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Before 1865, the Barrie Fire Brigade was housed in a shed behind the Market Square building. It was only after a great deal of debate that the town fathers agreed to part with $1,400 to build a proper fire house at the southwest corner of Mulcaster and Collier streets.
In January 1873, a fire broke out in the Boys Block, which ran from Mulcaster Street to the Post Office Square, on the south side of Dunlop Street East. These buildings, constructed from wood and roughcast plaster, didn’t stand a chance against the flames. When the fire was extinguished, the block was in ruins and the fire brigade’s steam engine had been damaged in the fight to save it.
As the fire brigade awaited the repair of the damaged parts, the worst possible thing happened – another fire broke out. Exactly a week after the Boys Block blaze, the Morrow Block on Collier Street erupted. Some of the merchants who had suffered losses during the first fire had the misfortune of storing their remaining inventory in temporary venues in the Morrow Block.
That wasn’t the worst of it. The fire house caught fire. The alarm bells continued to ring until the last, as was reported in the Northern Advance of Feb. 6, 1873: “In the meantime, the flames were devouring all within their reach to the east, and in a comparatively short time, the alarm ceased to ring in consequence of the Fire Hall being in flames, for which, with the adjoining Tower, it was quickly seen there was no hope.”
Out of the depressing situation came a tale of extreme dedication. Mr. Keenan, first engineer with the Barrie Fire Brigade, lived above the doomed fire house but had left all his belongings to assist in the battle. With no horses around, Keenan then went to the extreme length of manually pulling the 4,400-pound ‘steamer’ out of the building himself to save it. All his possessions were lost to the fire.
James Keenan was born in 1842 in Dublin, Ireland and sailed to America in the late 1860s. For a while, he worked at his machinist trade in the city of Philadelphia, but then travelled to Barrie where he remained for the rest of his life.
James and his wife, Agnes, raised some rather enterprising offspring. Some of their six sons were the businessmen behind Keenan's Music Store.
James Keenan came from that breed of men who could make, build or repair just about anything. His skilled hands and natural understanding or machinery made him invaluable at any place that employed him.
For over 20 years, Keenan worked at the Sewrey Foundry which was once located at the northwest corner of Bayfield and Ross streets. In time, he became foreman of the shop.
When the town first purchased a steam engine for the fire brigade, they could not have hoped for a better man than James Keenan for the position of engineer. A piece in the Northern Advance of Dec. 10, 1874 detailed Mr. Keenan’s arrangement.
“Mr. James Keenan was to keep the engine in good running order, and ready for duty at any moment during the day or night, to ring the Town’s Bell (on time) four times a day each day, Sundays excepted, viz at 7 a.m., 12 noon, 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., and on holidays at noon only, and was to receive therefor $100 per year together with four rooms for himself and family, and wood, also wood, oil, etc., for the engine and $2 a day for practice days and fires.”
In April 1890, the town of Barrie entered into an agreement with the company of Hinds & Bond of Waterdown, N.Y., to have a central waterworks planned, built and operated. The following year, James Keenan handed in his resignation as fire brigade engineer in order to accept the position of superintendent at the waterworks.
In 1898, the town of Barrie took over the running of the waterworks and severed ties with Hinds & Bond. Wisely, they kept James Keenan on. He dedicated himself to maintaining the most efficient water system possible, made constant improvements and was known to invent his own version of fittings.
At the same time, James Keenan never completely left the fire brigade. He was called upon for advice on numerous occasions long after he hung up his fireman’s hat.
In January 1904, James Keenan was still a capable and hard-working man of 62 years. In those days, just before the advent of modern antibiotics, a simple cut could be deadly and James Keenan got unlucky one day. A minor wound on his left thumb evolved into a serious infection of the entire hand.
The popularity of the man was evident in the frequent newspaper updates about his condition.
Jan. 28, improving after a turn for the worse. Feb. 11, condition unchanged. Taken to Royal Victoria Hospital. Feb. 18, condition is improving after the amputation of the left hand above the wrist. March 10, improving rapidly at home after his recent attack of blood poisoning.
He was out of danger, but also out of work. James Keenan was offered an assistant, but also a cut to his pay, both of which were unappealing to him. He then tendered his resignation, but his superiors initially refused to accept it. And so began a lengthy push and pull between the man who wanted to continue working as before, but knew he no longer could, and his supporters who wanted to see him succeed.
Seeing no way forward for himself, a clearly depressed James Keenan ingested the poison, Paris Green, on July 21, 1904. Drs. Ross and McCarthy were called and took steps to revive the man, but it was no use. He passed away 12 hours later.
James Keenan, an adherent of no particular church, who referred to himself as a free thinker, was eulogized by Robert Algie as he was laid to rest at Barrie Union Cemetery.
“Some of us may feel a tinge of scorn for the rash act that brought about the untimely end of he who sleeps here, but why should we? The complex tangled web of wish and will and want; the woven wonder of life has never been raveled back to simple threads. We do not know, we could not feel the pressures, the worries, the anxieties that forced themselves upon this strong but sensitive nature, and surely we will become more charitable and just when we know that every act is but condition’s fruit.”
Each week, the Barrie Historical Archive provides BarrieToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past. This unique column features photos and stories from years gone by and is sure to appeal to the historian in each of us.
