100 Years old
One hundred years ago the 7th of June,
1930, the fire department of the city of Derby had its birth. Many prominent men,
citizens, pioneers of industry, founders of cities, financiers, and officials of town and
state have been identified with our fire department since its origin. It’s history is
one of great achievement, filled with deeds of daring, with incidents of bravery, of
hardships and of trials with rather unsympathetic city fathers. Yet through struggling
years, during which it has served as ready and efficient protection against many
disastrous conflagrations, it grew and flourished and is today among the finest of
volunteer fire departments in New England. All of which proves the theory that the
"first hundred years are the hardest".
In 1834, Sheldon Smith and Anson G. Phelps
commenced things progressing in the village across the river from Derby Narrows and so
rapidly did matters progress, that in 1836 the village of Smithville, later called
Birmingham, had grown to about twenty dwelling houses, three mercantile stores and a
number of small manufactories. Mr. Smith took delight in laying out and naming its streets
and did much for the flourishing new village. Mr. Phelps promoted the manufacturing and
urged people to come to Birmingham to live. One after another former Derby family moved
across the river and came to make new homes in the new village and the manufacturing
plants brought in many new families to Birmingham to set up homes here. As the new village
grew, the industrial and residential progress brought forth the necessity for a protection
from fire. Edward N. Shelton, who maintained the Shelton company, tack manufacturing plant
on Main Street, was alert to the condition and it was through his effort largely that a
petition signed by one hundred and two inhabitants of Birmingham and Derby was submitted
to the state legislature which read as follows:
"To the honorable the legislature of
the state of Connecticut at it’s May session at the city of Hartford in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven.
The petition of Sheldon Smith and Anson G.
Phelps, both of the city, county and state of New York and of Donald Judson, Charles
Edmond, Edward N. Shelton, David W. Plumb, Benjamin B. Beach, Walter Smith and Willis
Hotchkiss, 2nd and we whose names are hereunto annexed of the village of Birmingham (late
Smithville) in the town of Derby, county of New Haven and state of Connecticut,
respectfully represent
"That they are owners of valuable
manufactories, mills, stores and dwellings in the said village of Birmingham,
That from the contiguity to each other of
said manufactories, mills stores and dwellings, they are greatly exposed to fires. That
the inhabitants of said village purpose purchasing a valuable fire engine with hose.
Therefore the above mentioned and undersigned petitioners, on behalf of themselves and
inhabitants prays your honorable body to enquire out the facts above stated and grant them
an act of incorporation for an engine company similar to those granted in like cases and
your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray."
Dated at Birmingham, town of Derby, April
29th, 1837.
Signed: David Bassett, Julius Hotchkiss,
Lucius Hine, John Bassett, Jr., Ephraim Curtiss, Robert Gates, Jr., Theodore Wheeler,
Horatio N. Hawkins, Edward Lewis Edmund Taylor, Frederick Brooks, John L. Murray, George
W. Pratt, Joseph H. Remor, Levi B. Dill, David Jackson, Thos. S. Shelton, William
Nettleton, George T. Bushnell, Lyman Osborne, Lyman Smith, Jr., Rupel Carpender, Major
Powe B. Hotchkiss, Abraham Cole, Henry Whitney, David Thornton, David Nathan, Lewis
Hotchkiss, Sheldon Hotchkiss, Wm. Plumb, John Lindley, Isaac Beach, Alonson Smith, David
Smith, Lewis Downs, Preston B. Weimer, Wm. Canfield, John F. Cotter, Lorenzo C. Kerney,
George Bradley, Merit Sperry, Clark Moultrop, S. N. Summers, Wm. Smith, Wm. Smith 3rd, Wm.
