Ashland Fire Department Part 1
Ashland fire department is an outgrowth of several volunteer firefighting organizations. These early companies retained their separate entities, elected their own members and chose their own officers. The jurisdiction exercised by the town, if indeed there was any at all, was purely nominal. On April 9, 1872, in compliance with the state law, the town elected a board of five fire engineers, and under this supervision the department has since operated.
The first of the local firefighting organizations dates back to the Unionville days, when the center of the village was a part of the town of Hopkinton. This was called, at first, Union Fire engine Company Number Four; when the town was incorporated the name was changed to Union Engine Company of Ashland. It had as its single piece of apparatus the "Magunko" hand tub.
In 1871 the hand tub was replaced by a steam fire engine, also bearing the same name,. and the company was there after known as the Steam Fire engine Company Number One.
In 1873 there was organized the James Jackson Hook and Ladder Company. The last recorded meeting of the Hook and Ladder Company was held on December 3, 1924. On January 7, 1925, the company was reorganized as Combination Number One.
The first volunteer fire department, organized in the Unionville days under the name of Union Engine Company Number Four, numbered 58 men. Business meetings were usually held in Chapel Hall; sometimes in Major Shepard's barn.
Hardly had this company been organized before it extended an invitation to the other companies in Hopkinton, of which it was a part, to participate in a competitive drill to be held in Unionville. Thus began the long series of meets exhibitions, dance, social functions, ball games and "glass ball shoots," which have continued, with more or less regularity. The records of this first company, and those which followed, aside from their accounts of actual fire fighting, reflect the importance of the department as a social group, and are replete with accounts of those drills, annual "washouts," oyster suppers, parades and in later years, the annual firemen's ball, the social event of the year, and an affair which usually ended by causing a substantial deficit in the department treasury. In 1845 the hand tubs held a competition in Unionville with the Woodville Company, and the efficiency of the old hand tubs then in use seems to be well attested by the record, which says "our streams of water went thirty feet above the spire of the Congregational Church”.
The accounts of the fires are so written that they read more like adventures from an Alger story than excerpts from the minutes of a serious and important town organization. Here is, for instance, part of the colorful record of the Central Block fire of June 15, 1889:
"Things began to look hot, but the boys, with looks of determination on their faces, and two powerful streams from their little dandy in their hands, grappled with the fiery monster in a way that meant business. One stream swept the side of the block for an instant and then caromed on to Thayer's stable buildings, and the fire there was quickly fixed so that the bucket men could take charge of it, the other stream after knocking the stuffing out of the carriage house swept the roof of the Hotel and the fiery monster, then like Davy Crockett's coon, gave up the ghost. By this time the flames had crept under the roof of the block and were having a merry time in the attic. Our engineers hurled the whole force on that attic and the fight began in earnest, amid falling slate and burning timber; the boys, working like beavers, darted hither and thither with their streams, putting them where they would do the most good, and with such effect the Old Fiery was not allowed to get out of the attic, where he soon died a lingering death”.
Directions - January 1976