The third alarm; a story of the New York fire department, with an introduction on the life and career of John James Bresnan, a batallion chief of the New York city fire department

Front matter

JOHN J. BRESNAN

CHIEF OF THE SIXTH BATTALION, NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT KILLED DECEMBER 29TH, 1894

THE

Introduction

JOHN JAMES BRESNAN.

A NEW YORK FIREMAN.

LARGE part of the practical information

** on the. subject of fires and fire-fighting contained within this book was furnished to the author by the late John James Bresnan, at that time Chief of the Sixth battalion of the Fire Department of the City of New York, and it was to him, a “New York fireman,” that the “Third Alarm” was dedicated at the time of its first printing in 1893. A year later Chief Bresnan was killed at a fire; and, in view of his tragic death while in the performance of duty as well as of the distinguished services rendered by him to the department that he served and the city that he loved, it has seemed fitting that the dedication to this new edition of the book that he inspired should take the form of a brief memorial, setting forth, not only his eminent services, but also those traits

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of character which made him loved and respected in life and sincerely mourned in death.

There is, moreover, a deeper purpose in the preparation of this brief sketch of a worthy life than the mere commemoration of what one man has done in the line of duty, and that is to show that this man was really what the original dedication of the book said he was — “ a typical fireman ” — and that what he was other firemen may become also. For the qualities of courage, sobriety, loyalty, modesty, mental and physical alertness and a complete, unselfish and unswerving devotion to duty which he possessed in the very highest degree, are to be found to a greater or lesser extent in every man who is drawn by natural sympathy into the profession of fire-extinguishment. And I will venture to say that there is not a fire company in any town in the land that cannot boast of at least one member who has in him the makings of a John Bresnan.

Born in Ireland in the year 1841 of respectable, hard-working parents, and brought to this country when only three years of age, John Bresnan grew up in the famous old Sixth ward in which are preserved to this day as much of the spirit of old-time New York as can be found in any part of the town. And if there be any-

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xi thing characteristic of this old-time spirit, now, sadly enough, rapidly passing away, it is the love of fire-fighting ; and, in the old days of the volunteer department, the Sixth was a veritable hotbed of this fire feeling. Bresnan became imbued with it at a very early age and in his seventh year had constructed for himself a small fire engine which he used to drag to all fires. One of his boyhood friends well remembers him in those days, flying in the wake of the noisy fire companies with his little wooden engine at his heels, with the same swiftness and enthusiasm that characterized him up to the very last moments of his life.

It is not easy for those who have grown up under newer conditions to comprehend the strong hold that the old volunteer fire department had on the New York of this by-gone day, and especially on its boys and young men, nearly every one of whom owed an allegiance — more or less shadowy — to some fire company. Indeed, among the small boys of the lower wards the question, “what engine do you run with?” was equivalent to a demand for social passports.

Although more than forty years have passed since the introduction of the paid department, the old volunteers still keep up their organizaxii

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tion and are always sure of a popular ovation when they turn out at parades with their old fire hats, their trumpets and ancient “ machines.” Harry Howard, the last of a long and honored line of volunteer fire chiefs, survived the organization nearly thirty years, and was, till the very last, a picturesque and well-known figure in these parades and a person of real distinction on the East side where seats were always reserved for him in the popular playhouses, and where he was personally known to the entire community.

In his “ Recollections of a Player” the veteran actor, James H. Stoddart, had the good fortune to board with one of these old-time New York firemen, a certain James Smith who lived in Marion, now Lafayette street, and thus describes his host :

“I found him a charming person. He was a product of the times, not polished, but manly and good, a typical American of a class then common but now seldom seen — a Democratic politician, a contractor, a fireman, and, in fact,

4 one of the boys/ He used to keep his fireman's helmet hanging over his head while he slept and his boots close by so that he could jump into them at a moment's notice; and when he heard an alarm of fire, in three leaps he was

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xiii at the bottom of the stairs. He was never so much in his glory, as when running 4 wid de machine/ ”

As may easily be imagined, the disbandment of the volunteers and the introduction of the paid fire department, awakened a storm of protest and resentment, not unlike that which marked the substitution of railways for the old-fashioned English stage coach lines. Some of the companies marked their disapproval by running their machines into the Harlem River, and it is safe to say that all agreed in predicting disaster for the new order of things. Yet the survivors of the old department — the men who used to sleep with boots and helmet beside them — realize now that the paid department has attained a degree of efficiency that would have been impossible in a volunteer service.