N. Prindle, Wm. Sisson, William Mills, Alvin Bunnell, John Plumb, Levi Hotchkiss, George
B. Hotchkiss, Wm. L. Ward, Wm. H. Canfield, John L. Newcomb, Sheldon C. Gracey, John
Cramer, Henry Scott, Daniel Brooks, Peter Phelps, Isaac Nathan, Evelin F. Carter, Matthew
Kelledy, Wm. Vining, Thos. A. Hart, James Doyle, Richard Evans, John Florence, James
Loomis, Henry B. Lake, Henry Tyrell, W. Humphreys, Jr., Philo Lum, Abram Hawkins, Ambrose
Beardsley, Samuel P. Hubbell, James F. Standish, John O. Hotchkiss, Ebijah F. Smith, David
L. Parmlee, Lyman L. Loomer, David Lake, Gilbert Hine, Levi Blakeman, John A. Bassett, F.
Bunnell, Joseph P. Bellows, Isaac H. Tyrill, Sherman Tuttle, Sheldon Beebe, William
Baldwin, Lorren S. Atwood, Horace Baldwin, Azel Gerard, Nelson M. Beach, Agus Curtiss,
James H. Griffin, Sheldon Canfield, Isaac Hawkins, John E. Brush, Sedusky Munn.
This petition was referred by the state
legislature to the "committee on incorporations other than banks" who
"enquired out the facts, found them to be true, and recommended the prayer of the
petition be granted." And so on June 3rd, 1837 the following resolution, passed at
the May session of the State legislature, was duly approved:
"Resolved by this assembly that
Julius Hotchkiss, Edward N. Shelton, Ephraim Curtiss, Edmund Lewis and others who are or
may be associated with them not exceeding at any one time twenty-five in number be and
hereby are made and constituted a corporation by the name of the Birmingham Fire company
and by that name may sue and be sued, may hold property not exceeding one thousand dollars
in amount and shall have power to fill vacancies to make additions by voluntary enlistment
to appoint such officers as they may deem expedient or necessary to make by-laws not
inconsistent with the laws of this state or of the United States and to enforce the same
by fine not exceeding five dollars for any one offense, to impose taxes on themselves and
to do all other acts and things which of right a corporation may do. And be entitled to
all powers, privileges and immunities of a legally authorized fire company.
Provided, that no member of said company
shall be exempt from his poll tax or military duty until an engine is provided for used of
said company.
This act shall be subject to be altered,
ammended or repealed at the pleasure of the general assembly."
The secretary of state has presented
through the state librarian, a photostat of the above papers taken from the original
documents and these are now framed and hang in the parlors of the Hotchkiss Hose company.
Hotchkiss
Hose Company
Thus in June 1837 was authorized the first
fire company of the village of Birmingham which has survived during these ninety-three
years and still exists in the Hotchkiss Hose Company No. 1 of the Derby fire department.
The early records of this oldest fire company were unfortunately lost with the death of
Stephen G. Scott who for many years and until his demise was secretary of the company and
kept all the old records. However, it is known that their first fire engine was of the
larger hand pump variety which was equipped with long handles on either side and running
length of the machine being manned by about twelve firemen. This engine was called the
"Boston Tub" and was a low-wheeled affair which required a large amount of hard
pulling to get to a fire and a large amount of hard pumping to force a small stream from a
well, cistern or from the river into a burning building. What a contrast to the huge and
powerful pumper the company now operates! Lorenzo Moses, still living in Westfield, Mass.,
a former secretary of the company, still remembers when, in his early membership, he
helped pull this old engine on its last trip to the banks of the Housatonic where it was
scrapped. What an inglorious end after faithful service to a machine which would be quite
a curiosity today. Part of the company equipment in its first days consisted of a number
of leather buckets and when no water was convenient, a line formed to the nearest well and
these buckets put into use. Little is known of the history of the old company which Edward
N. Shelton, Julius Hotchkiss, Ephraim Curtiss and Edmund Lewis started except that it was
early housed in a barn owned by L.L. Loomer at the northwest corner of Third and Minerva
Streets, where the stone building now stands built by Mr. Brush.
