The Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department
“The Formative Years”

By Ed Stokel

Fire - a word that can produce mixed emotions! The thought of coming home from a day’s work outside in the cold, chilled to the bone, and entering your nice warm home, eating a fine warm meal, taking a deliciously warm bath and ultimately crawling into a magnificently warm bed. Contrast this last statement with someone screaming the word “Fire” in the middle of the night and you awakening to discover your cozy home being consumed by flames along with everything you hold dear and possibly with all the people you hold dear! (May it never happen to you or yours.)

Should the second scenario ever occur, and it does, how comforting it is to know that all over this world there are trained people willing to get out of their beds and come to your rescue.

Since Roman times there have been fire watches, fire-fighting brigades, rescue people and emergency medical personnel to help. There is one great difference in the types of people who may come to assist you. Some are paid to do this dangerous work. Others, known as Volunteers, come as neighbor helping neighbor, whose only pay is the warm feeling of having assisted a friend in difficulty.

Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department, the first in St. Mary’s County, and therefore known today as Company 1, is such a friend, and today celebrates seventy five years of continuous volunteer service.

The tale I have to relate involves the evolution of this noble company from uncoordinated, well-meaning, untrained efforts of the citizens of Leonardtown to an organized fire-fighting force second to none.

Now, a little of the historical past. From the date of its establishment in 1710, the basic purpose of Leonardtown was to be the county seat of St. Mary’s County and therefore, it was to be the location of the County Courthouse. According to the act “establishing towns” originally dated 1683, it was also the place where duties on imports and exports would be collected.

Leonardtown was originally named Seymour Towne in honor of the Royal Governor (1704-1709), Colonel John Seymour. In 1728 when the Calvert family again ruled Maryland the town was named “Leonardtown” for the Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert. As a matter of record, the seal of Leonardtown and the identification seal of each piece of Leonardtown Fire Apparatus is taken from the Coat of Arms of Governor Seymour. The motto was thought to be very appropriate to the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department (Faithful To Duty).

From the very beginning “Seymoure Towne – Leonardtown” was basically centered around the business of the Court and tax collecting as has been observed. As the officers of the Court began to settle-in near the Courthouse and a town was formally laid out in 1730, it followed that these officers and their servants would begin to inhabit the town. As people from the county were required to come to Leonardtown to conduct court business and import and export, it followed that professional people, doctors, lawyers and storekeepers would begin to inhabit the town. Here the growth sort of ceased since this area was essentially an agricultural community. To give you a real feel for what I am implying, I found a newspaper article a number of years ago from the Washington Star newspaper in the early summer of 1904. The reporter was a feature writer. He was taking a steamboat trip from Baltimore to Washington, DC. The gist of his article was that he got off the steamboat at Leonardtown, walked up the Wharf Hill and took dinner at a hotel in Leonardtown (cost $.25). He leads off the article by saying that he had just stepped back three hundred years in history, and that even the language smacked of Cockney – English. Believe me it had not advanced much past this until the advent of the Naval Air Station in 1943.

Perhaps the first fire in Leonardtown to receive any press notice was the one that just about destroyed the St. Mary’s County courthouse in 1831 and did, in fact, destroy many priceless land records, a fact that causes legal confusion to this day. The courthouse was rebuilt the following year.

The “St. Mary’s Beacon” and “The Enterprise” newspapers, which were established in 1839 and 1883 respectively, store the records of fires from those dates. It would seem that reams of paper could be consumed recording each of the incidents pertinent to each of these fires, but their real story has to do with the conditions and motivations of the past.

In a laid-back relatively agricultural community as I have already described, life, death, birth, weather and fire are almost accepted or tolerated as facts. From the early newspaper accounts to modern times, one can literally see a people moving from “It was an act of God” to “How fast did they extinguish it”. The important details deal with the people’s reactions to such disasters in times gone by and their connections to where we find ourselves today.

In the years of reporting by the two newspapers mentioned earlier, the numbers of fires increased with the increase of population and affluence. Most of the fires of the late 1800s and early 1900s bear a fairly common pattern – they usually started as chimney fires. To enlarge on that, many of the early residences, and indeed stores, were constructed as quickly and cheaply as possible and most always of frame construction. The chimneys were made using inferior mortar and no flu linings. Combine this with the wood structure being built tight up to the chimney bricks, and as the mortar begins to disintegrate and flammable pine tar builds up in the flu, you have a structural fire waiting to happen. And they did!

