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When the Gong Rings |
A Fire History of Charleston,
Illinois Compiled by Howard Taylor |
A History On-Line Page by Howard Taylor
THE OLD TIME BELL STILL POSSESSES CHARM . . .
An article by the late Rep. Lee
Lynch, from his Stray Notes column,
The old time fire bell still possesses charm ... it calleth the officers together in case of emergency ... its clear tones resound over town and we are placed in a frame of mind that takes us back to the 'Tom and Alex' days— the roan horses which pulled the wagon to all blazes ... in those days, the horses and men went to blazes ... we remember the fire horses and how they would prance to the wagon and the mechanical manner in which they were harnessed . . . they would be taken on trial runs of mornings to keep them in good shape and man how they could gallop ... they were big horses, weighing 1700 or 1800 it seems to us ... anyway, the late Will Fitzpatrick bought them when they were replaced with motorized equipment and one day Will was coming to town with a load of hay when the fire bell rang. . . the team, hay and Will came to town and would have wound up at the fire, but Will got lost in the hay ...
Tom &
Alex, with usual driver Henry Snyder, taking a tour
of the distrous building collapse (1912) at the 6th and Jackson corner
of the square, where a nice parking lot exists now. The team
of horses would be taken on training runs with the Babcock to keep
them ready for action! It wasn't but a couple of years previously
that the Babcock was pulled. This could even be the new fire
wagon. Charleston had purchased a new fire wagon, and had put
the first one in storage.