About the year 1844, however, Phelps,
Dodge and company erected a hose house of stone for the growing company, close to the
brick residence of Stephen N. Summers still standing on Caroline Street just south of the
present fire house. This location was known in the early days of the village as
"Reservoir Hill" from the round structure which was built there about 1836 and
which served as a reservoir to supply water to the inhabitants of the village. Water was
raised to it fifty feet from a well under the grist mill on the canal below on what is now
Water Street. Springs and cisterns were located in a few other places later and water was
piped by individuals from these. Just a few years ago one of the water "systems"
was unearthed when the cable was laid by the telephone company some twenty-five feet down
under Elizabeth Street. The late G. A. R. Commander Henry Spencer, and old time fireman of
the village, identified the ancient culvert as a part of the early water system of his
boyhood days. These were the agents employed by the old company to which the old pump
engine was applied and from which protection was afforded against fire.
Storms Organized
In 1860 city water was introduced into the
borough and the old engine gave way to the more modern two wheeled hand-propelled hose
jumper. In 1851 a group of young businessmen of the borough (for the village of Birmingham
became in 1846 a borough in the town of Derby), who were interested in a fire company but
not quite in sympathy with the somewhat intemperate habits of certain of the members of
the Birmingham Fire company, and anxious to have a total abstinence fire company in the
borough, organized the Storm Engine company No. 2 and Professor Stevens, principal of the
Birmingham public school became the first foreman of the new company. Members of the most
prominent families of the borough flocked to this company and another pump engine was soon
being pulled around the streets of Birmingham. The Storms company was chartered by the
state September 14, 1853 and for many years they were associated with the
"Latch-String" order which extended throughout the state and many fraternal
visits were exchanged with the New Haven "Latch-Stringers".
Name of Hotchkiss
In 1861, Stephen N. Summers offered to
build a hose house for the Birmingham fire company No. 1 north of the old stone house,
which stood within a few feet of his Caroline Street residence, in exchange for the stone
building. The offer was accepted and a one story wooden structure was duly erected on the
site of the present Hotchkiss Hose headquarters. Here the city’s oldest fire company
worked and such men as the following were on its roll: Lewis Hotchkiss, Fitch Smith,
Edward Lewis, D. W. Plumb (donor of Shelton’s public library), John W. Osborne,
Charles A. Sterling, the founder of the Sterling Piano company, T. G. Birdseye, Thomas
Welch, Isaac Nathan, David Curtiss, Nelson Hinman, L.C. Colburn of Civil War fame, Edward
N. Shelton, Peter Phelps, S. N. Summers, the donor of the property, G. W. Cheeseman,
Sidney A. Downs, Edmund D. Beebe, Barney McDermott, L.C. Lewis, Dr. H.A. Nettleton, Sharon
Bassett owner of the bolt shop, Orrin Lathrop, Oscar W. Cornish and others of the finest
families of the borough. In 1872 through the efforts of Stephen G. Scott the company
changed its name to the L. Hotchkiss Hose company, later dropping the initial and adopting
simply the name Hotchkiss Hose company No. 1 in honor of Lewis Hotchkiss, petitioner,
charter member and one time foreman of the old company.
Lewis Hotchkiss, born in old
Derby in 1805, worked at the lumber and building business with his brother Willis. In 1834
they came to Birmingham and engaged in church, factory and house building, and were the
principal founders of the old Derby Building & Lumber company. About the beginning of
the rebellion, they exchanged their stock in the lumber business for 2,600 acres of timber
land in Bathburn, N.Y. Operating there successfully they bought 800,000 acres nearly all
pine timber in Canada. On this tract, Lewis who was the principal manager, erected two
large saw-mills, one to run by steam and the other by water power. For six years he
conducted a lumber trade with the states, very extensively and profitably. Aside from this
Canada enterprise, Lewis Hotchkiss built and ran on his own responsibility a steamboat on
Lake Georgian bay. In 1871 he sold this adventure to good advantage and also sold the land
to Anson G. Phelps and Dodge and returned to Derby and continued in business under the
name of W. & L. Hotchkiss. He was a practical, sound common sense man and with meagre
opportunities in early life, he worked his way under many disadvantages to an enviable
position in town. The name of Hotchkiss continues to honor the local fire company which
has come up from the old No. 1 company through all these 93 years. When the name
"Hotchkiss" was taken, "uncle" Sharon Bassett, maker of goode bolts,
carriage bolts, and one time warden of the borough, was foreman of the fire company. Those
who served with him include: F. Sanford, Charles H. Nettleton, C. H. Lillingstone,
Clarence Cushman, Will Cushman, Charles Lowrie, Robert May, Henry W. DeForest, J.