John Bresnan was barely twenty when he joined the volunteers, but he had already had no small experience in fire-fighting as one of the many boys who “ran with” the old Leonard street hose company, afterward Engine Company No. 31 of the present department. The Civil War broke out soon after his enrollment and for a few months he wore the uniform of a private soldier, but the love of fire-fighting was strong within his breast and as soon as he could obtain

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telligent mastery of the subject, in so impressing his views upon the fire commissioners and others in authority that his suggestions eventually became laws. At his instigation, and under his guidance, the fire commissioners were taken to the different theatres and the defects of the buildings made apparent to them. He proved to them that a certain proportion of the roof over the stage should be of glass so that in the event of fire, if the skylight were not at once opened, the glass would crack with the heat and form a vent to allow the flame and smoke to escape harmlessly instead of filling the auditorium to the point of suffocation. He showed them also the necessity for the many details in structural arrangement of the stage and the auditorium, and explained the various means and appliances for safety. And it is owing to many of the arrangements and devices suggested by Chief Bresnan that theatre audiences enjoy better protection in New York than in any other city in this country.

Bresnan was, in truth, not only a typical New York fireman, but the very highest exemplification of what a modern, scientific firefighter should be. He was born a fireman and was never anything else, for his whole soul was wrapped up in his work.

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It has been said of him by Mr. Richard Watson Gilder who, as we shall see hereafter, had reason to know him and to put a proper value on the services that he rendered to the town, that “ he knew the botany of a fire ; he knew its seed and stalk and flower, the effects of different methods of construction upon it.”

All this Bresnan knew, but unlike many reformers and pessimists and “ muck rakers ” he could not only detect a wrong but suggest or invent a remedy, and whenever he attacked an evil he attacked it scientifically and at its very root. Although denied the advantages of a liberal education, he possessed a mathematical mind by which he was able to estimate almost at a glance and with extraordinary accuracy the origin of a fire, the direction in which it was heading and the extent to which the flames had spread. And, once estimated, he was none the less quick in deciding where it should be attacked and in sending his men to the spot.

His mind was, moreover, inventive to a very high degree and besides what he did quietly and unostentatiously for the protection of audiences, he may be credited with an improved form of hose hoist for taking the hose over sharp projections; a revolving distributing nozzle, very valuable for fires in cellars, ship-

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xviii holds, and other places where firemen cannot go because of the smoke; and two or three inventions which are now in general use. The quick-harnessing apparatus and the sliding pole originated in the West, but Bresnan’s quick appreciation of their merits and the insistence with which he urged their adoption by the New York fire department must be placed to his credit. To him speed was everything; a second gained in time, something of immeasurable importance, its loss a blunder almost as bad as a crime. By some he was regarded as excitable, but those who worked under him soon learned that his extraordinary physical vigor and apparent impulsiveness were due to the fact that his mind and body acted at almost the same instant, and that he could think and do without the loss of a fraction of a second. He believed in speed, not only in going to a fire but in returning, because he realized the importance of having his men, his horses and his apparatus all ready for response to a sudden call.

I have said that Bresnan was a born fireman and nothing else, but I might have qualified this statement by explaining that he had certain well-defined tastes and interests of the kind that other men regard as pastimes but which in his case were invariably in the form of some legit-

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xix imate outgrowth of his calling. Above all things he loved the fire department, of course with the exception of the three motherless children who lived with him and over whom he watched with the solicitude that is well exemplified by an anecdote related after his death by the man who had been for years his driver.

“ Whenever an alarm came in from the district where his children lived the chief never waited for his wagon, and what’s more, I could never drive fast enough to catch up with him ; and, when the fire was over and I started to drive him home, he always turned to me and said, as if apologizing: 'Well, they ain’t got any mother, you know.’ ”

After his children and the fire department, Bresnan loved the city in which he had grown up; and as a part of that city he took a deep interest in the literature descriptive of it, in its playhouses and players, in its old-time landmarks, its new and improved buildings and in its politics. The theatres having been a special study of his, he used to spend a good deal of his spare time in the different playhouses. He was seldom known to occupy a seat but was often to be found standing, either in the lobby or else in the wings, and always an attentive and appreciative listener. In this way he came i t4*l

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“ If I could have an entire audience of Bresnans there is nothing that I could not accomplish in play-writing/’

By which he meant that an audience made up entirely of those who had never become blase through worldliness and constant theatre-going, but had retained the naivete and simplicity of youth, still cherishing the illusion of the stage while learning to appreciate its art, would give to a dramatist the highest possible incentive, and to his work illimitable possibilities.

