Ernest N. Bartlett

Ernest Newell Bartlett was born in Billerica on March 21, 1880. He joined the Billerica Fire Department on June 1, 1898, and on November 16, 1899 he married Hattie E. Bigelow at Billerica. In the early 1900s the town accounts show him supplying horses, teams and express service to the town departments and being paid for "watching fire" for the fire department.

From 1912 the selectmen appointed him each year one of the engineers of the fire department and the town's Forest Warden, and he sat on the Board of Engineers with William B. Chambers. The town's new fire alarm system was installed on December 15, 1915. In 1917 town meeting named him, with Ralph E. Manning and John A. Richardson, to a committee to buy a fire truck and build a fire station, and the next year, after serving under Chief Engineer Mark E. Allen, he became Fire Chief. The new Central Fire Station on Boston Road was completed in 1918 and the fire alarm headquarters moved into it; to keep within the appropriation, "Chief E. N. Bartlett volunteered to stay in the station during meal hours and on his days off as much as possible without extra compensation for the balance of the year."

Bartlett took the department from horse-drawn equipment into the motorized era. An insurance survey of 1919 found one automobile pump, chemical and hose wagon in service beside two horse-drawn ladder trucks and a horse-drawn hose wagon, and recommended that the chief be appointed for an indefinite period, removable only for cause. In 1920 the town bought two more pieces of motor apparatus, a light chemical for the Central Station and a larger combination for North Billerica, and the permanent men rebuilt the old horse-drawn ladder truck as a trailer that any truck could pull. Bartlett reported that the new equipment "makes this town one of the best protected in the State." The 1920 town meeting voted to petition the General Court to place the chief of the fire department under civil service, and in 1921 the town accepted the act establishing the offices of chief and assistant chief. In 1929 town meeting authorized him to sell the old steam fire engine at North Billerica.

He led the department through the 1920s and 1930s and the Second World War, and remained Forest Warden throughout. At a special town meeting in December 1941 he moved the appointment of a committee of five to consider the needs of the fire department. He retired on November 15, 1945, when the selectmen wrote of their profound regret and thanked him "for his many years of valuable service in the protection of life and property"; Harry F. Waite followed him as acting chief. He died in Carlisle in February 1957, and the town's annual report carried an In Memoriam for its "Beloved Fire Chief."

References

1. Marriages recorded, 1899: Ernest N. Bartlett and Hattie E. Bigelow, Nov. 16, 1899
2. Billerica magazine, May 1913: appointed engineer of the fire department and forest warden
3. Town meeting 1917: committee to purchase fire truck and build fire station (Manning, Richardson, Bartlett)
4. Report of the Fire Engineers, 1918 (new station, fire alarm system, Chief Bartlett volunteered)
5. New England Insurance Exchange survey, 1919 (fire department apparatus; Chief E. N. Bartlett)
6. Annual town meeting 1920, Article 29: petition to place the Fire Chief under Civil Service
7. Report of Fire Engineers, 1920 (two pieces of motor apparatus; signed E. N. Bartlett, Chief)
8. Annual town meeting 1921, Article 18: accepted act establishing office of chief and assistant chief
9. Report of the Selectmen, 1945 (retirement of Chief Ernest N. Bartlett, Nov. 15)
10. Town Report 1957, In Memoriam: Chief Ernest N. Bartlett, died Feb. 28, 1957; served from June 1, 1898