The early history of the Penn Yan Fire Department
Penn Yan has had some sort of organized fire protection since shortly after its incorporation as a village in 1833. In fact, the Penn Yan Fire Department of today can trace its origins to an organization established in 1835.
That fall, after a fire destroyed an early Yates County courthouse building, a meeting took place at the American Hotel (the modern-day site of Long’s Cards & Books) in which Thomas Locke called for volunteers to join what was then called Fire Engine Company No. 1. With a certificate signed by Village President Abraham Wagener – the man considered the founding father of Penn Yan – the company purchased a brake and suction engine called the Neptune. The engine, stored in a building on Elm Street (coincidentally, likely near the site of the present firehouse), joined a hand engine called the Cataract, which was kept in a shack on North Avenue.
That Cataract was part of the village’s earliest firefighting efforts, which involved the mythical but real bucket brigade. During the earliest days of the settlement that became Penn Yan, the residents of the time sought a form of fire protection and organized themselves into a bucket brigade. Leather buckets were distributed to the 300 or so homeowners who lived in the Penn Yan area at the time, and when a fire erupted in the village they were expected to seize their buckets, head to the scene of the fire, and form a bucket brigade.
It was not just a sense of duty but a local ordinance that called upon residents to keep their buckets at the ready in their homes and respond to fires with their buckets, ready to take their places in the line and hand the bucket to fight the fire. Supporting these efforts, with the rapid growth in population and constant increase in buildings, was the purchase of the Cataract. However, the Cataract complemented rather than replaced the efforts of the bucket brigade, as Lewis Cass Aldrich describes the Cataract as “but little greater power than a large ‘squirt-gun’” in his 1892 History of Yates County. Nevertheless, the Cataract was the first piece of firefighting equipment in Penn Yan and was used for 20 or so years.
While Company No. 1, with Locke as the chief engineer, continued operating the Neptune, another group of volunteers formed Cataract Company No. 2 in 1838 to take charge of that engine. In the 1840s, a wooden building went up on the north side of Chapel Street to store the engine along with a homemade hook-and-ladder truck. In those days, firefighters drew water from the Keuka Lake Outlet with leather firehoses and had just enough hose to blast a stream of water 330 feet in any direction from the corner of Main and Elm streets.
Starting in the 1850s, and into the 1860s and 1870s, the village began installing underground pipes and reservoirs to improve the water supply. However, it wasn’t until 1894 – when the system was completed – that firefighters had ample access to this water supply. In the meantime, a group of citizens formed Keuka No. 1 in 1851 and Excelsior No. 2 in 1855. While Excelsior No. 2 was situated in an engine house at the corner of Main Street and North Avenue, Keuka No. 1 was located on Main Street at the firehouse that eventually burned in 1967. During this time, the fire department purchased its third brake engine – from Wright and Company, of Rochester – in 1856 and a Button and Blake machine from Waterford in 1858.
With the purchase of Penn Yan’s first steam engine in 1871, 83 members organized Keuka Engine Company that October. The steam engine was purchased from Silsby Manufacturing Company, of Seneca Falls, a renowned manufacturer of firefighting equipment of the time. The Keuka Engine members sought permission to take charge of Keuka No. 1 and Excelsior No. 2, and later they formed themselves into a hose company called Ellsworth Hose Company. Gen. S.S. Ellsworth, the namesake, was a Civil War hero from Penn Yan.
Meanwhile, the Hydraulic Hose Company – later and still called Hydrant Hose Company – began in 1866, initially using a force pump installed in the building that became The Birkett Mills to fight fires. A hose was attached to the force pump until hydrants were placed along downtown Main Street. Early on, fire hydrants were installed only on Main Street, so Hydrant Hose responded only to fires on Main Street while Ellsworth operated the steam engine throughout the rest of the village.
The Hunter Hook and Ladder Company – named after Yates County Treasurer Charles Hunter – started in 1880 with the purchase of the fire department’s first truck. The company also took charge of the department’s ladders and other equipment. While this company and Ellsworth met in separate rooms of the Main Street firehouse, Hydrant Hose had headquarters that opened in 1886 in Struble’s Arcade. Meanwhile, the Sheldon Hose Company – named after William Sheldon – formed in 1895 and occupied the engine house on Main Street and North Avenue.
In 1905, Hydrant Hose moved its offices from the Arcade to the municipal building on Maiden Lane. About a decade later, in 1916, the company bought the department’s first motorized equipment, a Brockway hose truck with attached chemical tanks.
These four companies – Hydrant Hose, Ellsworth Hose, Hunter Hook and Ladder, and Sheldon Hose, listed in order of establishment – still make up the modern-day Penn Yan Fire Department, with the main firehouse located on Elm Street that opened in June 1969. In 1914, Penn Yan historian Walter Wolcott noted the “(Penn Yan) department of today is an active, alert organization,” with a steam fire engine, a chemical engine, a hook and ladder truck, and three hose companies. With 60 hydrants and several outlying hose houses throughout the village, as well as the water supply from Keuka Lake, “the village is capable of successfully coping with the more serious fires.”
