CARLISLE NORWOOD. stronger than water, and often by the time the fire was well under he would be in a trim for dent of the Lorillard Insurance Company, being asked, "Upon what part of your life as a fireman do you look back with the greatest pleasure?" replied: "Upon the whole of it. I thought there was nothing like being a fireman. I would sooner go to a fire than to a theatre or any other place of amusement. There was no pleasure that equalled that." During his time of service the families of the first citizens were represented in some of the companies. To No. 14 Engine, for example, were attached as volunteers Bishop Hobart's son William, Dr. Hosack's son Edward Pendleton, Mayor Paulding's son Frederick, and Frederick Gibert, now a prominent resident of Fifth Avenue. Many highly respectable Quaker families --the Macys, the Townsends, the Jenkinses, the Haydocks, and others-belonged to the Department, a chief motive for joining being the consequent exemption from the military duty to which they were conscientiously averse. Then, too, many leading merchants were glad to be rid of jury duty. A well-known merchant once sport, and the boys would excite him by tread-served on a jury for fourteen consecutive ing on the hose, when he would apply his staff to them, and a general mêlée was produced, in which Johnny would be moved about with rather uncomfortable rapidity. On one occasion our venerable Chief, Thomas Franklin, who loved pleasantry, stepped on the hose within sight of the 'Captain.' Some roguish days, though allowed to go home in the morning, in charge of a deputy-sheriff, to change his shirt and to shave. The sheriff in those times was wont to pick out solid and good men for that service, and such men liked to escape liability to it by entering the ranks of the firemen. Another merchant served three weeks. Apart from these motives were the native love of excitement, and the honorable instincts of loyalty to the city. In 1820, when only eight years old, Mr. Norwood was at the Park Theatre fire, which he remembers distinctly, after the lapse of sixty years. He remembers also the little tripartite keg hung in front of the engine, marked, fireman told the latter there was a fellow on the leaders. He turned around, exclaiming, 'Get off the leaders, you sir.' 'I won't,' was the prompt reply. Then I'll knock you down,' he rejoined. 'Don't you see that I am the Chief Engineer?' said Mr. F. 'I don't care for that; I am the Captain, and you sha'n't stand there. You ain't fit for Chief Engineer if you do so. Come off there.' Our good Chief replied, 'Thee is right, Captain, and I'll obey thy orders. I charge thee to see hereafter that everybody is kept off.' 'There,' says John-Spirits-Rum-Gin," each word standny, don't you see that the Chief obeys the Captain? Now, boys, give me some gin.'" Mr. Eng adds his tribute to "the distinguished character" borne by "our venerated brother Thomas Franklin. There are many now [1858] living who knew that noble philanthropist, and who will remember him to have possessed an influence over the Fire Department, and to have commanded a respect from its members, which has been the lot of no man before or since his day." Mr. Carlisle Norwood, formerly foreman of Hose Company No. 5, now Presi ing over its appropriate compartment. The steward of the company had charge of this keg, and dispensed its contents at fires. In the later days of the Department the intemperance was a crying evil, and as long ago as 1812 the trustees of the Fire Department Fund were moved to ask Company 13 how far, in the latter's judg ment, "the important duties of a fireman ought to be committed to men addicted to habitual intoxication." The famous "Gulick affair," he says, has never been correctly related in print. The Common Council, eight years previously, had caused many resignations of firemen whole city was imperiled. A messenger was dispatched for Gulick, and in a few minutes the late Chief, as the firemen believed him to be, though in reality he had not yet been deposed from the office, was seen walking through the ranks, a fireman on each side of him grasping him by the arm. on account of the way in which that legislative body had treated John P. Bailey, the treasurer of the Department, and the foreman of Twenty-three Engine. Bailey had been insulted by an alderman, had been drawn into an altercation with him, and had in consequence been dismissed the force without a hearing. The memory of that indignity was fresh in the minds of the At Gulick's solicitation, and upon his firemen at a fire at Avenue C and Third assurance that he had not been removed, Street in 1836, when the news was circu- the firemen resumed their labors, and bylated that the Common Council had re-and-by succeeded in extinguishing the moved Chief Engineer Gulick. The fact was that at a caucus it had resolved to remove him, but the protests of his friends had induced it to reconsider its action. The fire