(Great Fire of 1872 recalled, the first in deadly string of Nov. blazes
E-mail | Print | Comments (8) Posted by Roy Greene November 9, 2010 05:31 PM

The Kearsarge fire engine, which was used to battle the Great Boston Fire of 1872, was rolled out today to mark the anniversary.
The fire was spreading at a dangerous pace, consuming block after block of the downtown Boston and creeping closer to the Old South Meeting House on Washington Street back on Nov. 9, 1872.

Jumping from roof to roof, the flames lit up the night sky, hopping from a building across the street to the meeting house, the historic birthplace of the Boston Tea Party, and eating up its belfry.

The meeting house was lucky. As fire crews from around New England raced to the area, a company from New Hampshire arrived just in time to save it from complete destruction. By the next day, more than 600 other buildings were reduced to smoldering ash.

Today, 138 years later, people gathered in the Old South Meeting house to commemorate the Great Boston Fire of 1872, the beginning of a sad legacy of fires in the city of Boston during the month of November, said Robin DeBlosi, a spokeswoman for the Old South Meeting House.

The Kearsarge fire engine, used to douse that Gilded Age fire, was placed across the street from the building today.

To honor the month, the Old South Meeting House in collaboration with the Boston Fire Historical Society will mark each of those dates.

"This is honoring Boston’s fire history," DeBlosi said. "November is a tragic month for Boston."

The meeting house will also mark on Thursday the 68th anniversary of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, which killed 492 people in a fast-moving inferno the night of Nov. 28, 1942. The Luongo Fire, which killed six firemen on November 15, 1942 , and the Thanksgiving Day Fire of 1889, an eight-alarm blaze that killed two firemen, will also be remembered this month.

Reference:

http://www.cityofportsmouth.com/fires/history.htm

1872:
"Kearsarge No. 3" with twenty-five men along with nine men from "Dearborn" steam fire engine are dispatched and travel by railroad to assist in what is now known as the Great Boston Fire of 1872. Portsmouth Men credited with saving the Old South Church.

From A Chronological History of a New England Seaport Fire Department

http://www.cityofportsmouth.com/fires/history.htm