-
- This column by John Cosway
is a mix of 50 years of media memories and 15 years of buying
and selling experiences via live and online auctions, flea markets,
antique stores and markets etc
|
|
      
-
- Cosway's Corner -
Honouring Canada's fallen firefighters
-
- Honouring all of Canada's fallen firefighters
-
- By John Cosway
In the early hours of Nov. 22, 1848,
volunteer firefighter William Thornton quickly responded
to the fire bell at St. James Cathedral in Toronto.
-
- Thornton and fellow firefighters
gathered at Toronto's first local fire station on Church Street
before heading to the 1 a.m. fire, raging in a row of brick buildings
on King Street.
-
- The firefighters pulled two
hand-pump engines to the scene, while horse-drawn tankers delivered
water from Lake Ontario.
-
- Reports say the fire started
in Webb's Shoe Shop and the owner, who lived above the store,
ran shouting into the street and to St. James where he rang the
church bell.
-
- The fire quickly spread to Campbell
& Hunter Saddler, Mr. Hall's Dry Goods and two houses left
vacant following a previous fire. Firefighters saved 107 King
Street, which still stands today.
-
- For Thornton, it was his last
alarm. While fighting the blaze, a "heavy stone facade"
collapsed on him causing severe head injuries. Carried to the
fire hall by another firefighter, a "Dr. Telfer"
did what he could for Thornton before sending him home.
-
- Thornton died two days later.
On Nov. 26, 1848, he was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave
in St. James Cemetery during a full Toronto Fire Brigade funeral.
-
- Little is known about Thornton,
other than his mother and two sisters, whom he had been supporting,
survived him. Fellow firefighters passed the hat and raised funds
for them.
-
- Life went on, Toronto grew by
leaps and bounds and Thornton's grave in a corner of St. James
Cemetery remained unmarked, passersby never knowing a firefighter
who gave his life battling a major downtown blaze was interred
there.
-
- It would take another firefighter,
some 155 years later, to help give Thornton his due - an inscribed
tombstone that honours him as Canada's earliest known forfeiting
casualty.
-
 The
movement to recognize Thornton and hundreds of other fallen Canadian
firefighters began in 1996 while Robert Kirkpatrick, an
award winning Mississauga fire captain, was researching his 2002
book, Their Last Alarm: Honouring Ontario's Firefighters.
-
- Two discoveries troubled the
veteran firefighter.
-
- First, after sifting through
dusty old Toronto records and 1884 newspaper files, Kirkpatrick
found Thornton's unmarked grave. He also learned there was no
official list of firefighters who died on the job in Ontario,
or Canada for that matter.
-
- "As a firefighter with
an interest in the history of firefighting, I was driven to act
by the lack of recognition for the many Ontario firefighters
who had died in the line of duty and whose stories and names
had been lost with the passage of time," he said in an online
yearbook.
-
- Although the Ontario Fire College
had a memorial to Ontario firefighters, no names were inscribed
on it, he said. No other government agency had kept a historical
list of Ontario or Canadian firefighter deaths.
-
- The oversight would be corrected,
thanks to Kirkpatrick and fellow firefighters.
-
- On Sept. 14, 2003, Thornton
got his recognition during a grave marker dedication ceremony.
A memorial tombstone was delivered to the Parliament Street cemetery
on a vintage 1800s fire engine, pulled by uniformed Toronto firefighters.
-
- Thornton's name was added to
the honour roll of Toronto's memorial for its fallen at Harbourfront,
which was dedicated in 2000.
-
- And on June 5, 2005, firefighters
from across Ontario gathered at Queen's Park for the unveiling
of an Ontario Fallen Fire Fighters Memorial. The dedication ceremony
was the culmination of five years of research and fundraising.
-
- When the elaborate memorial
was unveiled, Thornton's name, with his rank and date of death,
was the first of 344 fallen full-time and volunteer Ontario firefighters
listed. Three years later, there would be 483 names on the memorial.
-
 The
memorial was "staged on a red Maltese Cross that is an international
symbol for firefighting. A bronze sculpture depicts a modern-day
fire fighter rescuing a child from peril with a towering black
granite monolith representing a building behind."
-
- Firefighters were extremely
proud of the memorial, which would be updated annually if needed.
On May 12, 2008, their hearts were heavy when they learned a
vandal had painted political slogans on several of the memorial's
granite walls.
