Carrying a small piece of misplaced local history, Mark F. Fortini, PhD, from Philadelphia was on his way to Cape Cod when he stopped off in Newtown on August 9. He had hoped to return an old fire company photo to Newtown Hook & Ladder Company No. 1.

The portrait is of more than 20 men in uniform lining Main Street in an image that town historian Dan Cruson believes is at least 135 years old.

Main Street was still just a dirt road where the men stood on in front of Dick’s Hotel, a building now long gone. Behind them is what Mr Cruson believes is a hose truck dating to approximately 1883 and the fire company’s first piece of equipment.

A find within a find, Mr Fortini — an associate professor at Jefferson Medical College in Pennsylvania — bought a picture in Frederick, Maryland, at Emporium Antiques.

“I bought an 1814 image of the Kremlin in Russia in an old Victorian frame,” he said. “The old frame was filthy. I decided to take the whole thing apart and clean the frame and clean the glass and aquatint.”

Aquatint is a print resembling a watercolor, produced from a copper plate etched with nitric acid.

He bought his picture and frame from large antique mall about 40 miles west of Baltimore. The 1814 print from England is what he was after, he said.

“I have an interest in Russian history, but it was also a really good deal — $24 framed and everything, and according to auction records, it could sell for a couple of hundred dollars.” A few weeks after the purchase, he found the Hook & Ladder photo.

“They had used the photo to back the aquatint; they didn’t care about the photo,” he said. “I opened it all up and saw the name on the back and saw the photo.”

Following his curiosity, Mr Fortini did a little investigating, first referring to what he believes are two sets of handwriting on the back of the photo. The first says, “1883 Patrick H. Gannon.” The second wline says, “Newtown Conn 1931.”

His search led to the Hook & Ladder website (nhlfd.com), which indicates, “The oldest fire company in Newtown had its beginning in 1803, when the town refused to grant a request for $100 for a fire engine. Elijah Nichols was subsequently appointed as “chimney viewer,” or fire warden, an office that was provided for at the annual town meeting and for which no pay was given. Since the town would not appropriate the money for an engine, each member of the company was duty bound to provide buckets and ladders of their own. The company held many benefits to raise money, and in 1883, a sum of $600 was appropriated for the purchase of a hand-drawn Hook & Ladder truck from the Holloway Company of Baltimore. In September of that year, a state charter was granted to the ‘Newtown Hook & Ladder Company,’ and the company has been in service ever since.”

Mr Fortini said, “I figured it was Newtown Hook & Ladder.” The dates and names that appeared on the back of the photo matched information he read on the website.

Patrick Gannon “was listed as the company’s fire chief,” he said. He read that the company was established in 1883, and their first equipment was drawn by horse, “and that’s what is in the photo.”

Also on the website is Patrick Gannon’s name, the fourth in line since 1883 under the heading Our Chiefs. The first chief was John H. Blackman, the second chief was unknown, the third chief was Levi C. Morris; the fourth line read: 1902-1927 Patrick H. Gannon.

Making a quick detour on his way to Massachusetts, Mr Fortini had stopped at the firehouse on Church Hill Road, but no one was home, according to Edmond Town Hall Theater Coordinator Tom Mahoney, who met Mr Fortini when he stopped at Edmond Town Hall looking for someone to take the photo.

“Last Thursday, a gentleman came in and he had wanted to give Hook & Ladder a picture, but they were not there,” Mr Mahoney said. Mr Fortini visited Edmond Town Hall and “gave it to me.” Mr Mahoney then gave the old picture to The Newtown Bee.

“I figured the photo should go back to Newtown,” Mr Fortini said.

Historian’s View

The photo has yet to make its way to the fire company, but Mr Cruson has already made his own copies. He also spent time with a magnifying glass searching the image’s details. Mr Cruson immediately noted some relevant clues that have already been documented in part in his books.

Although at first suspecting that he had seen a copy of this photo, Mr Cruson took a look, saying, “I have never seen this photo before.” Other, similar photos that appear in his history books indicate that “they must have posed in front of houses” along Main Street at the same time.

In Images of America, Newtown, page 63 reveals an image of Dick’s Hotel in 1870. He wrote that “this tintype image by Henry Cook” shows the hotel, “one of the earliest hotels in the village … originally built as a hotel in 1812 by Sallu Pell Barnum to serve travelers on the recently constructed Bridgeport-Newtown Turnpike. The hotel sat on the site of Cyrenius H. Booth Library until it was destroyed by fire in 1894.”

