Page 1 teaser with photo:
John J. Marsh – a forgotten man who helped build the city, Page 1D
Page 1D:
Focus/lifestyles
John J. Marsh:
a forgotten man
who helped lay
city’s foundation
By DON McMANMAN
Of the Herald Staff
It was uncommonly sunny in Bellingham on the first day of June, 1918.
President Woodrow Wilson and his 14 Articles for Peace had just been laughed off the continent following was then called The World War. Closer to home, a film by Fatty Arbuckle, “A Country Hero,” was playing in a Bellingham theater. (“It’s so funny it will make a crab laugh.”)It was on that day that John J. Marsh died.
Few people recognize the name now, but the Bellingham American-Reveille of that day bannered its front page with type as tall as a fist, saying, “Former Fire Chief Called By Death: Veteran Fireman of City Succumbs to First Illness in His Life, Making Valiant Struggle to Win; Served Continuously in Department Many Years; First Service in Old Volunteer Brigade; Prominent in Bringing Equipment to Its Modern State.”Editors explained the reason for the sea of ink in the story’s second paragraph:
“With the passing of Jack Marsh is removed a man probably more closely allied with the growth and upbuilding of Bellingham that any other citizen. He had been in continuous service in the city’s fire department for near 25 years, half of that time as chief…
“He was fitted peculiarly for the work he devoted so many years to and was recognized as an authority on the Pacific Coast as an expert in fire prevention. Under his service as chief, losses from fires in Bellingham touched the low mark on the coast.”
His son, Robert E. Marsh (of Salem, Ore.) had written that his father was a quiet man, a man who only raised his voice when directing firefighters against a blaze.Born in County Mayo, Ireland, Marsh immigrated with the wide stream leaving that melancholy country, finally setting before the turn of the century as a carpenter/sawmill worker in the cities that ringed Bellingham Bay.
Immediately, he began work with volunteer fire brigades.
Fear of fire were close to the hearts of the early residents of the towns of Fairhaven, Seahome and Whatcom. Surrounded by trees, hampered by limited pressurized water, living in wood houses heated with open-flame fireplaces, pioneers knew the dangers. IT was a scourge that affected people of any forested country.
The disastrous Great Long Fire of 1666 lead to creation of the first fire insurance company in England. Benjamin Franklin formed the Philadelphia Contributorship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire in 1752, the first such plan in the New World. It spawned the first modern fire department. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 led the building regulations during reconstruction that became the standard throughout the nation.
Cincinnati, which prided itself on fire protection and introduced the first self propelled steam engine, is the only large American city not to have been touched by a major fire.
A dry summer day. A fresh wind. A water shortage. A spark. That’s all it took to reduce a thriving city to ashes and people living around Bellingham Bay knew it. Up to 80 years ago, the orthodox method to fight urban fires was to literally pull down the burning building, destroying it, to save neighboring houses.
All that stood in the way of destruction or conflagration was the bucket brigade, a line of volunteers transferring buckets by hand and heaving water onto the blaze.
As Bellingham Fire Chief Buford Pinkerton said 30 years ago, it was a ludicrous and often tragic situation.
The first fire company on Bellingham Bay was formed in 1899; seven others joined it by ?1891? The annual report of Hose Company No. 2 in 1904 included 18 parade shirts, 18 caps, 16 belts, 1 pair of crutches, 9 rubber coats (3 of them worthless), 9 helmets (4 of them worthless) and one lantern.
Even in those days, fire companied often spent as much time socializing as fighting fires. Company No. 2 had a $1 initiation fee; a 25-cent fire for missing a meeting; and fires up to $1 for disorderly conduct. The assembled company once voted to donate $5 to the National Monument Committee for a monument to honor the dead in the Spanish-American War.
Bucket-brigade volunteers were occasionally paid by the city for fighting individual fires; the city government later passed the expenditure on to the property owner.
The dread of fire was everywhere, shared by businessmen and works alike in that era of great social dichotomy. Without adequate fire protection, the city – or cities, before the consolidation of Bellingham in 1904 – could not thrive, could not attract new residents or capital.
In 1899, when virtually all buildings in the area were of wood, there were 55 shingle mills and 17 sawmills living the bay and Lake Whatcom. Streets, mostly covered with fire planks, were slowly being paved.
Contemporary newspaper accounts, while glowing the boosterism, gave hints that local attempts to fight fires – although usually successful – were plagued with incompetence and last of materiel.
Incorporation of Bellingham led to modern firefighting for the city, primarily under the direction of Marsh. While Andrew Land was named the first fire chief, Mash was a hose company leader. Later, in 1908, he was named chief.
He moved near the Prospect Street fire station in 1909 to a location now occupied by the Whatcom County Courthouse parking lot, close at hand when an alarm sounded from one of Bellingham’s 40 fire alarm boxes. He soon had an alarm wired into his home, giving him an even greater jump on the emergency.
Speed was essential during the first years of Marsh’s tenure. Pumpers were then pulled by horses, which needed rigging before firefighters could move. An elaborate system of lines and pulleys was installed in the station to drop rigging directly down from the ceiling onto the horses.