One piece of advice repeated in the newspapers of those times was that every house and business structure should have a ladder tall enough to reach your roof and a good supply of water buckets. Rain barrels were also recommended as a secondary water supply. One often reads in older accounts regarding fire-fighting apparatus, about hook and ladder trucks. The hooks were used to pull the wood sheathing loose from a structure so water could reach the seat of the fire. The point of all of this discourse on fire is that people in former times were observant of buildings, theirs and other people’s in their line of vision. At the first sign of fire or smoke, buckets, ladders, and hooks were brought to bear on the scene. A shout of fire or a ringing of dinner bells and anything else that would attract attention was in order.

Here we have the beginning of the Volunteer Fire Department! The greatest danger, of course, was a shortage of water. Everyone had a dug-well but they only provide a limited supply of water. Many newspaper articles describe heroic acts performed by friends, neighbors and total strangers. It seemed that fire was everyone’s enemy. And it did not stop there. As soon as the damage was ascertained, neighbors began showing up with tools, lumber and nails to assist in getting the damaged family back on an even keel. It was all part of being a neighbor.

The first organized approach to fire protection in Leonardtown seems lost in the mist of time. I remember clearly as a young boy hearing Judge B. H. Camalier telling of his experience as a youngster prior to the Civil War. He told of rows of buckets, two ladders, and hooks being stored under the entrance steps of Old Moore’s Hotel in downtown Leonardtown. He also related the fact that there was a well with a windmill at the South end of the long park in town and a long trough for watering animals. These devices would of course be of greatest use in most heavily occupied areas of downtown Leonardtown.

For some curious reason the book “Proceeding of the Town Commissioners of Leonardtown, Maryland”, lists the election of commissioners in 1890 and only trivial matters are recorded until 29 May 1896. On that date the commissioners became aware of an act passed in the Maryland General Assembly in January of 1896. The bill authorized the Commissioners of Leonardtown to impose a real estate tax on the citizens of Leonardtown for the purpose of raising money to provide better fire protection of the town’s citizens. The town fathers became so excited about this matter that they decided to rent the “St. Mary’s Reading Room and Debating Society” building for their meetings. This building stood where the First National Bank of St. Mary’s in Leonardtown now stands.

The next move was to see how much the County Commissioners of St. Mary’s County would add to the money they could collect. To keep it short, the County Commissioners offered $100.00 per year for the next three years, a total of $300.00.

The Town Commissioners did the only logical thing they could do. They formed a committee to come up with ideas on how best to spend the money. The committee, which was comprised of attorney Joseph F. Morgan, attorney Enoch B. Abell, and contractor Joseph H. Milburn, came up with two ideas:

- Build a steel tower over the town well large enough to support a 10,000 gallon tank – this of course to be topped by a windmill plus a wood structure large enough to accommodate two small (300 to 500) gallon tanks mounted on wheels and space for hook and ladder supplies. The local construction man of that day Commissioner Joe Milburn gave a price for what they wanted but suggested that a 5,000-gallon tank would be cheaper and more reasonable. His price for the lot - $200.00

- Order a hand drawn hook and ladder truck from the Charles T. Holloway company in Baltimore. The truck was to be hand made just for Leonardtown. The total cost of the truck, spread over three years was $150.00.

As a side note, Mr. Joe Milburn, the contractor for the water tower and tank trucks, sublet the contract for the trucks to Mr. Joseph A. Dillow (a contractor) of Leonardtown. His cost for building the trucks — $4.00 each.

On 16 July 1896, President Joseph Morgan reported to the rest of the Leonardtown Commissioners that he had assembled a Volunteer Fire Company of (as he reported it) 42 white men. The group had already met and adopted a constitution and by-laws and had elected officers. The commissioners suggested that the constitution be amended to read, “The officer in charge will be entitled Fire Marshall and implied that the title would be conferred on the President of the Town Commissioners.”

