The bucket town and the volunteer companies

1853–1886 · BEFORE THE PAID DEPARTMENT

The bucket brigade: Before there was any organization, there was the bucket line. Brown's 1920 history of the city describes the first state of things plainly: every family had a well and a cistern, and when a building was on fire the call was raised and men — and often women — formed a line from the pump to the man on the ladder or the roof, passing the buckets hand to hand. Howard's county history, thirteen years earlier, opens its fire department section on the same picture: a department that "has grown from a bucket brigade, taking water from wells or from the river." The volunteers who replaced the bucket line were kept in service, Howard records, by public honor and by small material favors: the common council's remission of city poll taxes and exemption of a given amount of property from taxation, granted 19 April 1866, are the favors he names.

The first company: The year the organization begins is printed four ways in the record, and the four are not reconciled here. The city's present fire department page states that "the area's first organized fire protection entity commenced operations on January 29, 1853, twelve years before the incorporation of the city," and the department counted itself 154 years old in 2007, which counts from 1853. The station history compiled with the department's help dates the organization to 6 December 1852, by unpaid citizens, before the town was incorporated. Howard, in 1907, writes that "the first regular organization for fire protection seems to have been in 1853, when a hand engine was procured and a company formed," and the Tribune's summary of 4 June 1907, printed whole in Howard, says flatly that before 1853 "South Bend had no fire department or organized system of protection in case of fire." Brown's 1920 history, against all three, prints 1855 twice — in his narrative ("In 1855, the Volunteer Fire Department was organized. They had a hand engine as their only equipment") and in his table of the city's firsts ("1855 — First Fire Department, Volunteer"). What is not in dispute is the company itself: St. Joseph Fire Company Number One, with Edmund Pitts Taylor as foreman — Brown prints the Christian name Edmond — and John Caldwell as assistant, per Howard. The station history adds the first apparatus purchase: the first engine and hose cart were bought from a Boston firm for $1,000.

The companies multiply: Fire Company Number Two was formed soon after Number One, with Lot Day, Jr., as foreman. In 1857 Union Hose Company Number Three was organized and a second engine purchased. The department's most famous engine was a steamer named Young Hoosier, and its year is printed two ways: the Tribune's 1907 summary says a steam fire engine was purchased in 1865 "which was called the Young Hoosier," while Brown dates the purchase of a steam fire engine to 1868. The company the engine named is dated exactly: Young Hoosier Fire Company No. Four was organized 20 January 1868, after deliberations in the common council extending over several months, and Howard prints its original membership as a specimen of the standing of the men who served — among the fifteen were George Hertzell, John C. Knoblock, Alexander Staples, Alexis Coquillard, Peter Weber, Elijah Hartzell, Edward Gillen, Isaac Miller, Reuben Garrett, Seth F. Myers and Harrison M. Crockett; the company was authorized to grow to thirty, drawn equally from hose companies one and three. The old Number Three was disbanded soon after, and the present Hose Company Number Three, in the fourth ward, was organized 29 May 1868.

Foremen, chiefs, and the 1867 committee: The titles of the volunteer era do not line up neatly, and the record is printed as it stands. Brown names Edmund Pitts Taylor the first fire foreman. The station history names John Brownfield the first chief. Howard's narrative places Brownfield in the chief's office by 17 June 1867, when he sat — as "John Brownfield, chief of the fire department" — on the citizens' committee appointed that day to report to the council the best means of protection from fire, a committee of thirteen leading citizens that included Dr. Louis Humphreys, Clement Studebaker and Norman Eddy, and whose conferences, Howard writes, "foreshadowed the water works system and the paid fire department that were to come in a few years." In 1873 the common council reorganized the volunteer department and appointed Capt. Edwin Nicar chief engineer; Nicar served three years, Joseph Turnock a year, Orville H. Brusie three years, then A. B. Culver — the chief engineer of Farr's 1883 directory, who signed that year's fire-alarm signal page — then Brusie again, and then Isaac Hutchins, who carried the office into the paid era.

The late volunteer department: In its last form the department stood as Delta Hose Company No. 1, Eagle No. 2, Union No. 3, Young Hoosier No. 4, Mazeppa No. 5, Stand Pipe No. 6 and a No. 7, besides the Relief Hook and Ladder, which was housed with Young Hoosier at Hose House No. 4, on the north side of Jefferson Street between Michigan Street and the first alley west — the central fire station and headquarters of the department. Fire tournaments, in South Bend and the surrounding towns, were a prominent feature of the old department, and the South Bend companies, Howard records, almost invariably carried off the prizes. On 6 October 1873 the council, in the middle of the water works work, paused to express the formal thanks of the city to the department and its chief, Capt. Nicar. A year later the new water changed the service's shape: on 19 October 1874, Howard records, it became apparent that the pressure standing at every hydrant "made all fire companies, except hook and ladder and hose companies, quite out of harmony with the new conditions; and they were accordingly disbanded." The engine companies were gone; the hose and ladder companies served on, as volunteers, for twelve more years.

Sources:

1. John A. Brown, The Story of South Bend (1920), Chapter XI — the bucket brigades, the 1855 organization, Edmund Pitts Taylor first foreman, the steam engine of 1868; and Brown's table of firsts ("1855 — First Fire Department, Volunteer"). Read first-hand.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1, "Sec. 4 — Fire Department" — the 1853 organization, St. Joseph Fire Company Number One, the company formations of 1857 and 1868 with Young Hoosier's original membership, the 1867 citizens' committee, the chief-engineer succession, the late company roster, the tournaments, the council's thanks of 6 October 1873, and the disbandment of the engine companies 19 October 1874.
3. City of South Bend, Fire Department page (southbendin.gov, read November 2026) — the department's own statement that the first organized fire protection entity commenced operations 29 January 1853; the department's 154-year count in 2007 is carried in the Public Servants section of this history.
4. South Bend Fire Department historic stations page (monon.org), compiled with the department's assistance — the organization of 6 December 1852, the $1,000 Boston engine and hose cart, John Brownfield named first chief.