Costigan, M. Corcoran, James McCormick, Edward McCabe, James Cranston, Daniel H. Bacon,
Charles Bunnell, George Summers, W. Stratton, A. Wagner, Joseph Taylor, George Arnold,
Stephen G. Scott, Lorenzo Moses, George DeForest, also some of those mentioned earlier in
this story.
The "Hooks"
On November 14th, 1874, the R. M. Bassett
Hook and Ladder company was organized, and a hand-propelled ladder truck of heavy design
was purchased and housed in a firehouse at the foot of Main Street hill near the causeway
to old Derby and about the site of the Connecticut company’s present trolley barns.
John J. Abbott was the first foreman of the Bassetts and the company, which was named for
Royal M. Bassett, pioneer manufacturer, had a long and interesting history before it was
disbanded about 15 years ago. The last used house was in the city hall building where the
present police headquarters are to which the company moved from Main Street in 1890. The
last used piece of apparatus, a horse drawn truck of ladders for which horses were
supplied for many years by J.J. Flynn’s stables, brought across the green on the
gallop when the alarm sounded for fire. Many still recall Foreman Schmidt of the old
"Hooks" with his thunderous voice heard over the din at a fire shouting
"Hooks midt der ladders, hurry oop."
Back in 1857 or about that year, Col.
Elisha Kellogg of Civil War fame, became the first foreman of another fire company
organized as the Pequot Fire company. To this company many of the young lads of the
village rallied and with the death of the late G. A. R. commander, Henry Spencer, from
whom these facts were gleaned, so far as is known, the last of the Pequot Fire company
passed to the great beyond where the recall never sounds. Mr. Spencer could recall the
days when in red and blue uniforms the Pequot fire brigade were envied by all. The
ceremony was short lived, however, for the call to arms in 1861, practically every member
had enlisted in the Union forces to quell the Rebellion in the southland and the company
ceased to exist. After the war the Pequots became reorganized into a social club and were
in existence for many years afterward holding annual hunting expeditions after the manner
of the redskins for whom they were named and feasting in royal style after each kill.
In 1878 the Hotchkiss Hose company No. 1
offered to transfer their house to the borough in consideration that it should be enlarged
and remodeled as the organization had outgrown it quarters. Up to this time the company
had a state charter and operated independently, owning their house and all of their
apparatus excepting a few feet of hose. This offer was accepted by the burgesses, the
building was raised a story and an addition built on the rear, thus allowing the company
for the first time in its history, a place to hold their meetings and socials as well as
storage for their apparatus. In 1881 the company purchased a parade carriage which, with
work afterwards done on it cost the company $1,200.
Companies
Consolidate
In the year 1889, a petition was
circulated by certain prominent business men of the borough and signed by many of its
citizens, the purport of which was to consolidate the fire companies all into one fire
department with one central headquarters and one set of officers thus to eliminate some of
the expense of the department. This move was unfortunate as it nearly spelled the loss of
the borough’s entire fire-fighting forces, for the majority of the firemen threatened
to resign. However, a counter-petition signed by every fireman in the borough was sent to
the legislature and the other petition was consequently defeated. An amusing side of this
controversy was the talk of consolidating the fire and garbage departments, using the
garbage horses to pull the fire truck and paid firemen to gather up the ashes about town.
The head of the proposed new department was alluded to as the "Chief Garbage
Collector" and the companies as the "Fire and Ash Box Combination".
