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Philip Spiess
Folks, I am happy to continue to submit more historical essays on Cincinnati history (I've got more in the pipeline), but, as I've gotten no responses or comments on them on this site in some time, I'm wondering if anyone is reading them or is interested in whether I continue them or not. Please let me know one way or the other. In the meantime, here is a tribute to some Cincinnati "first responders":
FIRE-FIGHTING IN CINCINNATI
As befits our current honoring of “first responders,” among whom are fire fighters, we must acknowledge Cincinnati’s major role in the history of American fire-fighting. Although we all likely know that Benjamin Franklin (among his many accomplishments) founded America’s first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia, few of us are probably aware that Cincinnati played a primary role in advancing American fire-fighting. Cincinnati was the first American city to institute a fully-salaried fire department, and it was the first to utilize the steam fire engine in its regular fire service. (It also instituted fire salvage services at an early date.)
Cincinnati was founded in December of 1788; its first structures, needless to say, were of wood from the surrounding forests, the heating of which was open-flame fires (mostly in stone fireplaces). This was an essential combination at the time, but one which easily lent itself to the occasional confla-gration, which could spread quickly throughout the modest town. Thus in 1808 the first volunteer fire company was formed in Cincinnati, and an enormous drum, 5 feet high, with drumheads 5 feet, 4 inches in diameter, with a circumference of 16 feet, 5 inches, was constructed to serve as the first official fire alarm (prior to this, the blowing of fox horns had served as the local alarm). The drum was placed on the roof of a one-story frame carpenter shop in a field near what is now the corner of 5th and Walnut Streets, a ladder at the rear of this building enabling anyone to reach the drum in case of an emergency. Remarkably, this drum still exists: in 1824, when its use was discontinued, the drum was placed in a hay press at the southeast corner of 6th and Walnut Streets, where it was found years later by Oliver Lowell, a painter, who took it home and used it as an oat bin. It was later discovered in his stable and retrieved for the old Relic Room [see below] at Gift’s Fire Engine House on 6th Street near Vine Street, at that time the central fire station. It can still be seen in the Cincinnati Fire Fighting Museum [see below], in the basement of the District No. 1 Fire Station (329 East 9th Street at Broadway).
After the retirement of the Old Fire Drum, Cincinnati’s fire alarm systems fluctuated between the sublime and the ridiculous. In 1824, the fire alarm became the bell of the First Presbyterian Church on 4th Street near Main Street; it could be heard distinctly for miles, and all the other bells in the city would repeat the signal. It served in this capacity until about 1845.
Circa 1849, the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute building (later known as Greenwood Hall, after Miles Greenwood, a founder of the Institute) was built on the southwest corner of 6th and Vine Streets, next to the Fourth District Engine House (rebuilt in 1869 as Gift’s Engine House, the central station of the fire department). At this time Cincinnati was divided into four fire districts, forming four squares; the Mechanics’ Institute stood at the central corner of one of these squares. In 1853, therefore, the citizens of Cincinnati erected at their own expense the city’s first fire tower, a crenellated affair on the roof of the Mechanics’ Institute. Its eight sides contained glass windows commanding a clear view of every part of the city, and the tower was occupied by two watchmen who remained on duty day and night, relieving each other every six hours. In the center of this tower was a large wooden cylinder containing the machinery of the signal apparatus, which consisted of four glass globes covered with red flannel and fastened upon a shaft. From a distance during the day, they appeared to be solid balls, but at night they were illuminated from within and appeared a brilliant red. When a fire was spotted, the watchman hoisted the balls by means of a crank above the top of the tower, one or more balls depending on the number of the district in which the fire was located; at the same time, he struck the alarm by means of a lever upon a huge bell, weighing 6,549 pounds, which was placed at the opposite end of the Mechanics’ Institute roof. The tower was also furnished with a speaking tube to the fire house next door, so that the watchman could communicate the alarm to the firemen and give them the location of the fire.
This Rube Goldberg-type of arrangement was used until about 1866, at which time the Ohio State Legislature directed the city to install a fire alarm telegraph system. This was erected by J. F. Kennedy & Co., and its central station (naturally) was at Gift’s Fire House. By 1870 there were 242 signal alarm boxes in the city.
