Description:
Fire Bucket, inscribed "KEYES & COLONY/ No. 2" Keene, NH, c. 1833 - 1843/4. Leather and paint. Dry goods business owned by Elbridge Keyes and Joshua D. Colony of Keene, New Hampshire. Fire buckets became essential and ubiquitous safety equipment in almost every household. It was common practice to keep these containers near the entranceway of one’s home. Constructed of leather with leather-covered rope handles, fire buckets held between two and three gallons of water. Rolled up in each bucket would also have been a large coarse linen bag used to quickly gather up and remove possessions from a burning structure. Fire buckets and bags were typically the property of individual people and their names and bucket number were painted on the side. Once an outbreak of fire occurred, a “bucket brigade” was formed. It consisted of two lines of people extending from either a town well or nearby resident’s well to the fire. Buckets of water were passed down the first line to the fire and empty buckets were returned via the second line back to the well to be refilled. Having a name on the fire bucket allowed for its return to the rightful owner after it was used communally to fight a blaze.
Subjects:
Brass; Leather Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2020.5.29 |