1 August 1896 was another Red-Letter day – the Hook and Ladder truck arrived on the steamer “LANCASTER”. The affair was turned into a fiesta as the 42 white men hand pulled and escorted the truck into Leonardtown and gave it several laps around the park before it was parked in a stall behind Moore’s Hotel. Incidentally, in the records of the Maryland State Firemen’s Association, “The Proceedings 1893-1904” the 42 white men were insured by the Association on 29 May 1896. The insurance provided protection against injury received while fighting fire. Among the provisions was loss of one leg - $25.00, both legs - $50.00, and, if you were killed in the line of duty, your widow got $200.00.

The Hook and Ladder truck came with two chemical tanks mounted and there is a report that within the first week someone lettered “Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department” on the front tank. To the best of my knowledge, no one knows whatever became of this vehicle.

A further development in Leonardtown’s fire protection scheme occurred on 14 December 1896. Mr. Joe Milburn, who had never constructed anything like a standing tank tower, came before the Town Commissioners, resigned his office as Town Commissioner and tore up his building contract; the tower had just collapsed as he was building it. Following the tower collapse, a construction company in Philadelphia took the contract and completed the tower by March of 1897.

In the middle of all of this expense, my grandfather, Enoch Booth Abell, who was also a Town Commissioner, was drafted to put on some sort of money making scheme to hopefully pay for some of the cost. He sponsored a dinner and entertainment at the hotel, which grossed $53.00. He was so embarrassed that he resigned from the Town Commission – they reelected him. The water tower, when completed, was 14 feet high and about 9 feet in diameter at the base tapering upwards. In the end the Jesuit Fathers of Maryland paid all of the bills and let the town pay them back over a number of years.

One other new fire protection/prevention device was instituted in December of 1897. A man named George Russell was hired by the town at the rate of $2.00 per month: his job – “Roving Fire Watch.” His duties commenced at 11:30 P.M. each evening. He was to leave the downtown area at this time, walk North on Washington Street and blow a whistle as he passed Fenwick Street, White Hall, and the Gate to St. Mary’s Academy. He was then to turn West on what is now the Point Lookout Road, blowing the whistle as he turned South on Lawrence Avenue and once again as he passed Fenwick Street. He was to do the same as he passed the courthouse and then proceed down the hill to the Wharf at Breton Bay where he was also to blow the whistle. He then came back up the hill and was to blow the whistle yet another time as he passed the courthouse and return downtown. He was to repeat this process at 0200, 0400, and 0600. As he is on his patrol, he also has the responsibility of a bailiff and must enforce the law.

From 1898 to 1934, a Fire Protection Commissioner was appointed from among the Town Commissioners. Great stress was put on encouraging each citizen to arm themselves with home fire extinguishers. Pyrene seemed the fire extinguisher of choice and the Leonardtown Implement Company stocked and sold great numbers of them.

In January 1922, a demonstration was held at the South end of the long park, using a 40 gallon soda-acid type extinguisher trying to interest the town to purchase some. There is a photo of this event. As 1922 progressed into 1923-1924 and 1925, more and more of the commissioner meetings posed the question: Why not a regular in-the-ground, permanent water supply for Leonardtown?

At this point Roland B. Duke, served a series of terms as President of the Town Commissioners and a staunch advocate of going all the way with a full fledged town water and sewer system.

One other instrument of pressure to bring fire prevention/fire protection had happened on 3 February 1921 – Leonard Hall School had burned to the ground and nobody could do anything to with it. People of Leonardtown had taken great pride in the Xaverian Brothers School and their ability to control and educate boys. There was a sense of shame in our inability to combat this fire and the editors of our two county newspapers did not let us forget it. Their editorial reminders never let the Town Commissioners forget their clear duty to furnish the town with good fire protection.

Many meetings of the Town Commissioners regarding fire protection took place throughout 1921 and 1922. The theme of each meeting grew more and more serious regarding a permanent in-place fire protection system. By midyear, letters had been sent to companies in various cities. These were companies capable of installing an elevated tank and water lines to supply fire hydrants only. These letters were followed by others to the Maryland Insurance Commissioner and various insurance companies asking if insurance rates could be cut if water was installed in Leonardtown. Some answers implied that a water system was impressive but an organized fire company to use this system was more impressive and none had been mentioned.

