In the Hot Seat: The Jamestown Fire Department Memorial Museum

Photography by Wolf Matthewson

Inside a shingled building on Narragansett Avenue in Jamestown sits more than 160 years of Rhode Island firefighting history, meticulously maintained by members of the Jamestown Fire Department Memorial Museum. The volunteers, led by curator Ken Caswell, oversee an abundance of antique firefighting apparatus, including this 1925 American LaFrance pumper once stationed at the Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases in Cranston. “It was heading for the junkyard, and a gentleman said, ‘That’s just too nice to scrap,’” recalls Alan Weaver, who assists Caswell in running the museum. Like his grandfather before him, Weaver signed up with the adjacent Jamestown Fire Department at the age of fifteen and has served as a volunteer firefighter ever since. As most departments shift to a paid model, Jamestown maintains its volunteer tradition, recruiting trainees from local high schools. The museum offers a chance to share that history with a new generation; Lilianna, Elianna and Gianna Eva Capraro, seen here, stopped in during a visit to their grandparents’ Jamestown home. “Firefighting has just changed so much over the past 100 years,” Weaver says. “You went from horse-drawn steam engines to diesel-powered, huge fire trucks. I think it’s important for them to see that tradition and the history and, most importantly, the transformation of firefighting.” The bells and whistles don’t hurt either: Weaver says the 1925 American LaFrance is a hit with young visitors due to its still-functioning hand siren. “They’ll sit there and wind up that siren and drive everyone in the building crazy.”