#64 - Engine House 6, Prospect Hill, Lawrence, c1895

Lawrence's Engine House 6 is practical, but also residential

In 1894, Melvin Bell, chief engineer for the city of Lawrence, was concerned that the water pressure on Prospect Hill was "too low to be of any use, only supply for an engine." So he recommended that the new fire station to be built at Howard and Platt Streets house a chemical engine, one that would contain a fire until pumpers could arrive from down the hill.

Here is that station, designed by John Ashton (who also designed the fire station in Methuen). Note how well he fit the building to its neighborhood and site - the station is strong and imposing, massive enough not to be dwarfed by the Rollins School across the street, while the tall porches, long windows and dormered roof are residential forms appropriate to the neighborhood.

The tower, nicely visible down Howard Street, was a cupola to vent the hay and oats that were stored in a loft above the horses, who lived in the rear of the station. The station entrance, set at the street corner, and the curved bay with its balcony take advantage of the view. I like to imagine a firefighter raising the flag on the balcony, then standing a moment to look out over the city.

The firehouse on Bailey Street, South Lawrence, was built from the same plans, except that the tower for drying hoses was added on the left side. Both stations boast wonderful features not visible in the photograph - stained glass windows in honor of the firefighters, carved granite lintels and plaques. The inside spaces are ornately finished with brick and wood mouldings.

#63 - Methuen Firehouse, Swan and East St, c1922

Methuen firehouse rang in a new era of civic duty

This firehouse sits quietly on the land, low-key and almost ordinary, indicating that fire protection in 1922 had become part of accepted civic responsibility - no longer something to brag about.

Yet it is a building with quiet pride. Built solidly of brick, its scale is generous: large bays for the trucks, and a triple window to let light and sun into the firemen's quarters. The large windows, and doors with glass panes, also allow passersby to admire the engines. And the broad roof with its deep overhang and turned rafters, typical 1920's residential detailing, is fitting for a station serving the newly built residential neighborhoods to the west and the truck farms on the Merrimack to the east.

But the wide lintel over the doors, coupled with brackets (much simplified since Victorian times), keep the station from looking too domestic. The lintel also supports the brick above, which is laid in a decorative - decidedly not structural - herringbone pattern. A nice touch is the row of brick headers just above the lintel that continues around the corner and down the long side wall.

The architect, John Ashton, was part of the firm Ashton, Huntress and Pratt, which had offices on Essex Street in Lawrence until the 1950's. They designed many public buildings in the area, including the B&M Railroad Station in South Lawrence and the Steven Barker School.

Another interesting fact is that when the station was built, East and Swan Streets met at an angle - the safety of the driving public did not require the right angle stop that is there today.

#59 - 19 Johnson St. Firehouse, N. Andover, 1851

North Andover Firehouse is Greek Revival-style design

The current exhibit at the North Andover Historical Society details the development of the Common in the Old Center by the North Andover Improvement Society. One picture shows the firehouse, which once stood across from the North Parish Church. The Improvement Society moved the firehouse to Johnson Street in order to extend the Common to Andover Street.

The Johnson Street site is now the home of the Cochichewick Lodge, A.F.& A.M. so this seemed a simple story of how an outdated firehouse became a Masonic Temple. But when I checked with Robert Hull of the Lodge and John McQuire, who knows the history of the North Andover Fire Department, the take grew more complicated.

The station had been built in 1851, when Captain Stevens donated $800 with the stipulation that the firehouse not be moved more than a 1/4 mile from the site. Built by Jacob Chickering, it was a generous size, housing the pumpers and providing meeting space on the second floor. The horses who pulled the pumpers were brought to the firehouse by neighbors when the bells rang in the church and mill towers.
The men in this photograph have names familiar in North Andover history: Dale, Spofford, Farnum, and Stevens. Warren Stevens stand to the right, with a cane and tall hat, his hand on his hip.

(important line missing here - jgr) The lot, bought for $35., was beside the Brick Store, just over a quarter of a mile away. The extra distance was overlooked, and in 1882, the firehouse was relocated. There it stood, fire station for the Old Center, for 23 more years. What happened next must be saved for the next column.

(and the next column seems to be missing too. Sorry, I'll fix it! jgr)

#60 - Rocks Village Firehouse, Main St., Haverhill, 1861

Rocks Village fire station is a landmark in Haverhill

Rocks Village built this firehouse about 1861 in order to house a hand pumper that was no longer needed in downtown Haverhill.

The village had a general store, tavern, and the ferry, and later the bridge to West Newbury. But it did not have a church or mill, so this station included its own tower and bell to summon the firefighters. That tower, with its curved roof and Italianate brackets, is just barely within the vocabulary of Greek Revival architecture, the accepted style for public buildings since the early part of the 19th century. Indeed, the whole building seems to leap from the simplicity of Greek Revival into Victorian extravagance. The front boast not only a Palladian window on the second floor, but an oriel window in the gable, while the corner pilasters are faceted (not just plain boards), the overhang is generous, and the doors are paneled in Victorian style.