In 1853 Cincinnati became the first city to employ full-salaried firemen (as opposed to volunteers). This was the result of the decline of the rival volunteer fire companies (of which there were several in the city) into brawling, drunk and disorderly, lawless, politically-oriented clubs, which used their collective force to influence elections, and therefore could not be controlled by the law. A disgrace to the city, they did little to put out fires, and disrupted any reform-seeking meetings of the City Council. The catalyst which brought an end to this corrupt system was the introduction of the steam fire engine. Although not the first steam fire engine in America [see my Cincinnati and Smithsonian Institution colleague John H. White, Jr.’s article on this subject in The Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin, vol. 28, no. 4 (Winter, 1970)], Abel Shawk and Alexander B. Latta’s engine of 1853, the “Uncle Joe Ross” (named after the city councilman who helped push through appropriations for the engine), was the first steam engine to be put into regular service by a municipality. Further, Cincinnati was the first major city to adopt steam pumpers entirely over hand pumpers; this was by 1863.
To give some details: the “Buchanan coil” was the form of steam generator employed in making these early steam fire engines practical; it was first used in Abel Shawk’s experimental engine of 1852. The “Uncle Joe Ross” engine was built at a cost of $10,000 (think of it: this was in 1853 dollars!) and weighed five tons (how did they get it out of its storage shed?); originally designed to propel itself, this feature was later dropped, and it was pulled by four horses. It could throw one to six streams of water and had a total capacity of 2,000 barrels of water per hour.
As a result of the success of this engine, the Cincinnati City Council passed an ordinance in 1853 creating the first paid fire department in America. Six months later the city bought all the property and apparatus belonging to the various independent volunteer fire companies, thus abolishing them; at this time the city still had twenty-eight hand pumpers in use – but it also had a second Latta-built steam fire engine, paid for by the satisfied citizenry and the insurance companies, and dubbed “Citizens’ Gift.”
Miles Greenwood, prominent Cincinnati iron manufacturer, for many years head of the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute and a leader in the effort to obtain a new fire department, became the first head of the new fire department under the title “Chief Engineer.” When asked by a deputation from Baltimore about the benefits of a steam-pumped fire engine over the old volunteer-pumped ones, he replied, “It never gets drunk; it never throws brickbats; and the only drawback connected with it is that it can’t vote!”
The Cincinnati Fire Fighting Museum, founded 1961, was opened to commemorate Cincinnati’s role in the history of fire-fighting. The collections of the museum, located at 329 East 9th Street at Broadway, in the basement of the District No. 1 Fire Station, grew out of the old Relic Room (formerly located at Gift’s Fire Engine House [see above]), put together in the early 1890s by the Old Volunteer Firemen’s Life Association. Fire marshal Milton L. Campbell can be credited for having collected much of the archival and museum material for the Relic Room, as well as the subscriptions for its remodeling and furnishing.
In due course the collections came under the guardianship of the Underwriters Salvage Corps (1886; reorganized 1902), which had grown out of the earlier Protection Company No. 1 (1820) and the Cincinnati Fire Guards Company (1832-1854). The purpose of the Fire Guards had been to preserve lives, remove property, prevent thefts, keep vehicles from driving over fire hoses, compel bystanders to assist in fighting the fires, form blockades, and in general to keep order at fires. The purpose of the Salvage Corps was to respond to fire calls and salvage as much property as it could, including protecting the property and the premises from smoke and water damage; for this work the Corps was paid by the Underwriters’ Association of the Cincinnati fire insurance companies. When the Underwriters Salvage Corps went out of business in 1959, it donated all of its property to the Cincinnati Fire Department.
The present museum is under the directorship of the Chief of the Cincinnati Fire Department, and the museum is maintained by the firemen themselves. Hand pumps, steam pumps, leather fire buckets and helmets, speaking horns, banners and certificates, photographs and so on – as well as the Old Fire Drum [see above] – are all on exhibit in the Cincinnati Fire Fighting Museum.
The Firefighters Monument of Cincinnati is located near the present central fire station at 5th Street and Central Avenue. Many of the city’s older fire stations (such as the Clifton one on the southwest corner of Clifton and Ludlow Avenues) are of interest; the one at 311 West Court Street was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and the former one on Vine Street in Corryville was adapted for use as a pizza parlor (this is 1978 information; it may no longer be in business).
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