By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Portsmouth PulsePortsmouth Pulse
Notification Show More
Latest News
City of Portsmouth to Host Public Tours of Peirce Island Wastewater Facility and Road Resiliency Project
City Government Community
Earth Eagle Brewings Reopens Downtown Portsmouth Beer Garden for Summer Season
Dining
Portsmouth Disproportionally Carrying Regional Housing Load
Affordable Housing City Council
Hiller: Agreement between Portsmouth Housing Authority and the Episcopal Church violates restriction.
Letters to the Editor Opinion Real Estate
Portsmouth FY 2026 Budget Highlights
City Departments City Government City Manager
Aa
  • News
    • Home
    • Portsmouth City Budget
    • Dining / Restaurants
    • Rising Sea Levels
    • Health & Wellness
    • News Archive
  • City Government
    City GovernmentShow More
    City of Portsmouth to Host Public Tours of Peirce Island Wastewater Facility and Road Resiliency Project
    May 30, 2025
    Portsmouth Disproportionally Carrying Regional Housing Load
    May 23, 2025
    Portsmouth FY 2026 Budget Highlights
    May 5, 2025
    Shameless City Council Corruption to Enrich Asst Mayor Timeline Update
    April 28, 2025
    Fence Built on City Land Raises Eyebrows—and Ethical Questions
    April 9, 2025
  • Letters & Editorials
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Submit a Letter to the Editor
  • Subscribe
  • Support Us
  • The Pulse
    • Announcing Portsmouth Pulse
    • About Us
    • Contact US
    • Why Portsmouth Pulse Allows Anonymous Articles and Editorials
Reading: Looking Back to Portsmouth Fires of the 1800s
Share
Aa
Portsmouth PulsePortsmouth Pulse
  • Home
  • Portsmouth City Budget
  • Letters
  • Rising Sea Levels
  • Support Us
  • About Us
  • News Archive
  • Latest News
Search
  • News
    • Home
    • Portsmouth City Budget
    • Dining / Restaurants
    • Rising Sea Levels
    • Health & Wellness
    • News Archive
  • City Government
  • Letters & Editorials
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Submit a Letter to the Editor
  • Subscribe
  • Support Us
  • The Pulse
    • Announcing Portsmouth Pulse
    • About Us
    • Contact US
    • Why Portsmouth Pulse Allows Anonymous Articles and Editorials
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
Portsmouth Pulse > Blog > Community > Looking Back to Portsmouth Fires of the 1800s
CommunityLocal History

Looking Back to Portsmouth Fires of the 1800s

Mike Anderson
Last updated: 2025/01/23 at 4:21 PM
Mike Anderson Published January 23, 2025
Share
SHARE

Nearly 40,000 acres have burned in the recent California wildfires. That’s almost four times the size of Portsmouth.

Portsmouth has its own history of destructive blazes, dating back to the community’s earliest years.

Throughout the colonial era, night watches patrolled the community, searching for fires.

Watchmen would cry out the location, and church bells would ring to alert citizens, who were required by law to participate in quelling the conflagration. Some of our historic homes still have fire buckets from this era, many painted with the names or initials of their original owners.

At a special town meeting held in 1756, voters agreed to purchase fire tools and buckets, and elected 12 “firewards” to oversee fire protection. In 1774, a committee was established to buy a “New Ingine.”

Boston had a firefighting engine as early as the 1650s. These early machines bore little resemblance to today’s fire trucks.

Portsmouth’s 1774 “Ingine” was a pump on wheels with long handles. Whether it was used or not in the City’s first major fire, in 1781, that disaster burned the jail and the homes of Governor John Langdon and others.

Many residents joined “fire societies,” which existed not so much to fight fires as to protect property recovered from a fire. Members carried special keys to take apart bedframes – highly valued pieces of furniture at the time.

Three large fires in the early 1800s changed Portsmouth dramatically. The first occurred in 1802.

The New Hampshire Gazette reported that the fire began at the New Hampshire Bank building early on a Sunday morning, and by the time it had been discovered, “the whole town was threatened with immediate destruction.”

Portsmouth residents stopped the fire by pulling down buildings in advance of the flames and engaging everyone in the battle, including women who had just lost their own homes. The Gazette recalled:

Let it be recorded to the honor of a great number of females, that after being burned out of house and home, instead of fleeing from the fire in despair, they immediately joined themselves to the company and lanes of the hardier sex, and stood and handed water, until they were on the point of fainting! – dying!

The author lamented, “The whole beauty of the town is gone! – is gone!!!”

In 1806, the Gazette reported on another massive fire, noting that the buildings burned “were all wooden…only one brick partition wall, completely saved a row of buildings (sic). This, we think, should most thoroughly convince the people…of the utility and importance of building with brick.” 

When 1813 brought yet another disastrous fire to Portsmouth, the citizens decided they had had enough. They voted to prohibit wooden structures over 12 feet tall, leading to the construction of the brick buildings that comprise Portsmouth today.

The community enhanced its firefighting measures over the years, as Steven E. Achilles noted in “Images of America: Portsmouth Firefighting.”

New lessons came with each improvement. When firefighters received their first suction engine, “Washington No. 2,” they left it behind when fires broke out.

“The men not knowing what the suction was for, it lay about the house useless, and at fires they filled the engine from water buckets,” former Mayor and fireman Col. William H. Sise recalled. “One day, someone accidentally found out what the suction was intended to do and thereafter the firemen devoted to its proper care.”

Fires have plagued most major cities. Here, a crew uses a pump to fight a fire in New York. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Additional fire stations were built, trucks replaced horse-drawn wagons, and ladders ascended to ever-greater heights. The department purchased an 85-foot aerial ladder truck in 1941, Achilles wrote, and the fully extended ladder reached 9 feet above the clock on the North Church steeple.

As with the decision to build with brick instead of wood, each fire presumably taught new lessons to the people of Portsmouth.

Los Angeles will have to reckon with the causes of its fires, and the problems that made the catastrophe worse, such as the lack of water pressure in hydrants and the slashing of $17 million in funding to the fire department.

Although it seems tangential to ask it here, one wonders whether Angelenos were aware of these problems before the fires. Were they reported in the newspaper, or on local news websites?

It is a reminder that local news does matter. Citizens ought to ask themselves regularly if they are getting the whole story from their preferred media outlets.

You Might Also Like

City of Portsmouth to Host Public Tours of Peirce Island Wastewater Facility and Road Resiliency Project

Area median home prices – March 2025

NHDOT to Start Soundwall Construction in Portsmouth

Fernald: Portsmouth’s “Crime-Free” Myth–Why Cutting PD Staffing is a Dangerous Mistake

Mike Anderson January 23, 2025
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Email Print

Follow US

Find US on Social Medias
Facebook Like
Twitter Follow
Popular News
Dining

Earth Eagle Brewings Reopens Downtown Portsmouth Beer Garden for Summer Season

Staff Writer Staff Writer May 24, 2025
Hiller: Agreement between Portsmouth Housing Authority and the Episcopal Church violates restriction.
Portsmouth Disproportionally Carrying Regional Housing Load
Portsmouth FY 2026 Budget Highlights
City of Portsmouth to Host Public Tours of Peirce Island Wastewater Facility and Road Resiliency Project
- Advertisement -
Ad imageAd image

Categories

  • City Government
  • Seacoast
  • Announcements

About US

We shine the light of truth on what's REALLY happening in the City of Portsmouth NH.
Quick Link
  • Home News
  • Contact
  • Submit a Letter to the Editor
  • Advertise

Email Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Subscribe

Portsmouth PulsePortsmouth Pulse

© Portsmouth Pulse. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?