Agitation was started as
early as 1889 for a new fire house for the Hotchkiss Hose company which finally developed
into rebuilding the old house in 1890. This time the house was moved out into Caroline
Street, a new foundation laid, a cellar dug, the hose tower removed to the outside of the
building making more room inside and an arrangement made whereby the hose could then be
run through a hole in the sidewalk directly into the trough built in the cellar and thence
up into the tower to dry. New floors were laid, the parlors were painted, new carpets put
down and the furnishing made over and new furniture installed. This is the house that in
1924 was finally razed to make room for the present modern firehouse on Caroline Street.
In these days there were three reserve hose houses located about town. One stood
underneath the bell tower on Cottage Street, another at the corner of Smith and Ninth
Streets and still another on Bank Street in East Derby.
Fire Alarm History
Prior to 1887, alarms of fire were spread
by cries of "fire" and the ringing of the church bells. A little bell located in
the tower of the Iron and Steel works which stood about opposite the F. Hallock company
store on lower Main Street also rang the call of fire and the firemen had to be guided by
the shouts of the people and quite often the illumination of the flames against the sky,
as they had no other way of knowing the exact location of the conflagration most of the
time. The old Iron and Steel works bell will be remembered by many veteran firemen still
living and it now reposes in the plant of the Peck, Stowe and Wilcox company in
Southington. After much delay and mincing of matters among the borough officials
concerning the installation of an electric fire alarm system, and after several disastrous
fires had gotten off to a raging start through the difficulty of spreading the alarms
sufficiently to get enough help to man the apparatus, and lay in the hose lines, a
decision was finally reached. A special meeting of the warden and the burgesses was held
in 1886 and the late Dr. A. W. Phillips then chairman of the committee on fire department
matters, reported that permission had been obtained to connect the system with the bell in
St James Episcopal church. It was not until 1887, however, that it was voted to install
the Stevens system of electric fire alarm and to purchase a lot and erect a hose house and
bell tower, the total cost not to exceed $3,000. An order was sent to the well known bell
founders, M. McShane and company of Baltimore and Brooklyn, for a 3,000 pound bell. Work
began on the tower and the first test alarm was sounded by the Cottage Street bell in 1887
to the complete satisfaction of Chief J.J. Abbott who was in a large measure responsible
for the new improved system being obtained. This same bell today tolls off the alarm in
connection with the modern Gamewell electric fire alarm system now in use.
There were about four boxes
around the borough at the first installation of the electric system but it proved a great
improvement over the old system of spreading alarms of fire. The Storm Engine
company’s reserve hose cart was placed in the house underneath the bell tower. The
reserve hose house in East Derby was known as the Hotchkiss hose reserve and the jumper it
contained had been won by that company for skill and efficiency in handling that type of
apparatus. The members of the company living in east Derby manned the jumper in case of
fire on that side of the river and when, in 1896 it was presented to the borough by the
company, a large parade was held and with red fire and a band, the apparatus drawn by
these east side Hotchkiss men was placed in the Bank Street reserve hose amid great
ceremony. The Hotchkiss hose were then in 1897 given a new jumper the cost of which was
$125 - quite a contrast to the latest expenditure of $8,800 - by the city for the new
Hotchkiss hose pumper. This new hose jumper was built by the Rumsey company of Senecca
Falls, N.Y., for a juvenile fire brigade organized in connection with the Church of the
Assumption in Ansonia for parade work and obtained from them by the city. On the roll of
the Hotchkiss Hose company at about this time during the years just mention in the
progress of the Derby fire department were E. E. Victory, Samuel Ballantyne, Frank V.
Crofutt, Clark Nichols, Jos. May, J. Frank Terew, Marshal Atwater, Charles Beach, William
Lamoureux, Frank A. Beach, Fred Athington, John Taylor, R. J. Patrick, Thomas W. Thomson,
Edward Young, J. A. Schofield, Frank A. Kabisch, George F. Clark, C. B. Nettleton,
Gustavus Lautz, John Young, R. A. Victory, Nicholas Mechtersheimer, F. T. Judd, C.