was at its height, when one of the firemen, Mr. Hubbs, who had heard of the first action of the caucus of the Common Council, but was ignorant that they had reconsidered the matter, went up to the Chief, and exclaimed, "Boss, your throat is cut!" "It isn't possible," replied Gulick. "Yes, it is," persisted the first speaker; "the Common Council have deposed you." Gulick at the time was wearing the broad back rim of his hat in front, so as to shield his face from the heat, as was often done at fires. He withdrew a few steps, and then walked down the line silently and gravely, without changing the reversed position of his hat. His demeanor drew | flames. the attention of the firemen, one of whom asked the Chief what was the matter. "I am Chief no longer," responded Gulick; "the Common Council have removed me." Instantly the news was passed up and down the line, and almost before the appropriate comments had begun, the firemen were taking up their hose and stopping the playing of their engines. Only one company-No. 8-continued throwing water upon the burning buildings, and its hose was cut several times in succession. Gulick meanwhile had retired to his office in Canal Street, and word was sent to Mayor Cornelius W. Lawrence that the conflagration was progressing without hinderance. The situation had become truly alarming, and the safety of the JOHN A. CREGIER. If Soon afterward, however, Gulick was deposed in earnest, and a general resignation of firemen took place. John Ryker, Jun., who succeeded him as Chief, was a handsome, active officer of commanding personal appearance, and, next to Gulick, the most popular fireman in the city. he had not accepted the appointment in the circumstances in which it was offered him, he would have been the firemen's choice for that office. But he became at once exceedingly distasteful to them, in spite of his great executive abilities and rare personal worth, and during the next year had a very hard row to hoe. He was succeeded by that admirable officer Cornelius V. Anderson. Gulick in the mean time had been put in nomination for the office of Register, the firemen having gone first to the Democrats, and then to the Whigs, who acceded to their desires in the | matter, and under whose banner he was triumphantly elected by a majority of 6050, although the Whig party was in a minority. The excitement had been almost unparalleled in intensity, and the electioneering wild. One Sunday morning, for example, the worshippers at St. Patrick's Cathedral, on returning home, were greeted with placards that read: "Who saved the Cathedral? Vote for him for Register." That gallant fireman John A. Cregier, whose distinguished services as foreman GEORGE W. WHEELER. and engineer in the old Volunteer Fire Department have told severely upon the vigor of his once most vigorous constitution, was asked the other day whether, if he could live his life over again, he would choose to repeat his experience as a fireman. "Yes, I would," he replied, emphatically; "I would go it all over again. I have often been asked that questionwhether, with my present knowledge, I would choose to relive my life as a fireman. Yes, sir, I would. The sight of a fire-the first kindling of the flames in the distance-used to make me glad. I never stopped to think of the misery and destruction that it was causing. My father used to whip me enough to break any boy's heart, and his back too, because I would run with the engine. But it was of no use. What part of my experience as a fireman do I remember with the greatest satisfaction? A great deal of it. Our engineers' meetings were always a source of great pleasure to me; our engineers' and foremen's meetings too, and our meetings of representatives at Firemen's Hall. After the regular business was disposed of there was invariably something lively to attend to; there was always some one to offer a resolution, and open an inspiriting discussion. There was old Harry Mansfield-'Resolution Mansfield' we used to call him, because he always had a resolution to introduce-how much fun he made for us! The representatives of the Department in those dayssay thirty years ago-were hightoned men, men of standing, character, and ability, men like Major Wade, Carlisle Norwood, David Milliken, Zophar Mills, Peter H. Titus, John S. Giles, James Y. Watkins. Norwood used to make those walls ring with his eloquence whenever any matter came up affecting the reputation of the Department." George W. Wheeler is the secretary of the Association of Exempt Firemen. He is as familiar with the history of the old Volunteer Fire Department as any other member, living or dead. As soon as he was big enough to run at all he ran with an engine, and on the 9th of February, 1836, joined Engine Company No. 41. After serving five months he resigned, together with nearly all the other firemen, on account of the removal of Chief Engineer Gulick by the Common Council. In May, 1837, he rejoined