Firehouse logs and ledgers of reports of the Chief of the First Battalion in lower Manhattan for 1879-1900
Description
The accession consists of two groups of volumes which may or may not be directly connected to each other. Volumes of both series cover consecutive or semi-consecutive chronological periods. See Scope and Content note for internal arrangement. Five volumes are firehouse logs or journals reflecting the intimate working of one or more lover Manhattan firehouses and their occupants during the years 1879, 1880, 1897, and 1899. Each book covers three to five months, but no two are connected sequentially. Some are labelled Engine Company Number 10 (Engine Co. No. 10) which is still located in lower Manhattan and some part of the First Battalion. Others are unlabeled but may be from the same company. Entries include alarms and responses, as well as more routine activities such as when each man went to and returned from lunch, the barbershop, the blacksmith, or some minor assignment. All but one include a roster of men at the front, though the rosters of books four and five appear to be of different companies. Several have housekeeping entries relating to supplies, equipment, and maintenance on the rear pages and inside covers. The bindings are deteriorated and there is some water damage. Though the dried mold has been removed, some pages are partially stuck together. Four volumes comprise reports of the chief of the First Battalion on the alarms answered by his unit during the period September 1893 to November 1897 and from March 28, 1899 to July 18, 1900. The reports are in consecutive chronological order, as they were written, usually within a short time of the alarm/response. Among the questions included in the form report are: dates and time signal received; the time taken to reach the fire (or alarm) site; other units responding; estimated time fire started; extent of damage; how long taken to control; origins and other evaluative remarks. All but one of the volumes has the work record of the chief including his station and whether he was first to arrive or not at each of the fires reported in the later pages. The reports of the chief of the First Battalion are much more substantive than the firehouse logs, though the logs give a short version of each alarm response. Engine Company No. 10 is presently (as of 1985) part of the First Battalion. Both are located in lower Manhattan. Only one of the time periods covered by the two series overlaps from February to May 1897, and these were not compared closely to determine whether the same fires were reported by the two units. Like the firehouse log volumes, the part-leather bindings are deteriorated and there is a small amount of water damage to some of the pages.
Extent
2 cubic feet
Dates
1879-1900
Record Groups
Creator
- New York (N.Y.). Fire Department (Organization)
Source
- Staten Island Historical Society (Organization)
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