The history of fire and rescue services in Harpswell starts with the town’s sprawling geography — a peninsula and a collection of islands with 216 miles of coastline — and the independent nature of its dispersed early settlers.
For nearly 200 years after Harpswell’s incorporation in 1758, residents had to rely on neighbors armed with buckets to help put out a fire. Local medical services were largely nonexistent. But near the middle of the last century, people in various parts of town started to band together to form four volunteer departments.
Today, three of those departments, overseen by nonprofit boards, are contracted to provide fire and rescue services to Harpswell, supplemented by a town fire administrator, two full-time firefighters, per diem firefighters and a 24-hour paramedic service administered through Mid Coast Hospital. Meanwhile, neighboring towns like Phippsburg and West Bath operate with a single volunteer department.
No bridge, no aid
“Geography was a key factor in the creation of the departments. Remember, there was no Ewing Narrows Bridge connecting Harpswell Neck with the islands until the 1970s. There was no such thing as mutual aid,” said David Chipman, a member of the Harpswell Select Board and longtime volunteer with Harpswell Neck Fire and Rescue.
“Because of the town’s physical nature, each village had its own identity and sense of community focused on a small area,” he added. “In an emergency, it was literally neighbors helping neighbors.” This remains the motto of the Orr’s and Bailey Islands Fire Department.
Chipman said Harpswell Neck Fire and Rescue initially operated out of a shed behind Bailey’s Store, which is now the home of the Harpswell Historical Society. Volunteers had two portable pumps they would drag to the scene of a fire, where they would use “well water, pond water, anything they could find” to try to extinguish the flames.
David Hackett, president of the Historical Society, said Harpswell received fire trucks purchased by the state in the wake of devastating wildfires that ravaged Maine in the fall of 1947. In 1950, a fire station was built on Harpswell Neck. It was later named the Irving F. Chipman Station in honor of David Chipman’s father, who served as the Neck’s fire chief for 32 years.
“When I was growing up, if there was a chimney fire or something, we’d get a call at home, someone would go to the station, sound the siren, turn on a flashing red light outside, write the fire location on a chalkboard inside, and head out and hope folks would show up,” Chipman recalled.
On-the-job training
Over in Cundy’s Harbor, lifelong fisherman and longtime volunteer Frankie Bichrest said the Cundy’s Harbor Volunteer Fire Department was founded in 1947 by Oscar Stuart in the wake of the statewide wildfires. “The training for volunteer firefighters was, if you can carry an Indian tank fire pump, you can go,” Bichrest remembered. “Other than that, they mostly learned on the job.”
Bichrest said actual firefighting could be pretty disorganized in the early days, with mixed results. “We always tried to save the chimney, even if everything else burned,” he said with a chuckle.
Since the early 1950s, the Cundy’s Harbor Volunteer Fire Department has been based at the Cundy’s Harbor Community Hall. Bichrest said he and his late friend Gary Anderson were the department’s first ambulance crew. They went to Maine Medical Center in Portland for seven or eight weeks of training, learning “everything you were allowed to do without getting sued for it.” They also learned how to drive the ambulance.
Bucket brigade to first ‘truck’
According to a history of the Orr’s and Bailey Islands Fire Department by Gerry York, president of the Harpswell Islands Genealogy and History Center, “In November of 1934, a fire destroyed a small building used as an office during the rebuilding of the Orr’s-Great Island Bridge. Residents formed a bucket brigade and held the flames in check until the Brunswick Fire Department could arrive. Shortly after this incident, Captain Charles Morrill saw the need for more effective firefighting equipment on Orr’s Island.”
As captain of the Casco Bay Lines steamship Aucocisco, Morrill was well known and respected in the island community and beyond, according to Jack Sylvester, whose grandfather, William “Captain Bill” Sylvester, became the first chief of the department when it was incorporated in 1941.
Morrill helped acquire the first firefighting equipment, which was stored in a small, red, tow-behind trailer, and actively sought funds to support the volunteer operation.
“To raise major sums ($400 to $500 in those days), he conceived of and promoted an annual lobster stew dinner held in midsummer at either the Orr’s Island Methodist Church basement or the second floor of Redmen’s Hall,” Sylvester recalled.
The department was based for many years in a barn on Little Island Road, purchased by Morrill from Ellen Hanson, another important supporter, before moving to its current home on land donated by Rachel Leland on Harpswell Islands Road.
“I often drove the department’s first ‘truck’ in the late 1940s, a prewar vehicle, car body with a tiny cab and open cargo area holding a single pump, hoses, Indian pumps, fire brooms, ladder, axes, etc.,” Sylvester remembered. “Two other ‘fighters’ could sit in the cab; others hung on for dear life outside, one grinding a siren. Maintaining control at 50 mph was a challenge, and I still wake in a cold sweat reliving the struggle to stay the course rounding Judkins Corner, en route to wood fires on Great Island.”
Operators and red phones
The fire department on Bailey Island was organized in 1937, mainly through the efforts of Phillip Johnson and Dr. Franklin Smith, according to Gerry York’s history. The fire barn was originally located behind the Tracy cottage near the “Sea Banks” on the east side of the island, but in 1949 was moved to a location near the Bailey Island Cemetery.
Soon after the departments were formed, sirens were purchased and mounted on top of the fire barns. To report a fire, before dial service, a caller would tell the local telephone operator where the blaze was located. The operator would then call a designated person or persons within the department area closest to the fire. The call recipient would then sound the alarm.
The old Orr’s Island station was close to the telephone office. Its siren could be activated by the on-duty operator using a lever switch adjacent to the switchboard. According to Sylvester, each department published a list of siren signal codes for locations in its service area. Local families kept a copy near their phones.
In the 1970s, a system of “red phones” was installed on the islands, thanks to New England Telephone and Telegraph Co. The phones were equipped with plungers to set off the siren when a fire call came in.
Kevin Johnson, chair of the Harpswell Select Board, recalled that his mother on Bailey Island had one of the phones at her house and was very upset when it was removed as new technology was put in place. Johnson was also chief of the Bailey Island department when it consolidated, because of a lack of volunteers, with Orr’s Island to form OBIFD in 1986.
“You could say my family wasn’t pleased,” Johnson said, noting the independent nature of Bailey Islanders. “In fact, an entire older generation was all up in arms. But it was something that had to happen and it turned out for the best.”
Sam Lemonick contributed to this story.