his company, upon the election of Cornelius V. Anderson to the position of Chief Engineer. The several companies, at the time of their resignation, had indignantly removed the ornaments from their engines, and in some instances scratched and otherwise injured the paint and pictures. No. 13 had repainted their machine a dull lead-color in order to indicate their indignation. No. 41 had disfigured their machine by frequent scrapings, so that, when the Gulick trouble was over, an entire repainting was necessary. Mr. Wheeler had some serious accidents during his term of service as a fire man. On one occasion (in 1839) he slipped while about to take hold of the brakes of the engine, was caught under them, and severely struck on the shoulders and across the back. The blow laid him aside for some weeks. About two years afterward he was run over by a hook-andladder truck. In 1843, while holding the pipe at a fire at Attorney and Rivington streets, he was ordered to climb over a pile of mahogany logs. The logs tumbled over him, and so badly bruised him that he tried to resign from the company, but the company would not let him. Subsequently he joined the Exempt Engine Company, and was chairman of a committee to negotiate with the insurance companies in reference to receiving from them a steam - engine. The Exempts were the first to agree to try a steam-engine; but while they were making their arrangements, Company No. 8 pushed matters in a similar direction, and won the distinction of being the first New York fire company to use steam. The last Chief Engineer but one of the old Volunteer Fire Department was Harry Howard, who still lives, his left arm paralyzed, and his health otherwise much impaired. He holds an office connected with the Department of Public Works, and is a familiar figure in the region of the City Hall. He was fifty-eight years old on the 20th of August, 1880. Harry Howard does not know who his father or mother was. A kind-hearted old woman adopted him in infancy, and the Legislature, at his request, gave him his name. While a Chief Engineer, and on his way to a fire in Grand Street, he was suddenly stricken down, in his thirty-fifth year, by an attack of paralysis, which left him permanently crippled, after twenty or more years of most active service as runner," fireman, foreman, assistant engineer, and Chief, during which he had been the beau ideal of the "boys" in the lower wards of the city. His portrait is better known than that of any other old fireman in the city of New York, Tweed's excepted. Asked recently upon what part of his life as a fireman he looked back with the most satisfaction, he replied, quickly and emphatically: "Upon none of it. See this arm of mine [paralyzed and stiff]. That's all I can do with it [lifting his shoulder up and then dropping it]. That's what I got for being a fireman. What can compensate me for that? Nothing. And there was many a man who went to an early grave in Greenwood on account of overexertion as a fireman. Look at the paid firemen to-day. They ride to a fire, and they ride from it again, and they have horses to draw their engines. There's nothing to destroy their health. They are as likely to live long as any other But the old volunteers endured the most exhausting hardships in the snow, in the rain, the cold, and the heat, dragging their machines block after block, lifting the heavy hose, running themselves breathless-and all for what? They never got even thanks. All the reward they received was to be accused of joining the Department in order to steal and pillage at fires." men. "There was some drinking in the Department, I confess," he continued, "although I never could see that the firemen drank more than the militia did or do now. Getting drunk was not more characteristic of a fireman than of a soldier, and it But is a mistake to suppose that it was. firemen were continually overexerting themselves: men who had wives and children would kill themselves by overwork, and leave their families helpless. Three years before the Paid Fire Department was organized I said that we ought to have it. I was tired of seeing so many good men throw their lives away." "What did they do it for?" "I never could understand it, and I don't understand it now. Nobody ever thanked them for their services. Look at my arm--that's all the return I got. There's John A. Cregier, the best man the Fire Department ever produced-the very best man, the finest specimen of a fireman -he's sick too. Overexerted himself, that's all, and now he's suffering for it. We were burying men all the time who died from the same cause. I said that it ought not to be. I was in favor of a paid Fire Department. A volunteer Fire Department is well enough in a village, but not in a city. Yet I notice that with all their facilities-with their telegraphs, their horses, their riding, and their steam-the paid firemen don't get to a fire as quickly as the old volunteers did." |