Curiously enough, continual play-going, coupled with a close study of the machinery of the theatre, the make-up of the actors and the various tricks and devices of stagecraft, never seemed to rob the great fire chief of his illusions or to kill the sympathies excited within his breast by the mimic scene. A keen lover of comedy, he was perhaps even keener in his fondness for the emotional or moving drama, and, of all modern plays, Bronson Howard’s “ Shenandoah ” was nearest to his taste. There is a scene in this play in which a Confederate soldier is brought on the scene merely that he may utter a few words and then die. And this little bit of acting made such a deep impression on Bresnan that he could not bear to see it. I have known him to leave his place in the lobby xxii INTRODUCTION.

at the approach of this pathetic moment because, as he said : “ It kind of makes me fill up.” He would even stand in the wings talking to the actor who played the part until the latter made ready for his last agony when he would disappear through the stage door and remain until his watch told him that the scene was over, after which he would return and take up the conversation, satisfied that there would be no further strain on his sympathies.

John Bresnan’s knowledge of the city of New York was greater and more thorough than that of any man that I have ever known. To drive \Vith him through the town, and especially through the East side or other of its older settled portions, was to receive at first hand an object-lesson in municipal history. Of course, he had the history of the old volunteer department as well as that of its successor at his finger's ends. And to know this history is to know a great deal of what has made the town lively, interesting and theatric during the past hundred years. And John Bresnan having absorbed these and other annals of the metropolis into his accurate, mathematical mind, could point out the scene of every crime, fire or sensational happening that the town had ever known. He could recite the history of such crimes as

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the Nathan murder or the killing of Bill Poole in his own racy speech and in a manner peculiarly his own that left those tragic happenings indelibly impressed upon the memory. He was, moreover, the most accurate as well as the most picturesque and interesting of historians. To him New York, its streets and alleys, its gangs, its poor, its millionaires, its parks and its tenements were sacred ground, and he held in unmitigated contempt those superficial writers of unworthy fiction who made sad messes of facts and localities.

“ Why do they let those fellows write those things ? ” he inquired pathetically after reading a story written by some incompetent who had built up a false reputation for his marvelous “ local color/’ He did not ask why they wrote “ those things,” but why they were permitted to write them, as if he assumed that they were irresponsible and therefore under restraint.

On his days off he used to take long walks through the town, not as an idle stroller but in order to piece out his enormous fund of information with additional odds and ends of a kind that might some time aid him practically in his work. Once while riding with him down Fifth avenue he amazed me by pointing out in the great houses that we passed the rooms in

XXIV which their owners and the members of their families slept. I did not at the time realize the value of this sort of knowledge or appreciate the keen interest in duty that prompted its acquisition, but a very short time afterwards it was all revealed to me. A fire broke out in the building occupied by a famous Catholic Brotherhood, and Bresnan, arriving ahead of his men, saw at once that the fire, which was in the basement, must be filling the sleeping rooms upstairs with smoke. He darted upstairs to the room where two of the Brothers slept and was just in time to save one of them from suffocation. It was learned afterwards that his little son went to school there and that he had long since carefully questioned the boy as to the locality of the sleeping rooms in order that he might be prepared for just such an emergency as that which finally occurred.

It was a fortunate thing for the members of the Tenement House Commission of 1893 that Chief Bresnan was detailed to take them through the crowded portions of the town, show them how the building laws were evaded, make plain to them the fire danger to which the tenement dwellers were exposed and — most important of all — suggest sane remedies for whatsoever was wrong. Bresnan, who had

XXV long been thoroughly familiar with the entire subject, threw himself into the work of the commission with the same enthusiasm that had inspired him when dealing with the safety of theatre audiences ; and led Mr. Gilder, Mr. Post and Dr. Edson up the narrow and dangerous tenement house stairs, just as in previous years he had led the fire commissioners up to the fly galleries over the theatre stages. In addition to this, he insisted upon taking them with him to fires in the congested district and giving them object-lessons of the awful danger that threatened whenever flames broke out. The consequence was that this commission set about its work of legislative reform, equipped with such a thorough knowledge of every phase of the subject in hand that nearly every one of its suggestions eventually became enrolled on the state statute books.

