Posts Tagged Evanston FD Lieutenant John Watson

Evanston Fire Department history Part 22

May 2

Posted by Admin in Fire Department History | 1 Comment

From Phil Stenholm:

Another installment aboutHistory of Evanston Fire Department

Pensions and White Elephants

52-year old Assistant Chief Fire Marshal J. E. “Jack” Sweeting died of stomach cancer on Christmas Day 1912, after 25 years of service with the Evanston Fire Department. Sweeting had joined the EFD in 1887 back when it was still a part-time paid fire department, and he was one of the three men appointed as full-time paid firemen in 1888. He was also the first fireman promoted to the rank of captain (in 1895), and the first promoted to the rank of assistant chief (in 1905). He spent his entire career at Fire Station # 1, serving as company officer of Motor Engine Co. 1 at the time of his death.

Capt. Thomas Norman — company officer of Engine Co. 3 — was promoted to the rank of Assistant Chief Fire Marshal in 1913 and replaced Sweeting as company officer of Motor Engine Co. 1, and Capt George Hargreaves was transferred from Station # 1 to Station # 3 at that time.

The Evanston Firemen’s Pension Fund was chartered with the State of Illinois in January 1913, and the first pensions were granted in January 1916 after the EFPF became fully funded. Fireman Mathew Maxwell (Engine Co. 3), who retired after 20 years of service, and Engineer William Sampson (Engine Co. 2), who was awarded a disability pension, were the first Evanston firefighters to receive pensions.

Additionally, the widow and minor children of deceased EFD Lt. John Watson (Engine Co. 2), who died of an accidental overdose of aspirin in January 1914 — he had suffered from constant back pain since being injured in a fall at a house fire in 1911 — began to receive a survivor’s pension at that same time. However, the widow and eight surviving children of Jack Sweeting were denied a survivors pension, because the assistant chief made the mistake of dying a week before the pension fund was legally chartered.

In his 1913 report to the city council, EFD Chief Carl Harrison recommended complete motorization of Fire Station # 1, which would allow the seven horses still in service there to be transferred to the street department, retired, or sold. Harrison recommended the city purchase an automobile tractor for the aerial-ladder truck, an automobile double 50-gallon chemical engine to replace the 40 year horse-drawn Babcock chemical engine, and an automobile for the chief.

The city council declined to appropriate the funds needed to purchase a tractor for the aerial ladder truck or an automobile chemical engine, but the aldermen did appropriate $800 for an “auto-buggy” horseless carriage for the chief, and an Overland roadster was placed into service in 1914, replacing the chief’s horse-drawn buggy and Barney the horse.

While Harrison seemed to be 100% on board with motorization of the fire department — or at least replacing Fire Station # 1’s horse-drawn rigs with automobiles, just a week after submitting his annual report to the city council, a bolt broke loose and damaged four of the six cylinders of the Robinson motor-engine, putting the rig into the repair shop for a month. An exasperated Harrison told the city council that fire departments would probably always need to maintain horses, because automobile fire apparatus were just too unreliable.

That said, when its Robinson motor engine was in service, the Evanston Fire Department was a favorite source of assistance to other North Shore towns and villages during the 1910’s. The EFD made several jaunts into Wilmette during this era, most notably to a conflagration involving a bank, a restaurant, and a grocery store on Railroad Avenue on August 3, 1916.

And could there be a more unlucky date than October 31, 1913? It was Halloween in Wilmette, and while the village slept, a fire broke out at 514 Linden Avenue, the residence of prominent civil engineer Grafton Stevens. Mr. Stevens escaped safely, but Mrs. Stevens could not get out. So her husband ran back inside to save her, but he also became trapped by the flames. Despite the heroic rescue efforts of Wilmette and Evanston firemen, the couple perished in the inferno.

The Jumbo’s finest hour would come on the morning of Tuesday, December 30, 1913, as Motor Engine Co. 1 raced up Railroad Avenue to the Village of Winnetka — flying past the Wilmette Fire Department’s horse-drawn combination truck while both were en route to the blaze — in response to a call for assistance received from the Winnetka Volunteer Fire Department. A fire at the Winnetka Merchandising Company had trapped residents in apartments located above the store. On scene just a few minutes after the call for assistance was received, members of EFD Motor Engine Co. 1 deployed the auto engine’s two, 25-foot ground ladders to help rescue five of the residents, before the Jumbo’s powerful 750-GPM pump helped extinguish the flames.

