In the year 1861, the Hartford Fire Department purchased the latest in firefighting technology, a “steam engine”, which it named “Phoenix no. 3.” Horses were deployed to pull it. Fire horses were known to be very affectionate and were considered brave by most people because they were the only horses that were not afraid of the “steam engine”.
One night, in 1895, the covered bridge which stood where the Buckeley Bridge now stands caught fire. The first firefighters on the scene responded from just three blocks away and approached the fire with a hose cart pulled by two fire horses. As they began to fight the blaze, the fire suddenly grew and both men and horses were surrounded. The firefighters fought furiously to retreat to a safer area of the bridge but were unable to do so quickly because they could not turn the horses around. Within minutes, the smoke was so thick that the fire horses collapsed. The firefighters had to leave them behind. With 20,000 people watching from both Hartford and East Hartford, the fire consumed the bridge and the horses fell into the Connecticut River. That night, a man in a row boat surveyed the area where the horses entered the water. The ears of the horses could be seen above the water.
The people of Hartford mourned the loss of those horses as they would any heroes who died in the line of duty.
Over one hundred years later an elderly woman whose grandfather had been a fireman recalled a day when she was five years old. She had walked into her grandmother’s kitchen and saw her grandfather crying on the kitchen table. She said to her grandmother, “What’s the matter with Grandpa?” and her grandmother replied, “Grandpa’s sad because today they came and took the horses out of the firehouse.”
This took place in 1920. The Hartford Fire Department went on to accomplish many great things but it was never the same after that day.