Wernsman, W. Larkin, D. H. Hotchkiss, Walter A Stickney, A. S. Hoffman, E. Gould and
Robert Fenn, John Osterhoudt, George E. Everetts and Abner Bunting, the last four named
known as the tallest firemen in the department all appearing like giants. Many other
prominent residents have at some time or other been connected with this old fire company,
the borough’s first fire fighting unit. In 1899 the company was incorporated as the
Hotchkiss Hose company No. 1 at Derby, Conn., recorded by Town Clerk Daniel E. McMahon and
signed by Captain Chas. Beach.
Paugassetts Organized
In old Derby, on the east
side of the Naugatuck river, the only piece of fire apparatus was that of the Hotchkiss
reserves. Finally in 1904, after a lapse of 74 years, another fire company was organized
in old Derby, the Paugassett Hose company. The company took its name from the Indian tribe
that owned all of the land in the old town and from whom the first settlers of Derby
purchased their grants of land. This name was for awhile the name applied to the village
until settlers from Derby in old England made this their home and named it after their
homeland. The Paugassett Hose company began with simply club rooms to meet in and used the
apparatus of the Hotchkiss reserve when called to duty. William Leim was the
Paugassetts’ first foreman and Samuel Sanford the second. A fire house was at length
built for them and a hose jumper placed in it for their use. This they continued to
manipulate efficiently until when about 15 years ago, the R. M. Bassett Hook and Ladder
company disbanded, their old truck was made over into a motor hook and ladder truck and
the company in east Derby became known as the Paugassett Hook and Ladder company, No. 4.
Motor Equipment
The first piece of motor equipment in the
city, however, was obtained through the efforts of the members of the Hotchkiss Hose
company, No. 1. In 1914 a Jeffrey chassis was purchased by the Hotchkiss company by
subscription of funds solicited among its membership and the businessmen of the city. John
J. Booth built on this a body, equipped it with chemical tank and all of the modern fire
extinguishing apparatus of the day and in December, 1914, this motor chemical was put into
service and was the pride of the city. This apparatus is still in active service as a
reserve hose wagon and has rendered valuable aid especially in fighting brush fires where
it is possible because of its light weight to take it over old wood roads and even into
back yards to the scene of the fire.
Not long after this truck was put in
service, a large and modern Seagrave pumper was purchased by the city for use of the Storm
Engine company No. 2 and it still performs very efficiently as the apparatus of that
company today. However this fire truck has served the city for about 14 years and will
eventually have to be replaced by a more modern piece of equipment. The first motorized
hook and ladder truck, the old Republic just described as made up for the Paugassett Hook
and Ladder company, was put in service soon after this and the city was for the first time
in its fire department history, fully modernized in it’s fire apparatus. The next
step in the progress of the department took place but a few years ago when the new big
combination hook and ladder truck and chemical was purchased from the Seagrave company for
the Paugassetts.
In 1924 the old hose house of the
Hotchkiss Hose company which was originally built in 1861, enlarged upon in 1878 and
remodeled in 1890, was torn down and in its place a new modern brick building was erected
for the headquarters of Derby’s oldest Fire company. Chas. Smith & Sons were the
builders and the house, designed to meet all of the requirements of a modern fire house,
was formally opened amid great festivities in March 1925.
The Hotchkiss Hose company
again received recognition, when in 1929, a huge new Seagrave 600 special pumper of latest
design and improvement was purchased by the city for its use. This new pumper was put into
active service February 24th, last and is a welcome asset to the progress of the company.
It answered its first alarm driven by Clarence H. Mallahan on the evening of March 7, when
the old Hart homestead on Hawthorne Avenue was razed by fire.