By early 1924, the Commissioners had reached the point of retaining the services of an engineer to estimate the cost of a town water system and petitioning the State Legislature to support a bond issue to cover the cost of the venture.

By March of 1925, the Des Moines Steel Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had won the contract for $35,000.00 to build and install the water tower (100,000 – the town tank) and the piping (1,700 ft.) to the hydrants. While all of this business was transpiring another incident occurred, which was to have a lasting effect on the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department. At 6:00 P.M. on 6 January 1924, St. Mary’s Seminary burned to the ground. I will come back to this later!

On 3 July 1925, St. Mary’s Hotel experienced a fire that could have destroyed not only the hotel, but also a large amount of the downtown area of Leonardtown. Using a few sections of fire hose the town had just bought, and calling for outside help, the fire was brought under control and a great and dramatic lesson was learned. At the 19 October 1925 meeting, a motion is made by Doctor F. F. Greenwell and seconded by Colonel Duke and carried, to purchase an “Autotruck” and hose for a fire department.

The vehicle, a Ford Model-T truck, was ordered through the Leonardtown Implement Company, the Ford dealership of its day. The truck was delivered in November that same year. In 1925, with the reception of the truck, a small hose load and other firefighting equipment such as a couple of ladders, some axes, hooks, etc., were installed on the vehicle. Officers were named from the many volunteers and it would seem that all was well and the whole town could more or less relax. Well, that isn’t the way it was!

What I now relate to you came to me from the original members, each of whom I knew personally and who confided the information to me. To the average citizen, all did appear well but within the organization there was another story, and here is how I received it.

From the beginning, obviously no one had any formal firefighting training, but some of the members had high degrees of mechanical training and know-how. To those in the know, so to speak, when one in a command position, who did not know, gave an order counter to what was “known” to be logical, they found it hard to obey. And, to put it simply, blunt words were exchanged and ultimately some just stopped responding to the calls. By 1928, the situation was becoming obvious to the Town Commissioners.

Shortly before he died, Dale Cropper, one of the Charter members spent an entire afternoon with me at my home and left with me a tape-recording of him discussing the founding of the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department. And yes, I still have it! What follows is his description of the founding meeting.

From the beginning of the Department’s formation, almost all meetings (from 1925) were held in Colonel Duke’s office or store. Those people who had been named to command positions were very comfortable in this sort of element and it was difficult for anyone who wished to express an opposition opinion, to effectively put it.

Now here I interrupt this narrative to go back to something I said that told I would recall later. When St. Mary’s Seminary burned to the ground on 6 January 1924, plans were immediately drawn up to replace the school bigger and better. As a matter of fact, it took from 1924 to 1929 to complete the project. Involved in the project was a great deal of up to date heating and plumbing. There were no organizations in St. Mary’s County at that time equal to the task. Bids went out. Selected was a firm from Salisbury on the Eastern Shore, Richardson Brothers. The firm sent Mr. Roger Richardson to do the job. To make a long story short, Mr. Roger Richardson had married Miss Vera Cropper, sister of Dale Cropper of Berlin, Maryland, also on the Eastern Shore. Dale Cropper was also a plumber, and at age 22 came with his brother-in-law to work on the project. He married here and he and Mr. Richardson both stayed here for life. Dale had already been a trained member of the Berlin Volunteer Fire Department and saw the need in Leonardtown.

Dale said he saw the situation in the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department and realized that there were many willing hands out there who only needed direction. His concept was to summon 15 men that he felt were really qualified and would be most interested in joining a fire department that was its own master. In other words, he envisioned a department that did not belong to the Town Commissioners. He also felt that if he could have them meet on neutral ground where nobody had an interest and so dignified that they would feel compelled to conduct themselves as gentlemen, things would be just right. He was boarding at Mrs. Nettie Morgan’s house at the time and she and her sister, Mrs. Ida Payne, were the two most dignified ladies in Leonardtown.

