Pocasset Fire Company

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    The Pocasset Fire Company, can trace its roots to June of 1895 when it was incorporated as “The Pocasset Hose Company”, with forty charter members.  On November 29, 1895, the name was changed to “The Pocasset Fire Engine Company”, which was later shortened to “The Pocasset Fire Company”.  

     On July 4, 1896, the company took part in a parade wearing their new uniforms.  The parade route began at the Cranston Print Works and ended at Meshanticut Park.  

     According to a paper written by Cranston historian Gladys W. Brayton, the new fire company was granted office space at the town hall, then located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Phenix Avenue and Cranston Street, and use of a shed behind the building to store the company hose cart, until a more permanent location could be found.   The company occupied its temporary quarters until the autumn of 1897.        

     According to an article which appeared in The Providence News on November 3, 1897, the “new” Pocasset fire station would be finished and dedicated later that same month.  The new station  was located on the east side of Cranston Street at the corner of America Street in the Knightsville section of Cranston.  It was a two-story frame structure measuring 35 by 80 feet, equipped with with a bell tower and a bowling alley.  The lot had been purchased from J. A. Budlong.  

     The first piece of apparatus is believed to have been a hand-drawn hose reel that was later modified to be pulled by a horse.  This hose reel was still in use in 1908. 

     A newspaper article which appeared in The Evening Bulletin on October 30, 1908, stated in part: “The Pocasset Fire Company has had its big four-wheeled hose reel repaired and altered by the addition of a driver’s seat and a pair of shafts, so that the reel can be drawn by a horse. In case of a fire, Forman Irons has arrangements made for use of a horse.”

     The company’s fire fire engine was a second-hand side-stroke hand-tub built by the William Jeffers Company of Pawtucket, R. I.  in 1859 for the the city of Nashville, Tennessee, known as “Ocean 1”   At the time of its purchase it was in Cairo, Illinois. The engine was capable of shooting a stream of water 207 feet 5 inches.

     Ocean 1 still survives to this day, and is on display at the Cranston Volunteer Firefighters Museum. 

     In November of 1908, Company Forman Earl Irons appointed more members to the hose company and announced that drilling of the fire crews would commence soon.

     On December 1, 1908, the following newspaper article with the headline “Practice Runs” was published. The name of the paper is unknown.

     “Forman Earl Irons took out two trial crews on the hose wagon at the Pocasset Fire Engine Company last evening as a preliminary to the appointment of the company which he is to begin drilling next week, and on each of the trips very good time was made. Early in the evening a horse was provided in the station and the members of the company given a little practice using the new swinging harness. Without warning to the members, an alarm was telephoned in from the vicinity of Church Street. Those who kept the time say the reel was run to the hydrant and 500 feet of hose laid in four-and-a-half minutes. The men say this could have been done more quickly but for a slight hitch in attaching the nozzle.

     “Later in the evening another alarm came in, this one calling for a run down Park Avenue to the railroad crossing. There the run was completed, and the hose laid in three-and-a-half minutes. While this, of course, could not be done as quickly in case of an actual fire, because the men might not be at the station, it serves to show how much improvement the men might make by systematic drilling.

     “The men of the company are enthusiastic over the organization of the team, and its progress will be watched with much interest. The money which was realized from the Thanksgiving Eve raffle has been devoted to the purchase of four rubber suits, to be kept on the reel. It is planned to have practice runs about two evening a week.”

     It was also in December of 1908 that the Pocasset Fire Company announced it would be soliciting funds for the purchase of a large electrically activated bell for the fire station which would become part of the fire alarm system for the area.

     In June of 1909 wires for the new fire alarm system were in the process of being installed on telephone poles in the area. The alarm system was to include ten boxes, which would activate strikers in specified member’s homes.

     It was also in June of 1909 that the company acquired a second-hand steam fire engine. The engine was repaired and repainted, and company members gave a demonstration of their new “steamer” in front of Town Hall on July 4^th. (In 1909, the Town Hall was located in Knightsville, on the southwest corner of the intersection of Park Avenue, Phenix Avenue, and Cranston Street.

     In June of 1910, Cranston incorporated as a city.

     In 1910, the company purchased a used “touring car” which was converted to a motorized hose truck.  Although it was possibly the first motorized piece of fire apparatus in the city, it soon proved to be an embarrassment, for several occasions it either failed to start, or stalled on its way to an alarm.  It was finally sent out to be overhauled.  The work was completed by August of 1911.         

     On August 23, 1914, James M. Cornell, Jr., Assistant Superintendent of Fire Alarm System for the Pocasset Fire Company, was working on a telephone pole at the corner of Standish Ave. and Cranston Street servicing the fire alarm wires when he accidentally touched a live wire which serviced the electric trolleys that ran along Cranston Street. The wire, it was later discovered, lacked a required insulator, nearly electrocuting Cornell with 500 volts of electricity. A doctor responded to the scene and treated Cornell’s badly burned hands and his nervous system for shock. The patient was then transported to his home on Phenix Avenue to recuperate.   

