COLONIAL AMERICA'S BIGGEST FIRE

BOSTON, 1760

In the days of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, big fires regularly destroyed towns and cities, but no city burned more than Boston.

Between Boston's founding in 1630 and the start of the American Revolution in 1775, fires regularly devastated large sections of the city. It's not hard to see why. The Puritans who settled on Boston's hilly Shawmut Peninsula used wood from nearby forests to build practically everything — houses, churches, and shops. They even used it to make chimneys. And the colonists cooked meals and heated their homes with open fireplaces full of wood crackling and popping. At night, candles and oil lamps provided light.

Colonial Boston had its first recorded fire in 1631, when a chimney caught fire and burned a house down. Soon afterward the colonies had their first fire code: "noe man shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover his house with thatch." New regulations followed each big fire. Boston's Board of Selectmen, which was like a city council, required residents to clean their chimneys regularly. The selectmen also decreed that "no dwelling house in Boston shall be erected and set up except of stone or brick and covered with slate or tyle."

In 1678, the selectmen purchased the latest firefighting equipment, an English-made "hand tub fire engine." At the time the word engine simply meant a tool or instrument. It was a rectangular wooden vessel with a pump, a short leather hose, and handles on each side for carrying. During a fire, a line of men, women, and children, which was called a bucket brigade, drew buckets of water from a creek or well and passed them to firefighters to fill the engine. Several men pumped the engine while one held the hose, which spurted water 15 to 20 feet.

The selectmen chose a dozen men to operate the engine. The man in charge was called the engineer. They were paid for each fire they fought, which gives Boston its claim to having had America's first paid firefighters.

Some twenty Bostonians in 1718 organized a mutual fire society, pledging to help one another if a fire started in their homes or shops. The rules required that "each Member confidently keep together in good Order in his Dwelling House, Two Leather Buckets, a Bed Winch, and two Bags." During a fire, the society's members filled their bags with dishes, clothing, and other small items. With the winches, they dismantled beds, often a family's most valuable possessions.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, and at age five he witnessed the Great Fire of 1711, which destroyed some one hundred buildings in the center of town. In 1736, as an adult living in Philadelphia, Franklin helped to organize America's first volunteer fire company, the Union Fire Company. Franklin's firefighters were "Brave men, men of Spirit and Humanity, good Citizens or Neighbours, capable and worthy of civil society, and the Enjoyment of a happy Government." Boston and other colonial cities soon organized their own volunteer fire companies.

As in Philadelphia, Boston's volunteers included the town's leading citizens. "It is of some Importance in Boston," noted John Adams, America's second president, "to belong to a Fire Clubb and to choose and get admitted to a good one." Many Bostonians who distinguished themselves in the American Revolution, such as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere, were volunteer firefighters.

Boston also organized nighttime street patrols or fire watches. This practice dated back to ancient Rome, when men on night patrol were called "vigils" because they were vigilant, or watchful. Time is of the essence when fighting a fire. By discovering a blaze quickly, alerting residents, and summoning firefighters, vigilant patrols saved property and lives.

In the spring of 1760, Boston's population of fifteen thousand people made it the third-largest city in the colonies. In addition to its building codes, mutual societies, and night watchmen, the city had nine fire engines and about one hundred volunteer firefighters. The city appeared prepared but wasn't.

The regulations requiring that dwellings and shops be built of brick or stone had never been strictly enforced. Many buildings along the narrow, winding streets in the oldest part of Boston were wood. In fact, wood was everywhere. Stacks of logs for heating and cooking sat beside every house and shop. Plus, bakers, blacksmiths, brewers, coopers, and tanners kept piles of logs for their ovens and furnaces.

Little rain had fallen for several weeks, so all of this combustible material was especially dry. Making conditions worse, a strong March wind blew across the peninsula.

At 3:00 A.M. on Thursday, March 20, a watchman saw flames in the Brazen Head Tavern and Inn on Pudding Lane in Cornhill, a neighborhood between the Boston Common and the harbor. The fire probably started when embers popped out of the inn's fireplace. Summoned by church bells, firefighters carrying ladders and buckets and pulling engines, which were now on wheels, ran to Pudding Lane. Unable to save the Brazen Head, the men tried to stop the fire from spreading.

The firefighters threw water on neighboring buildings and used their hooks and chains to pull down several shops and homes to create a firebreak. A firebreak is an open space cleared as much as possible of flammable material. The demolished buildings also made it easier for firefighters to soak the rubble and extinguish firebrands as these airborne embers landed. But that night, nothing worked.

A sailor from Nova Scotia named David Perry described the scene in his journal: "While we were here the town took fire in the night ... the wind in the north-west and pretty high; and in spite of all we could do with the engines, &c. it spread a great way down King's Street, and went across and laid all that part of the town in ashes, down to Fort Hill. We attended through the whole, and assisted in carrying water to the engines."

The inferno lit up the sky. People sixty miles north of Boston reported seeing the red glow. By dawn, the fire was "a perfect torrent of flame," recalled Bostonian William Cooper. "It is not easy to describe the Terror of that Fatal morning.... The distressed Inhabitants of those Buildings wrapped in Fire scarce knew where to take refuge."

At the harbor, about half a mile from where it started, the fire burned Hallowell's Shipyard and Wendell's Wharf, where a storehouse full of gunpowder exploded. The blaze destroyed one sailing ship and damaged nine others before burning out at...