A quality that Bresnan possessed in the highest degree, and one, too, that is essential in a great fireman, was judgment. He was always able to extinguish a fire with as little loss through fire and water as possible and he knew also the precise extent of his authority as chief in charge of a fire. When warned, as he frequently was, by some ignorant householder, not to trespass on private property, he would

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respond: “Well, this property belongs to the New York fire department just now,” and would proceed to take charge of it without further delay.

One one occasion he was summoned to the Manhattan Club, then situated at Fifteenth street and Fifth avenue, where he found that the fire had started in the flues and was eating its way through the beams and floor of the club parlor.

“ Don’t touch that floor ! ” cried a club member, a well-known judge of the Supreme Court, as Bresnan raised his axe. “ It is a part of the deck of the old ‘ Constitution/ and we don’t propose to see it smashed into splinters.”

“ The only constitution I know now is that of the New York fire department,” replied the chief testily as he pushed the judge aside and attacked the floor at the proper spot, which he had gauged so accurately that within a very few moments the flames were completely extinguished, and with the very least loss.

And it is pleasant to record the fact that after his death the Manhattan Club raised several thousand dollars for the fund contributed for the relief of his family.

Promotion had not come easily to John Bresnan. He had been made chief of battalion

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xxvii in 1880, and ever since then he had been hoping for the appointment of deputy chief of the department — a position which would have materially enlarged the scope of his activities and placed him a step nearer the goal of his honorable ambitions — supreme command of the entire department, a place filled at that time by one of the best and most competent fireman New York has ever known, Chief Bonner. But it was not until the close of the year 1894 that circumstances conspired to place this well deserved prize in his hands. One bitter cold night in that year — the 28th of December, to be precise — Bresnan met one of his most intimate friends and exclaimed as he saw him: “ I’ve got the greatest news in the world ! I’m going to be made deputy chief to-morrow morning ! ”

His friend had already heard rumors of the appointment from another source, but, knowing also the uncertainty of all human things, did not dare to confirm the news lest he should raise hopes that could never be gratified. Meanwhile Bresnan, greatly elated at the thought that the ambition of his lifetime was about to be gratified, seated himself by the fire and remained in earnest conversation on departmental matters and certain advanced xxviii

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methods of fire-fighting until the stroke of midnight, when the sharp clang of the gong in one of the stations “ struck,” and with a quick : “ I’m off! ” he darted through the front door and in another moment was whirling on toward an early morning fire. Twenty minutes later, the blaze having been easily extinguished, he returned with his company to their quarters in Thirteenth street, only to be called out again, almost immediately, to a fire in a bakery in Eleventh street. From this they returned after two hours and a half of hard, dangerous, bitterly cold work, for as the night advanced the cold grew more and more intense while the wind rose higher and higher. Bresnan and his men had scarcely changed their soaked and icy clothing when another alarm came, this time from a huge building running from Twenty-third to Twenty-fourth street, about one hundred and fifty feet west of Sixth avenue. They found that the fire had broken out on the fourth floor and was blazing so fiercely that they were driven back by the smoke and flames three times before they had it under control and felt safe in going up a floor higher. The building was used as a factory but the danger was very great as other adjacent buildings were threatened.

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Chief Bresnan, with Engine Companies No. 14 and No. 18, and Hook and Ladder Company No. 5, and a Company of the Insurance Patrol, the Chief in the fore-front, fighting every inch of their ground, forged their way to the Twenty-fourth street stairway of the interior of the building. They reached and gained a foothold on the fourth floor. Here with the Chief directing the operations of these companies, and with the aid of the firemen working with streams direct from windows looking in upon this floor, he succeeded in keeping in check such fire as existed there, and sensibly reducing it to the point where it was safe to leave it.

His purpose was to gain the higher floors. The great body of fire yet menaced these, and he was anxious to make an attack there with direct streams at immediate range. Thus again he took his accustomed position at the head of his companies, making the same effort and tactics by which he had won his way through the interior of the building thus far to reach the upper floors. He kept a close eye on the stairs for a line of retreat for his men should any back draught or sudden and unexpected increase of flame, or other cause, compel their instant retreat.