     In January of 1915 the company voted to purchase a used six-cylinder automobile which would be converted to a fire truck.  It was reported that the fire engine presently in use by the company had “been converted from an old touring car and was one of the first pieces of motor apparatus in the city”, and had been “in use for several years.”  The article then went on to explain that the present vehicle had “its “moods” when its engine refused to start when most needed.  It has led to more “knocks” for the company than any other cause”

     In June of 1916 control of the Pocasset fire alarm system was transferred from the company to the city. A control panel was installed in a cabinet at City Hall to be under the supervision of the police department. If a telephone alarm of fire was received by the desk officer, the officer would go to the panel and activate the proper box alarm. The new system did not affect the way alarms would be received directly from boxes in the field.

     In December of 1917, the Pocasset Fire Company was assisting at a fire in the Auburn section of the city when a chimney fell on a fireman injuring his back.  He later recovered. 

     On May 12, 1919, a dinner honoring returning World War I veterans was held at the Pocasset fire station.  Those who were honored included Earl DeMara, Joseph E. Curtis, William W. Hall, Jack McKeon, Melvin H. Johnson, L. N. Sault, Horace E. Mitchell, William C. McKeon, John J. Walsh, Raymond C. Thompson, William J. Walsh, Herbert M. Gardner, William J. palmer, Elmer E. Colvin, Oscar Cornell, and Clarence Lehman.  

     In February of 1920, the company received an alarm for a truck fire on Fletcher Avenue, but due to heavy snows and unplowed roads, the fire engine found the area of Randall Street and Atwood Avenue impassable.  The truck, which belonged to the Montecalvo Bakery, was lost.      

     As the 20th century progressed, Cranston continued to grow and prosper, and as early as January of 1919, the idea of a paid city fire department began to take hold.  Mayor Horton, in his inaugural address in January of 1919 advocated the creation of a permanent fire company to be centrally located and equipped with the most up-to-date motorized fire apparatus capable of responding  quickly to all corners of the city.  The apparatus was to be staffed by at least two men at all times.      

     Over the following year arrangements were made to make Mayor Horton’s vision a reality.  At an annual supper held in Knightsville on February 2, 1920, it was proposed by several local dignitaries in attendance that Pocasset’s Fire Chief, Daniel F. Young, should be appointed the first chief of the soon to be established paid fire department. History has shown that Young did become Cranston’s first paid fire chief on December 20, 1920.

     The next Chief of the Pocasset Fire Company was William J. Flanders.   

     To see an obituary for Chief Young, click here.

      The next Chief of the Pocasset Fire Company was William J. Flanders.   

     In 1924, with the construction of Cranston’s first paid fire station underway at the corner of Cranston Street and Dyer Avenue, the Pocasset’s decided to sell their fire station and move to new quarters on Cranston Street at the corner of Curtis Street close to Meshanitcut Park. This location was chosen because at the time many company members lived in the Meshanticut area.  The new station was dedicated on May 27, 1925.  

     At an annual meeting held in January of 1924, the following officers were elected: President, Frederick P. Hunt; First Vice-President, Daniel F. Young; Second Vice-President, Louis Lehman; Secretary, Charles H. Arnold; Treasurer, Lowndes A. Smith, Jr.; Chief, Philip J. Hopp; Deputy Chief, Louis Crabb; Captain, Fred Arnold; Lieutenant, Leon Cornell.   

     In November of 1925 it was announced that the Pocassets planned a fund raising drive to purchase a new motorized fire engine.  This was in response to a mechanical problem with their current fire engine when it came time to respond to a recent fire.     

     In the summer of 1934 the fire company bought a truck chassis and body to remodel into a fire truck. The type of chassis purchased is unknown at this time. 

     On October 24, 1935, Pocasset’s new fire truck was involved in an accident when it collided with a telephone pole near the intersection of Wayland, Phenix, and Scituate, avenues.  The firefighters were responding to a report of a building fire on the farm of Albertus Colvin at the time of the accident.  (See photos below.)

     There were two fire fighters aboard the truck.  The driver was a 19-year-old volunteer who had only obtained his driver’s license nine days earlier.  The 18-year-old passenger  was transported to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Providence where he had the four fingers of his right hand amputated.   

        In 1942 the name of the fire company was changed to the “Meshanticut Park Volunteer Fire Company”. During this time frame the company was using a 1940 Ford fire truck which was designated Engine 7.

     For further information about the Meshanticut Park Volunteer Fire Company: click here