It was not until enough shopkeepers and craftsmen were set up in business to have their wooden stores, shops, and homes that firefighting became an important concern for the young village of Fredonia.
The first downtown fire reported by the Censor began around midnight, Sunday August 3rd, 1823, in Miss Barns’ Millinery shop. Thanks to a few citizens, it was soon under control.
The sense of panic and that of relief which must have followed led, very quickly, to the founding of our first fire company. A group calling itself the Franklin Fire Company had met and then adjourned to the evening of the 13th of August when they would meet again at Abel’s hotel across the street from Miss Barnes shop. They did meet and elected their officers
In 1829 the village of Fredonia was incorporated and the original Village Charter included Organizing and establishing a fire company in the said village; and to appoint fire wardens; to provide and keep fire engines, ladders, hooks, buckets, and all other implements and utensils, necessary and proper for the preventing and extinguishing fires, to require the inhabitants, under suitable penalties, to furnish themselves with and keep buckets and ladders….. Unfortunately, the village of Fredonia did not organize a fire department until 1850, because the Franklin Fire Co. was a private group. The Canada Way Council, whose initial meeting was on March 18th, 1850, had as its topic for discussion a resolution declaring it to be the duty of the Corporation of Fredonia to organize a fire department. In October Levi Risley was elected Chief Engineer since the new fire department had received its first fire engine, a hand pumper manufactured in Rochester. The company began to call itself “Protection Fire Company”, later to be changed to the Fredonia Engine Co. No. 1. In November of 1857 the “Young American Independent Bucket Co.” was formed “to furnish buckets at fires during the time the engine is being brought on the fire ground and made ready to work.”
For a number of years, the village of Fredonia struggled to have sufficient man power and equipment to battle fires. Mainly because of the Civil War. Fortunately, during that time no major fires occurred in the village. A constitution and by-laws were adopted by the Fredonia Fire Co. No. 1 in April 1871. Two years after that the Cataract Fire Co No. 2 was
organized. In 1884 with the building of the waterworks reservoir there was sufficient reconstruction of the fire department. The two companies reorganized as hose companies. Fredonia Fire Company No. 1 becoming DR Barker Hose Company No. 1 and Cataract Co. No.2 becoming the M. M. Fenner Hose Co. No 2. In addition, the Fredonia Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1 (later the J.S. Lambert Hook and Ladder Co. No.1) was formed. By December 1884 the newer of the old hand pumpers was sold and, with the proceeds, a hook and ladder truck was purchased for the newest of the fire companies which was incorporated in March 1885. In June 1886 a new hose cart was purchased.
On April 20, 1891, the fire department met and formally declined to take the inferior rooms offered them by the Board of Trustees in the new City Hall. The reason being that they were promised sumptuous meeting rooms which were instead given to the Fredonia Citizens Club. As a result, the volunteers disbanded for a time and a paid department was formed. On January 25, 1900, a devastating fire struck buildings on Main and Center St. destroying many. In December 1900 the Normal School on Temple St. was destroyed by a devastating fire, with loss of life, which soon lead to the reorganization of the Fredonia Fire Department. In April 1901 today’s Fredonia Fire Department began its new journey. John Zahn was elected as the first Chief of the reorganized fire department. The first task that Chief Zahm was challenged with was to overcome the same issue that caused the disbanding of the fire department back in 1891. The same month that the volunteer companies were reactivated, a petition had been circulated with 200 Fredonia citizens signing it, several signatures were those of very prominent people within the community.
This petition was presented to the village trustees in April 1901stating, “the fire apparatus should be kept in more suitable quarters, where it can be better cared for and where the firemen can perfect and maintain a thorough organization.” The petition went on to further request the village, “to purchase the ‘Candy lot’ on the corner of Center and Church Street and erect a building suitable for the same. By October 1901 ground had been broken for the new hall.
Unfortunately, the new fire hall didn’t make the physical work any easier. All apparatus had to be drawn to the fire by the volunteer department. Once in a while a horse was hooked on the head of the hook and ladder. Hand drawn equipment was also very difficult to move on streets, that changed when the weather changed and added mud or deep snow to the list of obstacles for the fire department to deal with while enroute to a call.
As time went on the apparatus became larger and heavier. The apparatus, modern day life, and the everyday workings of a fire department had made their impact on the building. Plain and simple the modernization of the fire department meant that there would have to be some physical changes made, that change was made in May of 1979 When the Fredonia Fire Department moved into their new and current quarters at 80 West Main Street.
In the 1930s the Village Board approved of having two paid firemen. Each fireman would work a 12-hour shift, and the fire hall would be manned at all times. These gentlemen were then considered an employee of the village and received a salary. Expected to do basic upkeep around the hall, do the necessary maintenance to the apparatus and equipment, answer the phone, keep some resemblance of order in the hall, and be prepared to be called out for a fire. One interesting task the paid men had to perform was to light the street lamps on the main street. An addition to the Fire Hall was a transformer room, which sometimes, during a thunder storm, would light up like a Christmas tree! The first two professional firemen” paid drivers” in the Fredonia Fire Department were A.P Taster and E.E Callis.
On July 26th, 1968, was when our professional firefighters officially organized and became known as the Fredonia Firefighters Association, the association then became members of the International Association of Firefighters Local No.2931 of the New York State Professional Firefighters on March 26th, 1984.
A recent change to the list of duties came in the early 1990s. The decision to have professional firefighters provide Advanced Life Support (ALS) is an example. They enrolled in a paramedic program that took a year of schooling while working full time and spent hundreds of hours doing emergency room, surgical, and other practical requirements to receive their certification. This gave tremendous benefits to the department and the community. This sets the stage for Fredonia to become the first 24-hour Advance Life Support department in Chautauqua County.
Today’s fire department has female members as compared to earlier years when women either were not allowed to or just didn’t because of the gender role that firefighting was a ‘man’s job’. In 2011 the department began the process to disband the four companies to form one company to better serve our community. This process is close to being finished. The number of active firefighters has changed dramatically in the last few years. What has not changed is the character of the people that serve their community in the Fredonia Fire Department. All are willing to wake at a moment’s notice to fight a burning structure or to pull a person out from the wreckage of an automobile or to breathe life back into the body of a person, is what defines a Fredonia firefighter. We are still committed and dedicated to the protection of life and property, in our community, that we love and call home.
History, Tradition, Pride, Community, and Honor!