- ing of five shops and factories on Warehouse street July 19th, 1876, and another at that of Tower's thermometer works on Exchange street, in con- sequence of the explosion of some materials there used, when one of the workmen, caught fast by the flying timbers, slowly perished in the flames. A fine pyrotechnic display was witnessed at the combustion on the night of April 16th. 1880, of the "Beehive," an old building erected in 1827 by E. S. Beach, Thomas Kempshall and E. R. Ken- nedy and used as a flour mill by the first two named, one after the other, until the death of Mr. Kempshall in 1864, when it was remodeled inside and used thereafter for a great number of small manufacturing industries. Much excitement was caused on the evening of December 21st. 1887, by a number of detonations distinctly heard all over the west side of the city; they were caused by a series of explosions for more than a mile along the line of the Platt street sewer of more than fifteen thousand gallons of naphtha that had ea- caped from a broken pipe of the Vacuum oil works into that emissary, and the volatile gas of which became ignited in some way before the liquid could flow into the river; the fiery stream gave "notice of its progress by sending jets of flame high into the air from manholes and other openings : when it reached Brown's race the fef- ferson mill was blown down, the Clinton and the Washington were burned, three men were killed and many others badly hurt, two of them fatally.

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History of Rochester and Monroe county, New York, from the earliest historic times to the beginning of 1907, Part 19

Author: Peck, William F. (William Farley), 1840-1908 Publication date: 1908 Publisher: New York, Chicago, The Pioneer publishing company Number of Pages: 648

Author: Peck, William F. (William Farley), 1840-1908
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: New York, Chicago, The Pioneer publishing company
Number of Pages: 648