And, yes, a Dalmatian lived in the firehouse.
By, 1916, the Bellingham Fire Department was equipped with fire motor vehicles that traveled more than 500 miles that year answering 202 calls. Fire loses in the city in 1917 amounted to only $38,520 – a tremendous improvement over the “Keystone Cops”-type fire department of only a decade and a half before.
A visiting fire expert was impressed with Marsh’s mechanization, especially with his “bug,” an automobile he used to race to all the fires. According to a newspaper of the time, “Marsh had installed a chemical tank on his auto and puts out 60 percent of the fires before the hose truck arrives. The ‘bug’ is driving at more than 50 miles per hour and the chief is doing some mysterious overhauling whereby he hopes to make 55 in a pinch.”
But the fire chief’s job was a political one; he served as the pleasure of the mayor. With the election of a new mayor in 1914, Edwin Hoffercamp was named chief. Marsh returning to a hose company. Election fortunes returned him to the top job on the department in 1916, but 1918 saw another reversal.
Marsh took a temporary job with the wartime federal government at the Pacific American Fisheries shipyards as a fire marshal. It was while working there that he became infected with influenza then girdling the world.
The American-Reveille told the story:
“Although suffering at times intensely and rapidly losing, he was conscious until a few minutes before going, conversing with members of his family and friends. Exposed to danger and death thousands of times in answering calls to duty, the chief was permitted to go peacefully, surrounded by devoted family.”
SIDEBAR
Fire Department looking for more honored old-timers
Bellingham Fire Department wants to know about people like John J. Marsh.
And it’s accepting suggestions for an appropriate way to honor then, according to Robert Neale, firefighter and public information officer for the department.
The drive began several years ago when Tim Marsh of Salem, Ore., wrote city government asking that a street in Bellingham be named for his grandfather.
“I first started corresponding with a mayor, and this with his secretary,” Marsh told the Herald. “I think I went through a couple of mayors, but the same secretary. I wrote every year or so, but never got anywhere until now.”
“Finally a person in the Planning Department arranged to have my grandfather’s name included in the pool of pool of potential names for new streets. There were two problems: Not many new streets were being built and now many developments wanted to have a ‘Marsh Street” in their subdivision.”
The Planning Department put Tim Marsh in contact with Fire Chief Gary Hedberg, who lived the idea of honoring department oldtimers, according to Neale.
Hedberg asked the new Valor and Service Award Committee to decide how such oldtimers should be honored and what form those honors should take, Neale said. The committee is comprised of seven men from throughout the department.
One suggestion – to name fire stations after firefighters – has several drawbacks, according to Neale. Currently there are only five stations in Bellingham, each officially known by number. “But what if we have six people who deserve the honor?,” Neale said.
He also noted that naming fire stations would, in the future, limit honors for more recent firefighters.
Other suggestions from the committee include wall plaques in a fire station or at city hall, naming honorees as firefighters emeritus and giving an inscribed fire helmet to the family honored.
“But we’re still looking for ideas, whether they come from inside the department or from the community,” Neale said. Any suggestions should be made within the next two weeks, he added.
JJMarshNov151981BellinghamHerald.doc
Bellingham Herald photo cutline:
Robert Marsh, John Marsh’s son, writes at desk above, featuring a lamp made from his father’s fire department voice trumpet. He is also pictured, above right, in about 1909, between his father and an unidentified driver on a Bellingham Fire Department hook and ladder fire wagon. The inset shows his fire department shield.
Photos posted at blog. Some photos also on the Bellingham Herald feature page:
- Dr. Robert Earley Marsh (a dentist) writes at desk at his home in Salem, Ore. On the desk is a lamp made from the fire department chief’s voice trumpet used by his father, John Joseph Marsh, a former Bellingham Fire Chief.
- Robert Marsh sits between his father and an unidentified driver on a Bellingham Fire Department hook and ladder fire wagon. Robert Marsh was born in Bellingham in 1907. It’s a guess that he was 2-years-old in this photo. Thus, the photo might have been taken in 1909.
- John Marsh’s shield held by Robert Marsh in black & white photo. Color photo of shield.
- Profile of John Marsh.
- May 2010 by Bellingham Fire Department sign located near B.F.D. administrative offices. Posing with the sign is Timothy John Marsh.
Robert Earley Marsh, son of John Joseph Marsh, writes at a desk in
West Salem, Oregon, above, featuring a lamp made from his father’s fire department
silver voice trumpet. He is also pictured, below right in about 1909, between
his father and an unidentified driver on a Bellingham, Washington, Fire
Department hook and ladder fire wagon, The insert shows his father’s
departmental shield. (Photo cutline from Nov. 15, 1981, Bellingham Herald feature page headlined, “John J. Marsh: a
forgotten man who helped lay city’s foundation.”) Photos of Robert Marsh and
Robert Marsh holding shield by Timothy
John Marsh, John Marsh’s grandson and Robert Marsh’s son. The trumpet and
shield are now in a collection at the Whatcom County Historical Museum in
Bellingham.