-
- A spirited effort - and $400,000
in restoration costs - led to an October 2009 unveiling of the
restored memorial. An $11,000 reward still stands. (Security
camera video of the vandal can be viewed at opffa.org/enter.php#top
-
- Just how deadly fires have been
for firefighters across Canada will be realized in 2012 when
the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation unveils a $4 million
memorial in Ottawa. It will list Thornton and all other known
casualties.
-
- The national memorial, an eight-year
project, will stand across from the Canadian War Museum on Wellington
Street, an area known as LeBreton Flats. The significance of
the location is not lost on historians and firefighters.
-
- On a windy April 26, 1900, a
chimney fire in Hull, Quebec, fueled a 12-hour blaze that killed
seven people, destroyed two-thirds of Hull and levelled a large
area of western Ottawa. Fifteen thousand people were left homeless,
3,000 buildings were destroyed.
-
- Firefighters from as far as
Montreal and Toronto helped fight the devastating blaze.
-
- The Ottawa memorial, funded
by a $2.5 million Canadian Heritage grant and ongoing fundraising
efforts, will be unveiled in 2012. Donations can be made to the
Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation, 440 Laurier Ave. West
#200, Ottawa, ON K1R 7X6
-
- The winner of a national design
competition will be announced Sept. 12 during CFFF's Annual Firefighter
Memorial Ceremony in Ottawa. Meanwhile, Canadians are asked to
help verify the names of all firefighters who have died on the
job.
-
- "Over the past 160 years,
nearly 1,000 firefighters have made that ultimate sacrifice,"
Kirkpatrick, now the CFFF's president, said in a recent press
release. (Known names are listed at www.cfff.ca
for verification.)
-
-
- While fallen firefighters are
being honoured with memorials, the Canadian
Firefighters Museum in Port Hope, Ontario, showcases the
tools of the trade.
-
- The Mill Street museum opened
in 1984 in several town-owned buildings and last year attracted
about 2,000 men, women and children.
-
- "We have had visitors from
Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Netherlands, Israel, Germany,
the United States, South America, England, Ireland and Scotland,"
says Isabel Fraser, one of 12 museum board members.
-
- Fraser says visitors are amazed
by the museum's hand-drawn engines, used between 1800 and 1900,
and horse-drawn engines, used from 1850 to 1925.
-
- "They are always interested
in how they worked and the amount of strength needed to fight
a fire in those days. We would really like to have an old steam
engine, but they are very hard to come by."
-
- Numerous other vehicles, equipment,
artifacts, photographs and collectibles will be on display 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. daily from Victoria Day to Thanksgiving. Admission
is free, with donations much appreciated.
-
- As popular as the museum has
been for 25 seasons, the board is facing a December 2011 deadline
for vacating the decaying buildings, which will be demolished
in a waterfront land restoration project.
-
- The museum has launched an ambitious
campaign to find a new facility, one that can accommodate all
exhibits donated and purchased since 1984.
The museum's vision is a site where the museum "will be
able to tell the story of fire fighting in Canada in a manner
that the subject so richly deserves."
-
- "Of course, the biggest
thing we require is space," says Fraser. "Our curator
is a firefighter and has a basement full of things he doesn't
want to bring here because of the building not being secure or
dry."
-
- The board had hoped to move
into a vacant industrial building on a nearby pier, but it too
will be demolished in the restoration project.
-
- A waterfront museum would be
ideal and would invite a fireboat display, says Fraser.
- Jim Inglis, a retired firefighter who worked the
Toronto harbour for nine of his 31 years with the department,
says a genuine Canadian fireboat would be a tough find.
-
- "I believe the only fireboat
built as a fireboat is the one in Toronto," says Inglis.
-
- But a tribute to fireboat personnel
over the decades would be warranted, he said.
-
- Thanks to Kirkpatrick and many
other contributors in recent years, all firefighters who risk
their lives daily are being honoured.
-
- William Thornton's kin would
certainly be proud of the recognition the 19th century firefighter
is receiving in the 21st century.
-
- Photographs
-
- 1 - Horse-drawn hose-reel used
in the late 1800s, early 1900s
-
- 2 - Cover of Capt. Robert Kirkpatrick's
2002 book
-
- 3 - Ontario memorial's bronze
sculpture depicting a child's rescue
-
- 4 - One of several vintage fire
engines at the Port Hope museum
|
-
|
