Members of Sarnia’s Historical Society are asking city residents to contribute stories, photos and artifacts for an upcoming book about the history of Sarnia’s firefighters.
“I’ve always had a soft stop in my heart for firefighters,” said Phil Egan, a member of the society working on the project to document the history of Sarnia’s fire services.
Egan said he lost a sister, Frances, to a fire three decades ago, and the family went on to successfully push for a municipal smoke-alarm bylaw.
Egan said he had been gathering information about Sarnia’s fire history, “with the idea that, maybe, this was a history that would be worth writing.”
And now, the historical society he is a member of has taken on the project.
Egan said Sarnia’s fire history stretches back to “bucket brigades” of the 1840s, and a great deal of information can be found in back issues of The Observer, since the newspaper dates to the mid-1800s. But the society also wants local residents to help by passing along information they have about the city’s fire history.
The society’s website, www.sarniahistoricalsociety.com, already holds stories connected to Sarnia’s fire history, including one Egan wrote about an 1867 fire that destroyed half of the community’s business district, and another about a visit Port Huron firefighters made to Sarnia to help celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday in 1859.
“I was interested to discover how close the Sarnia and Port Huron fire brigades worked together during those early years,” Egan said.
“They would go back and forth on the ferries.”
He added there was a time in the 1870s when Port Huron was experiencing so many fires it was called the Matchstick City.
“Back in the day, everything was made of wood,” Egan said.
Combined with oil lamps, fire was a serious problem for the community in those early years.
Egan said one of his own memories from childhood is standing on front porch of the home where he grew up and watching Lawrence Lumber burn in the 1950s.
“I’m sure there were people who were taking pictures of some of the big historic fires in this town, and we’d like to have them for the book,” he said.
Egan said that after the recent launch of the website, society members decided a history of the fire department would be a good first major project.
He said one of the objectives of the website is to encourage members of the community to come forward with information they have about the city and its history.
“We think the public has interesting stories to tell that have some historical significance.”
The public has already been responding to the society’s call for contributions for the city fire history project, he said.
“I think it will take us, probably, a year to put this thing together, so there’s lots of time if anybody has something they think they can add to it,” Egan said.
Anyone with information or photos they would like to contribute can contact Egan by e-mail at [email protected].
“We want to tell the whole history of the fire department, right from the 1840s,” she said.
“I think telling these kinds of stories, as we develop, is important, and I think this is a good place to start.”
Original Post:
http://www.theobserver.ca/2015/09/11/sarnia-historical-society-seeking-stories-about-citys-fire-service