Henry Ford coveted this firehouse. He wanted to move it to his museum, Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. He did buy the bridge-tender's house (to the right in this photograph, taken before 1905) and the hand pumper. But the Firemens' Association wouldn't let him have the station. Today it is maintained by the Rocks Village Memorial Society.

Note the farmland behind the firehouse in the photograph. Those are the hills of West Newbury across the Merrimack. The bridge is to the right, and today those fields are woods.

#11 - 213 Andover St. Firehouse, Ballardvale, Andover, c1870

Ballardvale's first fire station built in unusual 'Stick Style'

This is Ballardvale's first fire station. It was built about 1870 for the mills at the dam on the Shawsheen River. It sits almost on Andover Street, just up the hill from the mill complex. This way, the pumper, which was housed here, could be rolled downhill to the mills easily by men without wasting the time required to hitch up horses. The mills processed wool and cotton, and dust was such a constant fire hazard that J.P. Bradley, the mill owner who purchased the 'hand engine' in 1859, included the fire station in his 1872 insurance report.

The fire station had a garage for the engine on the first level and a meeting room above. Buildings in the late 1800's were built from wood cut in dimensional sizes, 2 " by 4" and so on, joined together in a frame, a change from the earlier use of large posts and beams (and which you can still be seen in barn construction). Here the 'sticks' that make up the inside structure of the building also make the decoration outside - the pattern of the doors and the detail at the gable and eaves. The cross-bracing on the doors, pieces of wood which hold the panels together, become the focus of the design, repeated in the gable, where the ends of vertical boards (as well as those under the eaves) are cut in fancy patterns. The brackets supporting the roof overhang are also shaped; this building's level of decoration befits its status of importance in the community.

The engine was built in Roxbury, Mass., and first used in Cambridge. It was pumped by volunteer firemen sending water from the Shawsheen River through linen and leather hoses. The fire engine is now in the barn of the Andover Historical Society. After the fire station was no longer needed for the manual pumper, the building became a young men's club. In the 1920's it was sold by the mills for use as a dwelling, which it is today.

#58 - Barn/Firestation, 78 Maple Ave., Andover, c1840 (03/24/91)

History moves around while waiting for the future

Pieces of our history are not always where they began - our ancestors moved buildings all over, recycling them to new uses when the old ones were not longer relevant. So when Jim Batchelder, Andover native and member of the Preservation Committee of the Andover Historical Society, looked at the 1882 map of Andover (made from a bird's eye view) and saw the fire station on Main Street where the Barcelos building is today, he wondered what had happened to that wood frame, two-story station.

The Historical Society seemed to have no record. But when he went looking and found the fire station behind a house on Maple Avenue, the owners already knew the history of their barn. Not only had the story of the firehouse been passed down from owner to owner, but the evidence was there - horse stalls in the back, the hay door above the large front entry, a curved ceiling on the second floor creating a meeting room for the firemen. The trim on the corner boards, imitating columns, the flat fascia boards under the generous roof overhang, the gentle curve over the windows and doors were appropriate details for a public building in a thrifty New England town in the 1840's - some decoration, Greek Revival in honor of our democracy, but not too much.

Back at the Historical Society, the files revealed a copy of the newspaper, 'The Andover Advertiser', which reports that in early June, 1883, Mr. Cole moved the firehouse to Maple Avenue for use as his barn and carpentry shop. A new brick firehouse had been built for Andover Center behind the building we now call Old Town Hall.

(the Barcelos supermarket was replaced by a 24-hour CVS, sometime in the late 1990s - long the only place in town to buy very last-minute Christmas presents... -ed)

#62 - High Street Firehouse, 1889 (05/26/91)

Firehouses reflect taste

A brick is just a block clay, the right size for the human hand to hold and set with more bricks to build a wall. So see what Victorian bricklayers built when Haverhill constructed matching firehouses at 64 Kenoza Avenue and 123 High Street in 1889. The square little bricks became round arches and mammoth columns, the flat wall at the top became a frieze simply by pulling the bricks in or pushing them out to cast a shadow and create line and pattern. Fire stations, built and paid for by the public, are good reflections of popular taste. Here is marvelous Victorian exuberance. The capitals at the springing points of the arches, the rosettes and the false pediments with urns, all of wood, balance the weight of the brick. The tower’s steep roof becomes a backdrop for its gables, finals, and weather vane. The words “column,” “arch” and “frieze” suggest classic architecture. But as can be seen here, the Victorians reinvented the forms, barely referring to the originals in Greece and Rome. The photograph, taken in 1890 by Haverhill druggist Thomas Bailey, shows the station on Kenoza Avenue.