| Hamden Fire Retirees Association, Inc. |
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2016
Website is updated every Friday - Important interim updates will be posted when necessary
Next regular update is Friday, September 23rd.
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| CLICK on the photo for more pix of the training session. |
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If there ever was [is] an HFD legend, it's Ralph Tomaselli. Here is Ralph pictured with the HFD's first Hurst Tool "cadaver." The car would become one of Hamden's first, if not THE first vehicle carcass donated for training with the department's brand new Hurst Tool.
This 1964 Pontiac Tempest, which would have been a collectors' item today, had belonged to Supt. Richie Lostritto's niece, Judy Frodel. Judy's husband, Paul "Froggy" Frodel, joined the department around the time this late-1970s photo was taken, and is currently a member of the HFRA.
Posted 9/16/16
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| Photo by Vic Mitchell |
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This 1926 Mack Model AC "Bulldog" 600 GPM pumper, purchased new by New Brunswick, New Jersey, was the star of the 2016 Engine 260 Muster held last Saturday. This four-speed chain-drive vehicle is powered by a four-cylinder dual ignition engine. It is owned by Henry Sanford of Redding, Connecticut.
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Three Months Earlier in New Britain
(Hamden had one of these.)
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This 1930 Maxim Model B10 hosewagon, owned by the Connecticut Fire Museum, was featured at New Britain's Klingberg Auto Show last June 18th. The truck has a very interesting history. It was purchased new in 1930 for Guilford's Chaffinch Island Fire Department, a private one-man fire department operated by Francis Ingals for his boatyard located there. The truck was often called upon to assist Guilford with large fires.
When delivered it was a 1000 GPM pumper. In 1936, Mr. Ingals returned the truck to Maxim to have the pump removed and installed in a brand new 1936 Maxim. The older truck was converted into the hosewagon with a 50 GPM booster pump. It remains configured that way to this day.
Mr. Ingals sold both Maxims to Meriden in 1941 after the town of Guilford refused to pay for a $200 repair to one of his trucks. Meriden repowered the truck with a Chrysler industrial engine, and sometime after 1945 the truck was sold to Wallingford's North Farms Volunteer Fire Company. It remained in service until the early 1950s, when it was sold again to serve the Drakeville section of the Torrington Fire Department. Finally, in 1968 the Connecticut Fire Museum purchased the truck, which was the start of the museum.
Hamden purchased a similar Maxim pumper for the Mt. Carmel station. Hamden's Maxim, delivered January 6, 1930, was a 600 GPM model that remained in the HFD inventory until March 1960, when it was traded-in to O.B. Maxwell for a few hundred dollars worth of credit.
Posted 9/16/16
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| CLICK TO ENLARGE - From "Partners for 100 Years," published in 1940 by the New London Fire Insurance Company |
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| "Dixwell Avenue, Hamden, near the Hamden High School." (Photo by I.A. Sneiderman) These two houses are still standing as of 2016. Go to Hamden Then & Now. CLICK on photo for more Hamden photos of the 1938 hurricane. |
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The "View"
Website thanks to Dep. Chief Gary Merwede for providing this magnificent view from East Rock, where Hamden fire crews assisted New Haven with a stubborn ground cover fire earlier this week. Prominently featured in the background is Sleeping Giant, in the Mount Carmel section of Hamden.
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| Photo by Dep. Chief Gary Merwede |
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The "View" c. 1910
This early twentieth century tinted photo of the same view from East Rock was featured on a 1910-era postcard (below) from the collection of the late Maryjane McGaffin, who was a good friend of the website.
We know it today as the "Sleeping Giant." It is refered to as "Mt. Carmel" on the postcard blurb. Hamden's earliest inhabitants called it "the Blue Hills."
Posted 9/16/16
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| From the collection of the late Maryjane McGaffin. |
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| The Hamden Chronicle, Thursday, September 20, 1951 (Courtesy of the Hamden Historical Society) |
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NEVER FORGET!
We will always remember our brother firefighters who made the supreme sacrifice, and the thousands of other innocent victims who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
Always keep them, their families and the FDNY in your thoughts and prayers.
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