Hook & Ladder Co. No. 1
When the 20th Century rolled around Hook and Ladder was trying to convince the Village Board that it was time to replace its original truck with a new one. The company first approached the board on this subject in 1899, claiming the old truck was inadequate and unsafe. The village turned a deaf ear to the company's plea, but Hook and Ladder would not let the matter drop and its persistence paid off.
On March 7, 1900 the Village Board authorized spending a sum not to exceed $2,000 for the truck. The proposed expenditure subsequently was approved by a vote of the taxpayers. The horse-drawn apparatus arrived in 1901, the year the company voted to become known simply as Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1. The truck carried 50 ladders and its rear end was operated by a tiller.
Ground was broken Oct. 6, 1902 for Hook and Ladder's present firehouse on the east side of Mamaroneck Avenue between the Boston Post Road and Prospect Avenue. It was the first firehouse built in Mamaroneck Village. However it was not financed by the village, but by a land company composed mainly, though not exclusively as time went on, of members of the fire company. Work on the firehouse took about two months to complete.
Alexander Vreeland, A.C. Bostwick, John R. Hegeman Jr., Edward L. Earsley, Sydney B. Griffin and Charles M. Baxter Sr. were the first directors of Mamaroneck Hook and Ladder Land Co. The land company sold stock to raise the money needed to build the fire station.
Originally, the firehouse was a single story building. Thirteen years after Hook and Ladder moved out of the Town Hall and into its new quarters the company made plans to add a second story. While the work on this project was going on meetings were held at the Mamaro firehouse and the ladder truck was housed at the Volunteer firehouse. The second story was paid for by the land company through the sale of additional shares. Work on the firehouse was completed in 1916.
Hook and Ladder needed another story to obtain space to house its first automobile ladder truck and to have a place for company meetings. When the second story was completed meetings were held upstairs and the main floor became the truck floor. The truck floor was made of wood.
First Modernized Truck
A chain drive city service American La France ladder truck, the new apparatus arrived just in time to be displayed in the parade July 4, 1916. It was paid for by the village which authorized $6,000 for it in April 1916. The truck was originally painted white, but later on it was repainted red.
A rifle range was built in the basement of the truck house a year later. Work on the range began April 2, 1917 and it was ready for use on June 4. Members of the company chipped in $142 to pay for it, and it was used as a shooting gallery by members, police and small arms sportsmen until it was taken out more than 20 years later.
Hook and Ladder received another new truck in 1927. It was a Seagrave tractor-drawn 75-foot aerial ladder truck, with tiller, and it cost the village $17,500. Its turntable, manually turned, was five feet in diameter and was located at the front of the rear section behind the tractor. It carried 12 ground ladders, one of them a wall ladder that was 32 feet straight. Additional Equipment on board this apparatus, which had an open cab and was painted red, included a life net, which is still kept on the truck floor for use when needed, and a 40-gallon chemical tank with a reel that was capable of holding 250 feet of hose. The truck's turning radius was 27-and-a-half-feet.
One of the most interesting features of the new truck was its 75-foot aerial ladder. The ladder was raised from bed to perpendicular by the expansion of spiral springs enclosed in steel tubes attached to the turntable. Made mostly of wood, the ladder was extended and retracted by a hand crank.A demonstration of the 75-foot aerial ladder truck's capabilities took place on the evening of May 19, 1931 when nearly 300 firemen from Mamaroneck Village, Larchmont and Mamaroneck Town participated in the first combined drill ever held by the three departments of the three municipalities. The drill was called by Chief Don C. Howe of the TMFD and it was held at the Chatsworth Gardens Apartment. Manned by a crew of eight men, the aerial ladder was raised and run up rapidly to the top of the building, and scaled by members of the crew. Chief George Towle headed the LFD and Chief Charles Perschke of Columbia led the MFD volunteers.
The Fire of '33
However, the '75 did not receive its first real workout until the afternoon of June 19, 1933 when the first fire of any consequence in years swept the top floor of a frame apartment building at 184 Mamaroneck Avenue. The aerial ladder was quickly raised and extended, but not before firemen were already inside the smoke-filled building ascending staircases to make sure the building was clear of occupants and that everyone was safe.
