“THE BUCKET BRIGADE”
First Recollection of Fire Department

By Judge B. H. Camalier

My first recollection of the Fire Department of Leonardtown was during the fifties, when its only means of “fighting fire” was the possession of two long ladders, a fire hook and twenty-four strong wooden buckets. These ladders, hooks and buckets were sacredly kept under the front porch of the “Old Moore’s Hotel,” now Hotel St. Mary’s, and were zealously guarded by a committee of citizens appointed by the Commissioners of the town.

If any bucket should be borrowed or removed from its accustomed place under the porch, it was the duty of the committee to investigate the same at once and to charge the “taker or borrower” twenty-five cents per day for each day it should be missing. This had a good effect among the citizens and seemed to arouse them all to a strict observance of this law. We can recall several contested and heated cases before Justices of the Peace arising from a violation of this law.

Our people, always ready and willing to aid one another in all times of distress, turned out at every blaze and did noble work in extinguishing fires that would seem impossible at times to be checked, even by organized firemen in the cities.

When the Siren was sounded, being the two hotel bells (and often the Church bells caught up their echo), the whole town turned out to assist. Such an occasion was when the “Old Moore’s Hotel” was in flames and the town seemed destined to destruction. The chief of the fire department of Washington, who happened to be here visiting his son (James A. McCatheran), remarked, “that the spirit of our people, he believed, exceeded anything he had seen in his organized department and he stood in admiration and wonder at their great work.”

We were proud of our people and the simple ladders, hooks and buckets under the “old porch.” We were prouder that our gallant and sacrificing young men of the vicinity were caught up in the spirit of their “fathers”. They were pushing on with all the vigor of the firemen of great cities in protecting not only the people of the town, but also all the homes and firesides of their dear old mother county.

They deserve the admiration of every man, woman and child. May success attend their noble work and God save them from the dangers that surround them is my most earnest prayer.