Tag Archives: waterbury

Wire Drawer: My first trip to an FHC

Having requested a microfilm some weeks ago, I headed off to the LDS Family History Center (FHC) in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, to review the vital records of Waterbury, Connecticut. The initial goal was to confirm the name and origins of Ellen Holland (3rd GGM), husband of John Wallace Stickney and mother to Ellen Augusta Stickney (my 2nd GGM), and to get the birth information for Ellen. Continue reading Wire Drawer: My first trip to an FHC

J. W. Stickney, Mutual Waterbury Hook and Ladder company

Found this little nugget in “The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five

A meeting was called, September 28, 1872, in the rooms of “Phoenix, No. i,” for the purpose of forming a Hook and Ladder company, the city having before this date purchased a Leaverich truck. The company was organized with the following members:

E. L. Cook, C. L. Tinker, Charles Lawton,
I. A. Spencer, Robert Philip, E. E. Cargill,
T. D. Bassett, William Cowel, Charles Olmstead,
B. F. Merrill, Theodore Rogers, J. W. Stickney,
J. W. Gaffney, R. P. Smith, Frank White,
F. A. Hoyt, Alexander Connison, Stephen Hosier,
C. L. White, Edward Barritt, Daniel Nehemiah.
F. L. Wallace, G. W. Roberts,

The officers elected were as follows :

Foreman, Theodore D. Bassett.
First assistant. E. S. Cooke.
Second assistant, G. W. Roberts.
Secretary, R. P. Smith.
Treasurer, Imri A. Spencer.

At a meeting September 28, 1872, in the rooms of “Phoenix No. 1”, a Hook and Ladder Company was formed, the city having before this date purchased a Leaverich truck. The company took possession of its first house, on the corner of Scovill and South Main Streets in August, 1873.

For twelve years the truck was hauled to fires by the men themselves, but in 1884 an arrangement was made, by which hack horses could be used for fires occurring at a distance from the centre. In 1887 two horses were purchased for the use of the truck, and William Goucher was installed as driver. In the same year the company removed to the present house on Scovill Street under the same roof with Engine No. 2. In May, 1889, the city purchased a Preston aerial truck, sixty-five feet long, and was drawn for a time by two horses, but later it was arranged for a “three horse hitch”.

Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, was the first to adopt the regulation uniforms, it also possesses portraits in oil of all the foremen of the company up to the present time, and a large picture of the company taken in 1881.