Union Hall Fire of 1891

On Sunday morning, February 22, 1891, fire destroyed Union Hall, the town's public building in North Billerica, on the road from the mills to the railroad depot that is now Station Street. The two-story building had been put up by the town in 1870 as the schoolhouse for the united districts of the North village. In 1891 it held the Union Hall Grammar and Primary schools, and its upper hall was the village's place for town business, meetings, entertainments and, for a time, the services of the Episcopal mission of St. Anne's. It was the second serious fire of that winter: on Sunday, January 18, 1891 C. A. Holt and Co.'s grain mill had burned, a total loss insured for $4,500 on the building and $8,000 on the contents.

The alarm sounded at 8.30 in the morning. The North Billerica fire company, thirty call men with a hand engine kept in the old engine house on Wilson Street, "responded with their usual alacrity and fought the fire stubbornly for some time but owing to the peculiar construction of roof were finally obliged to call for aid from Lowell. Chief Hosmer responded cheerfully and the fire was soon under control." The engineers, Chief Charles H. Kohlrausch Jr. and his assistants Edward B. Haskell and Andrew Morrissey, reported: "Building, total loss. Insured, $8000. Cause of fire unknown." The town afterwards paid the Chief Engineer of the Lowell Fire Department $50 and paid a number of men for watching the ruins.

The School Committee was writing its annual report when the news came, and added that the committee "were dismayed to learn that the two schoolrooms, grammar and primary, located in the Union Hall building were destroyed by fire." All the school property was saved and carried to the Old Talbot School on Wilson Street; the grammar teacher, Miss Mary E. F. Shea, "cared for and superintended the removal of the property, and subsequently arranged and cared for it, refusing compensation of any kind therefor." For the time being all the children of the North district were put into the Talbot School in four grades, and one teacher was let go.

The fire came two weeks before the annual town meeting of March 1891, whose warrant already called for the report of a committee "to investigate the matter of procuring additional Fire Apparatus to be located at North Billerica." The town decided to rebuild Union Hall as a combined hall and fire station. The insurance of $8,000 and $1,530 from the sale of the old engine house and its land paid for it. F. W. Stickney was the architect ($365), D. W. Fitch the contractor ($7,300 and $32.40 for extra labor), and H. C. Brown put in the pump and piping ($825, and $273.54 for extra work and a change in the ventilation); the town graded the lot. The whole cost $9,180.16, leaving $349.84 of the money unspent. The new building had the fire station on the ground floor, with a tall hose-drying tower on its west front, and the hall above. The same year the apparatus committee, Kohlrausch, Frederic S. Clark, Haskell, Martin Conway Jr. and Morrissey, bought a steam fire engine, hose carriage, hose and ladder truck from Silsby and Co. for $4,577.40, out of $6,000 appropriated; the Talbot Mills altered a building to house the steamer until the hall was ready, and the new Steamer Company No. 1 went on the payroll on September 1, 1891. The old hand engine Hero No. 2 was sent to the Centre, where a new company of 45 men was formed. Kohlrausch left the department during the year after twenty years' service.

The fire thus gave North Billerica its first real fire station and a steam engine. Schools went back into the rebuilt hall in 1892, when the committee found it "necessary to open a school in Union hall" because of the growing number of pupils at the North. The second Union Hall served as the North Billerica fire station, polling place and village hall for seventy-five years, until the new Billerica Fire Station on Lowell Street opened in 1967 and the old hall was taken down.

People

• Charles H. Kohlrausch: Chief Engineer of the fire department, who signed the report of the fire and served on the committee that bought the Silsby steamer for North Billerica in 1891.
• Edward B. Haskell: Assistant engineer and selectman, who signed the fire report, served on the apparatus committee and signed the account for rebuilding Union Hall.
• Andrew Morrissey: Assistant engineer of the fire department and member of the apparatus committee of 1891.
• Frederic S. Clark: Member of the committee that bought the steam fire engine, hose carriage and ladder truck for North Billerica after the fire.
• Coburn S. Smith: Selectman who signed the 1891-92 account for rebuilding Union Hall.

References

1. Billerica Annual Report, year ending Feb. 1891, pp. 22-23: fire department report; Holt grain mill fire Jan. 18, 1891; Union Hall fire Feb. 22, 1891, aid from Lowell, total loss, insured $8,000, cause unknown.
2. Same report, School Committee, p. 5: Union Hall schoolrooms destroyed by fire, property saved to the Talbot School by Miss Mary E. F. Shea; North district children housed in the Talbot School.
3. Same report, warrant for the March 1891 annual meeting, p. 20: Art. 23, report of the committee on additional fire apparatus for North Billerica.
4. Billerica Annual Report, year ending Feb. 1892, pp. 14-15: Hero No. 2 moved to the Centre; Kohlrausch leaves the department; Silsby steamer bought for $4,577.40; Steamer Co. No. 1 paid from Sept. 1, 1891.
5. Same report, pp. 40-41: Union Hall rebuilding account: insurance $8,000, engine house and land $1,530; Fitch $7,300, Stickney $365, H. C. Brown $825 and $273.54; total $9,180.16.
6. Same report, School Committee, p. 63: crowding at the North makes it necessary to open a school in Union Hall at the beginning of the next term.