The Jumbo also performed yeoman duty at several of Evanston’s larger fires of the period, including one at the Bogart Building in 1912, another at Rosenberg’s department store in January 1916 (where it pumped through the night into the next day), and another at the Evanston Strand Theatre in December 1917.

The Robinson Fire Apparatus Manufacturing Company had a reputation for building custom fire engines that were fast and powerful, but also somewhat cranky and delicate. The engine delivered to Evanston was mostly the latter. To say that the Jumbo was a “white elephant” would not be an exaggeration. But even though it had more than its share of mechanical problems and spent a lot of time in the repair shop, there is no disputing its speed and power when it was operating on all cylinders.

At the time that the Robinson engine was under consideration by the Evanston City Council in 1911, none of the companies that would later become the leaders in the production of automobile fire engines were manufacturing triple-combination pumpers. However, once Seagrave, American-LaFrance, and Ahrens-Fox began to produce reliable and durable automobile pumpers, the temperamental hot rod manufactured by Robinson could not compete, and the company went out of business. And once the company was out of business, spare parts could only be obtained by salvaging parts from other Robinson rigs. That is, if any could be located…

Tags: Evanston FD Engineer William Sampson, Evanston FD Lieutenant John Watson, Evanston Fire Department Assistant Chief J. E. “Jack” Sweeting, Evanston Fire Department Captain Thomas Norman, Evanston Fire Department Fire Chief Carl Harrison, Evanston Fire Department history, Evanston Fireman Mathew Maxwell, Evanston Firemen’s Pension Fund, Grafton Stevens, history of the Evanston Fire Department, Phil Stenholm, Robinson Fire Apparatus Manufacturing Company

Evanston Fire Department History – Part 20

Apr 19

Posted by Admin in Fire Department History | Comments off

From Phil Stenholm:

Another installment about History of Evanston Fire Department

1912

The arrival of the auto truck fire engine in the fourth quarter of 1911 allowed the City of Evanston to transfer four horses previously used by the fire department to the street department, and place a steam fire engine into service at Fire Station # 3.

Because the Robinson Jumbo was so much faster than horse-drawn apparatus, Truck Co. 1 was combined with Engine Co. 1 as a 15-man company known as Motor Engine Co. 1, and all personnel assigned to Station # 1 — except for a teamster and a tillerman assigned to drive the aerial-ladder truck and another man assigned as the chief’s buggy driver — rode to alarms aboard the auto truck. The auto-truck responded to all still alarms city-wide, and it was so much faster than horse-drawn apparatus that it often would beat Engine Co. 2 or Engine Co. 3 to an alarm in their own still district!

After a minor overhaul and a new paint job, the 1906 American-LaFrance Metropolitan 700-GPM second-size steamer and its engineer and assistant engineer were transferred from Station # 1 to Station # 2, the 1895 Ahrens Metropolitan 600-GPM second-size steamer and its engineer and assistant engineer were transferred from Station # 2 to Station # 3, and a lieutenant and three firefighters were transferred from Station # 1 to Station # 3.

So beginning on January 2, 1912, while the number of firefighters remained 34, the number of companies in service with the EFD was reduced from four to three: the new 15-man Motor Engine Co. 1 at Station # 1 that combined Engine Co. 1 and Truck Co. 1 into one company, the nine-man Engine Co. 2 at Station # 2, and the new nine-man Engine Co. 3 now in service at Station # 3 that replaced the former three-man Truck Co. 3.

Carl Harrison was Chief Fire Marshal, as he had been since December 14, 1905. His office was at Fire Station # 1.

At Station # 1, Assistant Chief Jack Sweeting was company officer of Motor Engine Co. 1 and he was also in charge of the EFD when the chief was absent, Capt. George Hargreaves was 1st assistant company officer, Lt. Al Hofstetter was 2nd assistant company officer, temporary civilian employee Earnest Erickson was motor driver, and Arthur McNeil was assistant motor driver.

At Station # 2, Capt. Carl Harms was company officer of Engine Co. 2, Lt. John Watson was the assistant company officer, William Sampson was the engineer, and Max Kraatz was assistant engineer.

