assent it was concluded that the days of the volunteer fire department had gone, and the paid department soon took its place. Mayor Young appointed and the councils confirmed a board of fire commissioners, who were: Dr. George W. Wagoner, Dr. John B. McAneny, George Haberkorn, Edward B. Entwisle and J. Earl Ogle. The board organized April 26, 1906, by electing Dr. Wagoner president of the department. There were thirteen volunteer associations in the city at that time; eleven of whom turned over their property to the board of commissioners, and the paid system was organized.
Assistance Fire Company, No. 1, is the successor to all the fire apparatus or fire companies, theretofore organized, and it was organized March 4, 1867, by Powell Stackhouse, Alexander Hamilton, Oberlin N. Ramsey, Samuel McKeever, Robert W. Hunt, William R. Jones, George F. Randolph, William Horace Rose, John Gore, Robert Morris, James Eldridge, John E. Fry, George Fritz, Daniel N. Jones, James Quinn, Charles Kennedy, Charles O. Luther, Richard Ryckman, Charles Butland and Alexander Montgomery. The charter was delayed until February 9, 1869. It always was a business institution; some of its charter members have reputations for skill and ability among the highest in the iron and steel industries of the world; its finances were carefully managed; its income was derived from donations, fines and holding annual balls, which were the events of society some twenty years ago; its funds were invested in stocks, just like the millionaire's; its apparatus was housed in a frame building on Washington street, just above the present site, and in 1882 sufficient funds had accumulated to erect a substantial brick building on the same location to accommodate the members and to shelter the old Amoskeag and its hose carriages, which had never failed to respond to a call of duty; but in the great disaster of May 31, 1889, many of the best members, with all the apparatus and the building, were swept out of existence in a moment. In 1890 a new Amoskeag and other necessary apparatus replaced the lost, and in 1892 the present building was erected.
The destruction by fire of Frazer's corner, at Main and Franklin strees, on Sunday morning, January 13, 1867, was the most disastrous loss up to that time. The hand engine, supplied with water by the bucket brigade, was the only fire apparatus. A line of men and women led to a pump in the rear of what is now the Journal building, one line passing filled buckets and
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