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All the companies were working sturdily, Bresnan calling to his men: “Come ahead, 14; we can make the stairs ! Look out for the line !” All resolutely pushed forward, when, without a moment's warning, a large water-tank on the roof of the building, resting on a girder and weakened by the fire beneath it, crashed through the roof into the sixth floor and fell to the fifth. In its fall it threw down heavy beams, dislodging them and a great quantity of iron gas pipe.

Assistant Foreman Rooney, of Hook and Ladder Company No. 5, was instantly killed. The fall of this mass of matter buried Chief Bresnan beneath it. The men of the companies working on this floor had the narrowest escape, the concussion resulting from this great crash of matter literally throwing them down the stairway and causing serious injury to a number of them.

The efforts of his comrades to rescue Bresnan, heroic as they were, were fruitless, and the lamented Chief Bresnan died in the performance of his duty.

The two men perished at half past four in the morning, and at six the friend with whom the dead chief had passed the evening, exultant over the good fortune that was in store for him,

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xxxi was awakened to hear the sad news. By eight o’clock, the tragic happening of the night had spread a gloom over that wide section of the town in which the Sixth battalion has its headquarters and in which Bresnan had been for years a well-known figure. Not in my memory has the death of any citizen of New York brought forth such abundant and sincere expressions of grief and regret or awakened such a widespread sense of personal bereavement. And, as is frequently the case with men of really high character and pure, unselfish motives, it was not until he was gone that we fully realized how great had been his modesty, how high his sense of duty, and how much he had deserved at the hands of the community whose lives and property he protected.

At the battalion headquarters that morning I found nearly all of the survivors on duty, though two or three bore the marks of what they had gone through the night before. One of these took me upstairs and pointed reverentially to the two reports that Bresnan in pursuance of his regular custom had made of the two fires that he had attended that morning before going to the one that proved his last.

“ The Chief wrote those,” said the fireman simply.

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I asked him how many lives he thought Bresnan had saved during his career, but he could give no estimate.

“ It’s this way,” he said. “ The Chief had to make one of these reports after every fire and he never would write himself down as saving a life. Sometimes he’d give the name of a man at the foot of the ladder but he never would take the credit to himself. Somehow it seemed as if he couldn’t do it. I know he’s saved between twenty and thirty people since I came here and that’s ten years ago, but you’ll never find mention of one of them in his own reports.”

The funeral of the two firemen was held at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Fifteenth street, and was attended not only by firemen of every grade in the department, but also by citizens who represented literally every rank of metropolitan life. At a benefit given for the families of the two men a few weeks later, eighteen thousand dollars was raised and devoted to the support and education of the children of both.

James L. Ford.

THE THIRD ALARM.

Chapter I

* c T""\0 you see that boy sitting on the ^ curbstone over the way ? Well, he's been there for the last half hour, and I'd just like to know what he’s up to. Run over, Charley, and ask him what he wants."

It was John Trask, a chief of battalion in the New York Fire Department who addressed these words to his subordinate, Charley Weyman, one pleasant afternoon in early spring, and the boy to whom he referred had been sitting for some time on the curbstone across the street from the hook and ladder company’s quarters, peering anxiously through the open door which afforded him a view of the hook and ladder truck, the horses quietly munching their hay, and, in the rear room, half a dozen firemen seated about a table talking, reading or playing checkers.

The boy, who seemed to be about fifteen years of age, looked as if he had just reached town after a long and weary walk. His clothes were torn and travel-stained, and there was a

THE THIRD ALARM.

gaunt, hungry look in his face that spoke unmistakeably of want and privation. It was this look and the boy’s dejected attitude which had first attracted the chiet’s attention for he feared that he might be waiting for a chance to get into the building, and steal what he could lay his hands on.

“There’s something queer about that kid,” he continued, half to himself, as he watched Weyman cross the street and enter into conversation with him. “ Hulloa ! he’s bringing him over here ; he must want to see somebody,” and just then the fireman entered leading the boy with him.

“He says he wants to see you, chief,” said Weyman. seating himself in an arm-chair while the boy stood with his hat in his hand waiting respectfully for the other to address him.

“Well, my boy,” said the chief of battalion in a kindly voice, “ what can I do for you ?”