At Station # 3, Capt Thomas Norman was company officer of Engine Co. 3, Lt. Ed Johnson was assistant company officer, J. A. “Dad” Patrick was the engineer, and William Richards was the assistant engineer. Patrick was the first engineer assigned to the Ahrens steamer when it was placed into service in 1895, and he continued to follow the machine as it moved from station to station during the course of his 24-year career with the EFD.

Motor Engine Co. 1 was a two-piece company, operating with the new 1911 Robinson Jumbo 750-GPM triple combination pumper known as Motor Engine No. 1 and the 1907 American-LaFrance 85-foot HDA with a four-horse hitch still known as Truck No. 1. One fireman was assigned as the driver of the chief’s 1906 two-horse buggy, and the formerly horse-drawn 1873 Babcock double 50-gallon chemical engine was now attached as a trailer behind the auto-truck, which together with the 50 gallons of soda acid carried by the auto-truck, provided up to 150 gallons of chemical fire suppression almost immediately upon arrival at a fire.

Engine Co. 2 continued to be a two-piece company, but now operating with the newer 1906 American LaFrance Metropolitan 700-GPM second-size steamer (ex-E1) with a three-horse hitch now known as Engine No. 2 and the 1902 Seagrave combination truck & hose tender with a two-horse hitch that was still known as Truck No. 2,

Engine Co. 3 was also now a two-piece company, operating with the older 1895 Ahrens Metropolitan 600-GPM second-size steamer (ex-E2) with a two-horse hitch now known as Engine No. 3 and the 1885 Davenport H&L and hose tender with a two-horse hitch that was still known as Truck No. 3.

There were also two hose wagons and 2,500 feet of 2-1/2 inch hose-line kept in reserve, one wagon at Station # 1 and the other at Station # 2, each loaded with 1.250 feet of hose. To help protect the city’s water mains, the Holly high-pressure water works would now be used to increase pressure in the mains only in the case of a large conflagration and/or if one or more of the EFD’s three engines was out of service.

The two horses that had formerly been assigned to pull Engine Co. 1’s hose cart and the two horses that had been assigned to pull the Babcock double 50-gallon chemical engine were initially transferred to the street department, although one of the horses that was sent to the street department was returned to the fire department in 1913 when the chemical engine was decoupled from the motor engine and converted to a one-horse rig with a two-man crew that responded primarily to minor fires and Gamewell box alarms in Station # 1’s still district.

Evanston firemen were still working a 112-hour work week in January 1912, working 24 hours on duty, followed by a 12-hour furlough. So sometimes a firefighter would work 8 AM to 8 AM followed by 12-hours off duty, and his next 24-hour shift would run from 8 PM to 8 PM followed by 12-hours off duty. So a fireman got to sleep at home once every three nights.

The Evanston City Council granted pay raises to all Evanston firemen in 1912, except the chief. So EFD annual salaries in 1912 were $1,620 (chief), $1,200 (assistant chief), $1,140 (engineer and motor driver), $1,080 (captain), $1,020 (lieutenant, assistant engineer, and assistant motor driver), and $960 (fireman).

There were not yet kitchens in Evanston firehouses in 1912, so a fireman was still permitted to take his meal breaks away from the firehouse, either at home if he lived close to the firehouse, or at a nearby restaurant or lunch counter. Or the fireman could bring a lunch pail or a brown bag and eat at the firehouse. Evanston firemen also received two weeks paid vacation each year, but there was no paid sick leave or time & a half overtime pay. Only one man could be on vacation from each fire station at any one time, with vacations only allowed March to November.

With a 112-hour work week, one out of every three firemen was on his 12-hour furlough at any one time, so routine staffing in 1912 actually was ten men at Station # 1, six men at Station # 2, and six men at Station # 3. Each company could run one man short, so no fewer than 19 men could be on duty at any one time, or there could be as many as 22, or even 23 if you count the chief. A 35th man was added to the EFD in June 1912 whose job was to provide vacation coverage at Fire Station # 1, which increased minimum on duty EFD staffing to 20.

The chief was technically on duty at all times, but he typically spent nights and Sundays at home. The chief’s buggy driver would transport the chief to and from his residence, and the buggy driver could respond to the chief’s residence and then drive him directly to a working fire from his home. Otherwise, the assistant chief — who was also company officer of Motor Engine Co. 1 — was in charge of most routine incidents that occurred while the chief was at home.