Today Ellenville and Wawarsing are protected by three fire companies — Pioneer, Scoresby and Kimble Hose — which have recently been united under one banner as the Ellenville Fire Department, with most of the equipment stored at “Station 26” in a large building that stands behind Bodi 4 Life (formerly Thornton’s Hardware) on Canal Street. While the Kimble and Pioneer companies have left their long-time homes, on Berme Road and behind the Norbury Hall, Scoresby will continue to operate from its building on Main Street and Maple Avenue.

Scoresby celebrates its 150th anniversary this week. In September 1872, when Ulysses Grant was president of the U.S., Scoresby Hose Company No. 1 was organized to take responsibility for management of the original firefighting equipment, a special cart and a hose. With that hose they could suck water from the canal, or the creek, and pass it into the tankers from which it could be pumped onto a fire. Hard work to be sure, but a huge step up from buckets.

This takes us back to an era now familiar from old sepia toned photographs, and it was a revolution in firefighting, replacing the old “bucket brigades” step by step.

As Ellenville grew, especially as the Glassworks became a prominent piece of the American industrial landscape of the early 1840s, so firefighting became an increasingly important part of things. In 1857, Ellenville Village Trustees authorized the first two volunteer fire companies, Pioneer Engine Company No. 1 and Excelsior Hook and Ladder No. 1.

In 1871, Ellenville had completed its first reservoir and installed pipes to bring water into the village. Ellenville had 2,500 citizens at that time. The pipes also fed fire hydrants, and with the pressure in the pipes and the hose provided by the Scoresby men, the fire companies’ ability to fight and control fires in the village was enormously improved.

In that era, as the towns and villages in New York built up, many with industrial businesses at their heart, firefighting was a topic that exercised the minds of municipal authorities. A house fire usually meant a complete loss of the building. Lines of men with buckets of water were at first the only response available and this was both inefficient and ineffective. Thus, the period from 1840 to 1900 was marked by a huge increase in the number of volunteer fire companies founded and equipped in the US.

The Scoresby name was well known and honored in the village. Dr. William Scoresby had practiced in the village since 1865. Then in 1872, he a liberal Republican, and took over the 14th State Senate District folllowing the death of Jacob Hardenburgh. That same year he was also endorsed by the New York Democrats and represented the 95th New York State Legislature.

Less than a week after being organized, the fire company was in action alongside the Pioneer Fire Company to fight the Morse plaster mill fire at Five Points. With no ladies’ auxiliary at that time, the firefighters were assisted with refreshments by the family of Jesse Low, to whom they extended their thanks afterwards.

From its origins the fire company has been concerned about its equipment and a new hose carriage, of local construction, was presented to the company by the Village Board of Trustees on June 10, 1873. That was followed by a parade and a reception. The Ellenville Journal of that time reported that the young volunteer firemen were “sturdy and enterprising.”

Their initial uniform consisted of black pants, red shirts, leather fire hats and badges, plus neck ties.

In 1889, after many requests, a second hose company was formed for the east end of the village, which became Kimble Hose Company No.2. Ten years later the Excelsior Hook and Ladder, which had always struggled to maintain itself, was folded into Scoresby, which took on its present-day name: Scoresby Hose, Hook and Ladder.

In those days the social life of the fire companies took place with meetings at various hotels or the engine houses themselves. When the village building went up on Canal Street in 1874, the firemen held meetings on the second floor. Social affairs were held in rented rooms above Hornbeck’s Grocery store on Canal Street.

Dr. Scoresby died in 1884, but his family continued their support of the company, and when the Scoresby Building Association was started in 1910, the Dr’s two sisters each bought 100 shares at $10 a share. In September that year the association bought the land that the Scoresby company holds today, the triangle between Maple Avenue and Liberty Street. Architect George Young drew up the designs for the building and the corner stone was laid in August 1911 by Dr. Scoresby’s sister, Mary Scoresby Eastgate.

In 1916 another structure was erected behind the house to hold equipment. In 1969, in the wake of the huge fire that demolished the Wayside Inn on Liberty Square in 1967, a larger garage was built where the company’s 75-foot aerial ladder is housed.

In 1925, the Scoresby Fire Company provided the Boy and the Boot statue in the Liberty Square fountain.

Today, 150 years on, Scoresby Fire Company continues, even as all three of Ellenville’s companies are brought together under one organizational heading as Ellenville Fire. The Pioneer company left Norbury Hall, and Kimble Hose have left that building; both have now put their equipment into a building at the eastern end of the village. For meetings they will all meet together in the Scoresby building. Scoresby will continue to keep the ladder truck in its capacious garage, the only one big enough.

Mike Moschetta, Scoresby’s current president, also sits on the Wawarsing Town Board. This coming weekend the company will celebrate with a banquet at the Ukrainian CYM dining hall west of the village, though everything will be brought in by a catering firm as the kitchen there burned down earlier this year. Moschetta noted that this has been a good year for recruitment to Ellenville Fire, with 11 new members recorded. As always volunteer firefighting is a pillar of the way of life we all enjoy here in Ulster County. That volunteer spirit goes with the motto for Scoresby Hose, “We toil for the public safety.”