This first fire was soon followed by others, each intrinsically severe.  The people were splendid in enterprise and spirit of recovery; but they soon realized that not only must the buildings be made of more substantial material, but also that fire-fighting apparatus must be bought.  In June, 1850, four hundred houses were destroyed; in May, 1851, a thousand were burned at a loss of two million and a half; in June, 1851, the town was razed to the water’s edge.  In many places the wharves were even disconnected from the shore.  Everywhere deep holes were burned in them, and some people fell through at night and were drowned.  In this fire a certain firm, Dewitt and Harrison, saved their warehouse by knocking in barrels of vinegar and covering their building with blankets soaked in that liquid.  Water was unobtainable.  It was reported that they thus used eighty thousand gallons of vinegar, but saved their warehouse.

The loss now had amounted to something like twelve million dollars for the large fires.  It became more evident that something must be done.  From the exigencies of the situation were developed the volunteer companies, which later became powerful political, as well as fire-fighting, organizations.  There were many of these.  In the old Volunteer Department there were fourteen engines, three hook-and-ladder companies, and a number of hose companies.  Each possessed its own house, which was in the nature of a club-house, well supplied with reading and drinking matter.  The members of each company were strongly partisan.  They were ordinarily drawn from men of similar tastes and position in life.  Gradually they came to stand also for similar political interests, and thus grew to be, like New York’s Tammany Hall, instruments of the politically ambitious.

On an alarm of fire the members at any time of the day and night ceased their occupation or leaped from their beds to run to the engine-house.  Thence the hand-engines were dragged through the streets at a terrific rate of speed by hundreds of yelling men at the end of the ropes.  The first engine at a fire obtained the place of honor; therefore every alarm was the signal for a breakneck race.  Arrived at the scene of fire, the water-box of one engine was connected by hose with the reservoir of the next, and so water was relayed from engine to engine until it was thrown on the flames.  The motive power of the pump was supplied by the crew of each engine.  The men on either side manipulated the pump by jerking the hand-rails up and down.  Putting out the fire soon became a secondary matter.  The main object of each company was to “wash” its rival; that is, to pump water into the water box of the engine ahead faster than the latter could pump it out, thus overflowing and eternally disgracing its crew.  The foremen walked back and forth between the rails, as if on quarter-decks, exhorting their men.  Relays in uniform stood ready on either side to take the place of those who were exhausted.  As the race became closer, the foremen would get more excited, begging their crews to increase the speed of the stroke, beating their speaking trumpets into shapeless and battered relics.