FIRE HOSE CART HOUSE. Fire Hose Cart House EILEEN POWERS, Nantucket Historical Association

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1 Fire Hose Cart EILEEN POWERS, Nantucket Historical Association

2 Fire Hose Cart Calamitous fire was a constant threat in a town of closely built wooden houses near refineries and warehouses full of oil. In fact, concerned Nantucketers purchased their first fire engine for eighteen pounds sterling in Regardless of careful preparation and best intentions, including a town ordinance prohibiting smoking in the street, fires happened. In 1836, a blaze broke out on lower Main Street at the Washington, an inn and dwelling, and spread to several other buildings in the vicinity before it was extinguished by fire companies pumping water from a cistern installed in 1833 in the lower Main Street square. Two years later, Joseph James s ropewalk situated between Union and Washington Streets, caught fire. The neighborhood included numerous oil and candle factories and oil storage sheds, all highly combustible, resulting in an area burnt as bare as the beach. More than a hundred people lost businesses and homes. The Nantucket Fire Department t. Ln. ADDRESS 8 Gardner Street CONSTRUCTED 1886 DISTANCE FROM WHALING MUSEUM.5 miles Macy-Christi Greater Light Fire Hose Cart Hadwen Thomas Macy Howard Ct. New Mill St. Gardner St. Milk St. New Dollar Mill St. Eleanor Ham India St. Winter St. Pleasant Street Starbuck Ct. Walnut Ln. Summer St L R Ju Lu P Candle Ln. Angola St Properties Guide Fire Hose Cart 79

3 View of the Fire in Main Street, Nantucket, May 10, 1836, colored lithograph by E. F. Starbuck, 1836 GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. OLIVER SANDSBURY was established in 1838, after the disastrous ropewalk fire. Twenty firewards were elected and they in turn appointed men to manage the engines and other equipment kept in readiness in small fire houses throughout the town. Despite the new organization, the worst conflagration in the town s history the Great Fire broke out on the night of July 13, 1846, in Geary s Hat Shop on Main Street. With the aid of a fresh sea breeze, the fire quickly jumped from building to building, spreading west to Centre Street and north all the way past Broad Street to Ash and Sea streets. One third of the island s buildings were destroyed, eight hundred islanders were left homeless, and all along the waterfront the fire, violently fueled by burning whale oil and tar, leveled wharves, counting houses, ropewalks, sail lofts, warehouses, and cooper shops. Afterwards, only a few brick sentinels remained, among them the Rotch warehouse (Pacific Club), the Pacific Bank, and the Jared Coffin. 80 Nantucket Historical Association

4 Map of the burned district of town, drawn by newspaper editor Samuel H. Jenks Jr. in 1846 MS Properties Guide Fire Hose Cart 81

5 A continued dread of fire led to the creation of more cisterns and more fire companies. Hand-pumped engines were eventually replaced by steam engines in 1896, and finally, in 1912, the town purchased a motorized fire engine the Knox auto-chemical six years before it lifted a general ban on automobiles in town streets. Hydrants were introduced in 1882 by the Wannacomet Water Company. The Fire Hose Cart on the corner of Gardner and Howard streets is the last of the neighborhood fire houses on Nantucket, situated in a densely populated part of town remote from hydrants but not far from a cistern at the corner of Main and Bloom streets. Built in 1886 to house Engine No. 6 (Cataract) and Hose Cart No. 8, the little Greek Revival-style building cost the town $ to construct. The Cataract was retired around the time the NHA opened its fireproof museum building on Fair Street in 1904, and was exhibited there as an example of early firefighting equipment. Thereafter, hose carts were stored in the Gardner Street building, Charles G. Coffin s leather fire bucket The last remaining nineteenthcentury fire hose cart house P Nantucket Historical Association

6 The Cataract, now housed in the Gardner Street cart house RACHEL MODROWSKY, specifically Hose Cart No. 7 and No. 10, as indicated on the quarterboard that once hung above the double doors. By 1931, the hose cart house and the firefighting equipment it stored were obsolete. The fire chief had plans to buy two vehicles and suggested to reimburse the town for the cost of these two cars, I would recommend the sale of the building and land on Gardner Street which is no longer needed by the Fire Department for any purpose. The property was then auctioned to satisfy the more pressing needs of the department and purchased by neighbor Frank Bartlett. His daughter, Edith M. Bartlett, gave the building to the NHA in For many years the little hose cart house on Gardner Street has exhibited artifacts of firefighting on Nantucket. In 2012, the site was completely restored and newly interpreted to provide visitors with a greater understanding of how fires have shaped the history of the town and how the town has worked to prevent and contain them. The Cataract, for which the fire house was constructed, was recently restored and is on display. Properties Guide Fire Hose Cart 83