Looking closely, Mr Cruson noted the original hose truck and its cylinders “arranged by length.”

The picture is “beautiful in resolution,” he said. “It’s in remarkable condition.”

Turning a few pages takes readers to page 66, where the fire company members, again lined up and in uniform, pose for a similar photo in front of the Grand Central Hotel. The caption states, “Posed in front is the Newtown Hook and Ladder Company with their first wagon.”

Pointing to the image from Mr Fortini, Mr Cruson indicated the fifth member in line from the left — Alfred Jefferson “Jeff” Briscoe. This man appears in several of Mr Cruson’s publications.

“I was fascinated by him,” Mr Cruson said. Mr Briscoe died in 1898, at 65 years old, and “they built a monument for him, he was so well thought of in town.”

Jeff was “beloved by the community.”

A black man and grandson of a slave, Mr Briscoe’s picture on the cover of The Slaves Of Central Fairfield County, The Journey From Salve To Freeman In Nineteenth-Century Connecticut, and also appears on page 69 or Images of America, Newtown, with the caption, “The only known photo of a Newtown slave descendant … known as Jeff around town, [he] was mildly retarded and declared incompetent by his father in 1856.”

Regardless, he was very popular in Newtown, where he drove hotel guests back and forth to the railroad depot. When he died in 1898, a grand monument was placed on his grave. He is the only black person included in J.H. Beer’s Biographical Record Of Fairfield County, published in 1899. Jeff was the grandson of Alexander, the slave of Captain Nathaniel Briscoe.

Jeff’s picture shows him seated, staring at the camera and wearing a uniform.

“He was so proud” of that uniform, Mr Cruson said.

More about Jeff is found in Mr Cruson’s A Mosaic of Newtown History. Jeff is mentioned on page 210, where Mr Cruson wrote, “While looking over some photographs … I chanced upon an old, faded tintype with the following notation on the back: ‘Old Jeff, Driver for Dick’s Hotel.’” He added, “It showed a black man dressed in a fireman’s uniform sitting in a very stiff formal pose.” The photo was of Alfred Jefferson Briscoe. “This is the only known photograph of any descendant of Newtown’s slave population. In fact, it is the only known photo of any member of Newtown’s 19th Century black population,” Mr Cruson wrote.

Jeff’s father, Thomas, died at the age of 51, and Jeff’s mother, Betsy, died just seven years later, according to A Mosaic of Newtown History. Jeff was “orphaned” at age 35.

“It is hard to conceive of a man of 35 being an orphan, but in Alfred’s case, the term is appropriate,” Mr Cruson wrote. “Thomas realized that Alfred was not capable of taking care of himself. He also appears to have anticipated his own death, since three years before dying, he went to the probate court and declared Alfred incompetent. William Blakeslee was then appointed his conservator.”

Magnifying History

Bringing his attention back to the photo, Mr Cruson said, “The fun part is to get in close with a magnifying glass.” He noted that the road, now Route 25, “was dirt through the late [1920s].”

Dick’s Hotel “burns in 1893,” he said, and it was rebuilt about three times as big as The Newtown Inn, which had a saloon. Newtown’s benefactress Mary Hawley bought the Inn in 1924, but it remained vacant and was bequeathed to Newtown after her death in 1930, according to her will, which ran on the front page of The Bee.

Considering the photo’s journey to Newtown, Mr Cruson said, “It’s lucky happenstance,” that Mr Fortini chose to stop in town.

Taking a further look at the picture, Mr Cruson said the top windows at Dick’s were open, and the firemen were holding a wound rope he suspects was used to pull the wagon.

Scanning and saving the image for his own records, Mr Cruson said that by enlarging the photo, “you can see the expressions on their faces.”

Newtown was “a sleepy little town,” in 1883. Several hotels were in town, and travelers would come, he said. “People would spend a week and wander the bucolic town.

Behind the fire company and standing on the hotel’s front porch or peeking out winders were possibly hotel staff and guests, “immortalized because they came out to see,” as the fire company members stopped for the picture.

“A hand-pumped fire engine and hose cart were purchased in 1901. In later years, a Model T Ford was used to tow the pumper hose and ladder carts. The Model T was also loaded with soda acid fire extinguishers that caused some concern when sudden stops and turns had to be made.

“In 1931, a Maxim Fire Truck was purchased and was the pride of the company until it was replaced by a 1952 Maxim pumper.” The site details its major equipment purchases up to “the newest piece of apparatus,” which was a rescue truck built by Pierce.