Along came 1948 and along came another new truck for Hook and Ladder. It was a city service Seagrave with an all-metal 85-foot aerial ladder that was and lowered by hydraulic power. Its ground ladders were made of wood. The truck carried a water tank and pump that fed a booster line in a hose reel at the rear of the apparatus. The truck was purchased by the village for $21,000 to replace the 1916 American La France.
About 34 years ago the village, which paid Mamaroneck Hook and Ladder Land Co. a monthly rental fee for the quarters of its ladder company, offered to purchase the firehouse for $29, 500, and on November 15, 1950 the land company accepted the offer. Each of the stockholders received $25 per share, five times the original investment, and the land company was dissolved.
Further improvements to the truck house were made in 1954 by Charles Valentine, who was the chief out of Hook and Ladder that year. The wooden floor on which the trucks rested was torn up and replaced with concrete, and the shabby place that once was a shooting gallery below the truck floor was transformed into a fine recreation room complete with club and kitchen facilities.
Ten years later additional alterations to the truck house were made to provide more room on the truck floor for the coming of a new truck, and Joseph Corti, who was the chief from Hook and Ladder in 1964, went to work on the preparations. In order to roll the trucks in and out of the firehouse with ease and speed, the entrance was widened by taking out a door that faced the avenue on the right side of the building. A new overhead door was installed. It is powered by an electric motor, but can be operated manually when there is an outage. In addition, the staircase that leads to the meeting room on the second floor, once facing the front of the building, was reversed so that the house could accommodate the two trucks.
Truck Purchase Approved
However, before this work could even begin both the purchase of the new truck and the alterations to the firehouse had to be approved by the Village Board. This took a bit of a battle, but on April 21, 1964 the trustees approved a budget for the 1965-1966 fiscal year that included money for the alterations estimated at $12,600 and $61,200 for the new apparatus.
The 1927 truck made its last run in 1965 when the new tractor-drawn truck arrived. A Seagrave with a 100-foot aerial ladder that is raised and lowered by hydraulic power, the '65 truck has a tiller to steer its rear end, and is still in service at Hook and Ladder. This apparatus was the first to carry ground ladders made entirely of metal and there are 11 of them on the truck. Repainted in 1984, the truck initially had a gasoline engine, but a diesel engine was put in it in the early 1970's. It also carries hose for its ladder pipe, an on-board and a portable generator, and is well equipped with axes, pike poles, saws and other tools a ladder company uses to fight fires.
After the 1927 truck was taken out of service it was sold to Eugene Warrington, a member of Hook and Ladder.
In 1976, a new city service Seagrave truck with 100-foot aerial ladder that rose from the turntable on the back end was purchased by the village for Hook and Ladder at a cost of $107,000. It was the last truck the company received in its first 100 year history, and when it was put in service it marked the first time that Hook and Ladder had two trucks with 100-foot aerial ladders.
Prior to the arrival of this apparatus, which has a diesel engine, a closed cab and carries virtually the same equipment as the 1965 truck, the floor of the firehouse was reinforced with steel beams to make it strong enough and safe enough to hold the weight of the new truck.
Painted red and white, the truck replaced the 1948 model. The old truck was sold to the Scarsdale Fire Department. Most likely the '76 truck will not have to be disposed of until sometime in the next century.
On general or full alarms, when the entire fire department responds, one of Hook and Ladder's trucks rolls to the location while the other stays behind at the truck house in case there is a dual alarm. If the general alarm is at a school or nursing home, then both ladder trucks roll.
Hook and Ladder's volunteer firemen and two ladder trucks are the village's guardians against fire. Their main mission is rescue. They protect the lives and property of people who live in private residences and apartments, children who attend private and public schools in two districts, residents of two nursing homes, and people who work in the central business and industrial areas of this community. They did it yesterday, they are doing it today, and they will do it tomorrow.