Utica Fire Department Engine No. 1 - 1864

In the spring of 1864, Utica's old fire engines two, four, and five had been in use for more than twenty years and were worn out. The legislature authorized the Common Council to raise $10,000 for the purchase of two new “steam” engines. The prospect of a “steamer” did not excite any great enthusiasm with the volunteer firemen, who were very proud of their old hand-operated machines.

In May 1864, the two steamers arrived in Utica and were tested at the canal. Washington Company No. 7 brought out its old hand machine and attempted to show that it could throw a higher steam of water. In one case they did and in the other they claimed they did, but the newspapers declined to report whether this was done or not.

Central Fire Station - 1915

For a short time after the steamers became a part of the fire department, they were drawn to fires by the members of the company to which it was assigned. The engines were heavy and the men were exhausted by the time they reached the scene of the fire. The city then contracted with the proprietors of the livery stable nearest the fire station to furnish a team of horses for the steamer at every alarm of fire. This would cause delay and often the teams furnished had no experience hauling a fire engine. The city then purchased its own horses for the steamers, for the heavy ladder trucks which were added, and for the chiefs rig.

Between 1864 and 1917 when the fire department was motorized, Utica's fire horses were the pride of the firemen. One newspaper report remarked that, “Many a youth of those days thrilled watching the ‘hitch' made in an engine house. With the first stroke of the big gong the horses came dashing from their stalls. The fire animals knew just what to do and within seconds, were standing under the harness swinging evenly over the pole of the engine. They needed no command but trot­ted out of their stalls and into place under the harness in perfect step. The harness fell upon their backs and the firemen snapped the collars about their necks with amazing speed. A slight pull of a cord released a catch in the iron framework that held up the harness and the framework flew up to the ceiling. The driver jumped to the seat, grabbed the reins and within seconds after the first stroke of the alarm bell, the doors flew open, and the big apparatus, weighing up to four tons or more was off to the fire, followed by the chemical wagon and hose carts.

Utica Fire Department Engine No. 6 - 1915

“Three practice hitches were made each day, at 8 o'clock in the morning, at noon and at 7:15 in the evening. The last hitch was always more successful that the other two, perhaps because the horses knew that they would be fed after the night hitch. The horses could tell the difference between a real and a practice drill. They had one way of answering a false alarm and another of responding to a fire. They came at a trot, in comparison with the dash which followed a real alarm. When the horses saw the men run to the indicator box and the drivers run to the engine, they knew it was the real thing.”

Fire horses required much stamina, strength and natural ability. One expert of the time said it was usually a one-in-a-hundred selection. Their training took between one and two years. Even when retired, the old fire horses never forgot the meaning of a fire alarm. On one occasion, a horse who had been retired for two years was brought to the fire house to settle a dispute. He was placed in his old stall and when the alarm was sounded, he was in his old place under the harness as promptly as he had ever done in his active days.

 

A demonstration of the efficiency of the Utica Fire Department was being staged one day in 1904 and No. 4's engine, with a three-horse hitch, was responding spectacularly to a test fire alarm in downtown Utica when, in the block between Catherine and Broad - wham! the middle horse stumbled and went down like a shot. But, before the driver, Fred Groat, could pull the reins tight enough to lessen the speed of the other two horses, the powerful center gray had scrambled to its feet, and, having suffered not even a scratch, resumed his part in the run. William Helmke, the photographer, snapped this picture, perhaps the most famous and most widely-reproduced of any picture ever taken of the Utica Fire Department or any of its apparatus.