One Older Company
It is believed that but one company still
in existence in Connecticut holds claim to being older than the Hotchkiss Hose company of
Derby and that is the Wethersfield Fire company of Wethersfield, Conn., which was
organized in 1803 and bids fair to be the oldest fire company still in existence in the
United States according to a survey recently made. On the 100th anniversary of the Derby
fire department the Hotchkiss Hose company celebrate their 93rd year of existence which is
a record to be proud of. Men who have served this ancient company as foreman or as captain
as that office is now called include: Robert W. Gates, Oscar Cornish, Sharon Bassett, John
Aspey, Stephen G. Scott, E. Beardsley, Orrin Lathrop, Lewis Hotchkiss, F. V. Crofutt, E.
E. Victory, Clark Nichols, J. A. Schofield, Charles Beach, Samuel Ballantyne, George F.
Clark, Charles Wernsman, Daniel McLaren, Alfred H. Kelty, W. L. Bradley, E. J. Strang,
Edward M. Curtiss, Frank Stanton, Eugene M. Beach, Russell H. Pollard, Roger A. Bradley,
Frederick C. Wernli and Walter Eugene Beach the present captain.
The older members have been succeeded by a
band of energetic young men in whose hearts is a deep regard for their predecessors and
who have a strong determination to keep the standard of the Derby fire department and the
Hotchkiss Hose company to where it has been raised. The present personnel of the Hotchkiss
Hoe company No. 1 is as follows: Captain, Walter E. Beach; first lieutenant, Walter H.
DeForest; second lieutenant, James K. Martin; secretary, Eugene M. Beach; treasurer,
Russell H. Pollard who is also the first assistant chief of the department; trustees, Fred
C. Wernli, James K. Martin and William T. M. Hogg; steward, Fred Wernli; fire police, John
B. Davidson, LeRoy Werneburgh, William Trischman; historian, Bertrand O. DeForest;
drivers, chief driver and mechanic, Russell H. Pollard, Fred Wernli, LeRoy Werneburgh, E.
M. Beach, Wm. Trischman, Clarence Mallahan, LeRoy Mallahan, Roger A. Bradley, George
Christensen, Wm. T. M. Hogg, Albert McConney and Clarence Atwood; hosemen, Harold Butler,
Fred G. Clark, Albert W. Coan, Wesley B. Coan, Judge Archibald Duffield, August J. Fascar,
Charles A. Glazier, Arthur E. Hall, Chas. L. Johnson, William H. Longfellow, Charles E.
Mallahan, William A. Wheeler and Warren E. Shea.
Thus reads the history to
date of the Derby Fire Engine company, the parent of the Derby fire department, of 100
years' efficient service, and of the origin of the fire fighting forces in Birmingham
which was the commencement of the Hotchkiss Hose company and its 93 years of achievement.
And also the history of the beginning and development of the subsequent companies which
were formed later as a result of this organization. Today the city of Derby looks with
pride upon its volunteer fire department, one of the best in New England. The Hotchkiss
Hose company No. 1, the Storm Engine company No. 2 which has had a long and enviable
record as a fire fighting unit and the Paugassett Hook and Ladder company No. 4 the
youngest company in the city, all are constituted of a group of young men who are loyal
and who are giving freely of their services to the city with no recompense and with an
efficiency that is hard to equal. Long live the old department and may it be wished many
"happy returns of the day".
Months of research have been spent by
the writer in the compilation of this historical sketch and reference to the state and
city records have been frequently made in an effort to make it an authentic history. The
State Librarian Mr. Goddard, the Secretary of State Mr. Higgins, Town Clerk Edw. R.
Bergin, Historian Henry M. Bradley, Jr., Charles Z. Morse, Lorenzo Moses, F. V. (Brad)
Crofutt, Samuel Ballantyne, Frank H. Gates, E. M. Beach, Miss Ada Shelton, Thomas W.
Thomson, Samuel Sanford, George P. Sullivan, F. J. Reilly, Chas. Hart, W. H. DeForest, and
others have been appealed to for aid in getting at the facts and to these the
writer is greatly obligated. as
written - Evening Sentinel - April 1, 1930