He asked her if they could meet in her living room and she kindly agreed. In March of 1928, of 15 invited, only 12 showed up. He also said that he had an idea to have each member put up a small deposit of dues to belong so that they would really feel that they were bonafide paid up members of a real organization. As he calmly and quietly briefed the group, one of the members, Leroy McNey, was called out of the meeting to attend his wife to the hospital where she bore him a daughter. Dale was adamant about the fact that he considers McNey to be a charter member of what he called the “Dirty Dozen.” However, the recorded Charter members of the current Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department are:

Not only did they pass a motion to inform the Town Commissioners that they wished to be considered a body separate from the Town Government, but they also elected officers with Colonel Duke as Chief, a rank he held for 10 years.

When the original members first took over, the Ford truck was kept in Capt. Lomax’s barn behind St. Mary’s Hotel where the original Hook and Ladder truck had originally been kept. Shortly after this, Mr. Clem Mattingly had built a metal garage for his new motorized hearse and permitted the men to use this building as their first firehouse.

In actuality, the Town Commissioners still considered the fire department to be their organization to the point where they continued to name one of their members the Fire Commissioner and went on to buy a piece of land from Mr. J. G. Nuthall for a firehouse location. Colonel Duke, who was also the President of the Town Commissioners, worked with Mr. Ford Connelly to build a larger metal building on the old Nuthall property. So, for the first time, the fire department had their own home.

About this same time, a notorious bootlegger named Steve Murphy attempted to turn in front of Mr. Harry M. Jones’ store at an excessive rate of speed and wrapped his Cadillac Touring Car around a telephone pole. The vehicle was considered totaled but several of the firefighters with mechanical savvy got control of the carcass. They cut the vehicle completely in half. The front half housing the engine had not been scratched. They proceeded to cut the Ford truck in half also and succeeded in marrying the Cadillac engine to the Ford chassis and “Old Betsy” was born. I was one of the fortunate few who got to respond to fire calls on that fantastic vehicle. Barnard I. Smith and Dale Cropper were mostly responsible for the birth of “Old Betsy.”

By April of 1928, things started to happen in rapid succession. The new two-bay metal firehouse was being built, the mechanical geniuses were applying their talents to turning “Old Betsy” into a water pumper and they were realizing that you couldn’t do anything without money.

At the firehouse meetings, suggestions came thick and fast and were implemented with eager dispatch. At first, dinners, bingo parties and dances were held. Within a short time period, each firefighter had a genuine fire helmet with “LVFD” emblazoned on it, a rain slicker to cover their bodies and rubber boots to protect their feet. They looked like firefighters for real!

The fund raising never ceased, but from the start, the members realized that to be an independent organization, they were going to have to secure some real money making schemes. At his movie theater in the old town hall, Kenneth Duke let them show films about fire. People filled the hall. The first film was entitled “The Fire Brigade and the Flaming Forest.” Private donations were also gratefully accepted. The firefighters even put on Vaudeville shows.

A man named Joe Turner, who owned the Gayety Theater in Washington, DC, was also involved in sports and offered to stage boxing matches and wrestling matches in Duke’s Theater to raise money for the fire department. The incentive to draw crowds was a prize of $10.00 to anyone who could last 3 rounds with a professional boxer. This really packed them in!

With money coming in, it was voted to contact the Seagrave Company (makers of fire apparatus) to ascertain the price of a new Seagrave pumper. Seagrave sent a salesman named Mr. Cotton. Mr. Cotton took a room at St. Mary’s Hotel and did not leave until he made the sale. The truck, a 500-gallon per minute pumper, arrived late in 1928 – pride swelled in the hearts of the men. Also, the men then had an incredible need for some “real” money to pay for this truck. By the way, each firefighter had to sign the note for this truck.

It must be noted that with this first line piece of apparatus, they could answer calls from Point Lookout to the county line – and did! The first fire call I responded to in this vehicle was at Wynne, South of Ridge.

To get the “real” money, someone mentioned the word “carnival.” Mechanicsville was the area suggested for the carnival experiment. Permission was secured from the necessary people in Mechanicsville to use a piece of land. A contract was arranged with a carnival company in Washington, DC, to set up the carnival to be operated by fire department men. It was a great success and the first of others to be held on other parts of the county. On 6 July 1932, the first carnival to be held in Leonardtown was presented in the oval park in the center of town. The carnival included slot machines furnished by Harry Hoak and Whitney Combs and as they say – the rest is history.

