itself. Before the ashes had cooled, the enterprising real estate owners
were back reërecting the destroyed structures.

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