The History

Of

The Bath Volunteer Fire Department

Portions of this history of the Bath Fire Department was taken from a newspaper article published at the time of the Semi-Centennial of the department in the year 1887.  Also, from The Heritage of Bath, N.Y. 1793-1993, Discovering the Facts, Families, & Folklore.

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The Village of Bath has a long history within the State of New York.  In 1793 work began to clear the land to later become the settlement of Bath.  Bath became an incorporated Village by an act of the Legislature on May 6, 1836.  Bath was not one year old, as an incorporated village, when on May 18, 1837, a special meeting of the trustees met to consider the best method to organize a fire department.  It was voted to allow the trustees to raise up to $500 to purchase apparatus, dig wells and buy a fire engine, provided it could be bought on two years credit.  The trustees met the following day and sanctioned the its first fire company.  The ordinance would provide for a fire department of 20 men with one foreman and an assistant.   

It was later determined that the Village was unable to purchase a fire engine on credit, so  fifty buckets were made for the first organization, by John Abel, out of sole leather. The finished buckets were painted drab on the inside, black outside, and were plainly numbered, in yellow, from one to fifty.  He undertook to manufacture regulation firemen's hats, but failed, and wool hats were substituted.  The company was constituted as follows:  

The pioneer fire company was a success, and so impressed upon the villagers the necessity of having adequate apparatus, that on August 29, 1839, they voted an appropriation of $1,000 to purchase a fire engine, dig wells and buy pumps and buckets.  The machine was built by Lewis Seely of Rochester , under contract.   L.H. Read and Lewis Biles, as purchasing committee, made the journey to that place, by stage through the woods and past occasional lonely log houses standing in choppings, to Dansville and thence by packet boat.  The Village took delivery of their first fire engine in September of 1839 for the cost of $400. The wonderful engine so pleased the village fathers and astonished natives by its marvelous performance, that an extra $60 was paid to the manufacturer.  It was a low box on wheels, with brake screws on either side, and required the services of twelve men to operate it.  Although the President of the Village was authorized in 1837 to purchase land and erect a building to house this new engine, no records exist to where the new apparatus was housed at the time.

And so, the Bath Volunteer Fire Department was a success.  The following additional pages will take you through more detailed history of our fine department....

Hose Companies    History Photo Page    Disastrous Fires