Dale Cropper told me in a joking manner that by 1934, his wife and others were growing jealous that their husbands were spending more time at the fire house and on fire department business than at home. The women formed the “Ladies Auxiliary.” He said, that in reality, the fire department can never repay these ladies for all of the good they have given to the department.

It is only fair to note here that much of the “time”, the men were spending, was in firefighter training. Firefighting is a technical thing and as in other enterprises, technology advances with time. Gaining proficiency is ongoing, it never ends.

Another matter of interest regarding the fire department is fire alarms. Once you have a functioning fire department, how do they know where the fire is? How are they going to be summoned? The Town Commissioners working with the mechanical geniuses of the fire department and the C & P Telephone Company, solved the problem.

The remaining structure of the old town windmill was still standing at the South end of the long park in Leonardtown. Our guys rigged a fire siren, loud enough to be heard from a mile away, to the top of the windmill frame. The siren was then connected to the C & P Telephone office on the third floor of the First National Bank Building.

How did it work? People reported the location of a fire to the switchboard operator, she pressed the button activating the fire siren, and men ran to the firehouse. The first man to arrive at the firehouse rang the operator, who told him the location of the fire. He then wrote this information in chalk on a large blackboard. As soon as a driver arrived, the crew was suited up and in position on the fire truck.

As an aside, the siren brought about other values of the firemen – one evening, two men forced their way into the switchboard office and began to annoy the operators. Without panic one of them pressed the fire alarm button. When the firefighter called the operator, she calmly explained the need for help. Within three minutes, several firefighters carrying axes walked into the office. Case closed!

On 23 April 1933, the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department notified the Leonardtown Commissioners in writing that no financial assistance would be needed from the town for the coming year. And on 3 July 1933, Mr. Benjamin Kennedy Abell read his letter of resignation to the Town Commissioners. He was the last person to bear the title Fire Commissioner of Leonardtown.

By February of 1934, the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department was well aware that there was a need for a more permanent building to house not only the apparatus they now had, but also, any that may come in the future. A need for a meeting room, toilet facilities, and public functions was clearly seen. The Town Commissioners pledged to endorse the money the fire department was going to borrow for the venture. By August of 1934, the Commissioners of Leonardtown sold the metal firehouse to Mr. Clem Mattingly for $125.00. Mr. Mattingly let the fire department continue to use the building on his land until the new firehouse was completed.

The date was 23 June 1938, when the new brick firehouse on Fenwick Street was completed. The Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department presented in writing, on that day, a request to the Leonardtown Commissioners that the title to the new fire department building, just completed and paid for by them, and the land on which it sits be conveyed to them. The Town Commissioners agreed and the title was passed. To this date, the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department is its own master.

In 1938, a new Seagrave pumper was bought and all three bays of the new firehouse were full. Just as full were the hearts of the men and women who had worked so hard to accomplish all of this.

It was at this point that I entered the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department, in a manner of speaking, under Colonel Duke’s direction. He and other senior members noticed that certain young men were interested in the department to the point that they showed up at the end of many fire runs. They helped clean up the trucks, sweep out the firehouse, scrub dirty hose, and on many occasions, wax and polish the fire trucks. By showing such interest, we youngsters, who had achieved the age of 16, were admitted as Junior Members and permitted to receive firefighting instructions and when deemed ready, were permitted to suit up and respond to fire calls with the regulars.

I entered in 1941 and served until I entered the U. S. Navy in 1943. The training and experience I received, served me well in the U. S. Navy. I ended my time in the Navy as a “Crash Chief” on an aircraft crash crew on the West Coast. When I was discharged, I accepted a position as a professional firefighter at NAS Patuxent River, MD.

I would be remiss in ending my part of this history if I did not recall all of the efforts of all the men and women who, over all these years, have given so much of themselves to their community. But of all the people who really should be listed by name, the names of those pioneers, Barney Smith and Dale Cropper, who literally “knitted” a fire truck, and Colonel Duke and Mr. Harry M. Jones, who were the ongoing “father-figures,” will live in my memory.