Ocean’s
The Eden Woolley House
The Township of Ocean Historical Museum
Heritage
Vol. 29, No. 1, Winter 2013
“100 Years of Fire-Fighting: The Story of the Oakhurst Fire Company”
Mini-exhibit celebrates local fire-fighters
A new exhibit honoring the Oakhurst Volunteer Fire Company opens Sunday, April 7, in the “Our Town” Gallery of the Eden Woolley House. Good timing. One hundred years earlier--almost to the day-the Fire Company was formed. On April 14, 1913, thirteen Township men got together and agreed to start a fire department. They didn’t waste any time. Just nine days later (April 23), twenty-nine men convened to sign the charter of the Oakhurst Independent Hose Company No. 1. To understand the significance of the event, consider the threat that fire represented at the time--particularly in growing communities. Between the end of the Revolution and the start of the Civil War, 200 million dollars worth of property burned in major American cities. After 1865, large areas of Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore were lost to fire. With the coming of the railroad and steamship to the area in the mid 1800s, Oakhurst began growing in a way that brought new focus to the fire menace. Grand homes were being built along Norwood, West Park, and Wickapecko Avenues. The rich and famous were leaving New York and Philadelphia for the shore, and they wanted their real estate investments protected. To safeguard their homes, some bought their own private fire-fighting equipment. Neighboring Deal, whose streets were lined with the “summer cottages” of wealthy residents, had already formed a volunteer fire company. In 1913, Oakhurst followed suit. Mrs. Wilson, an Oakhurst estate owner, gave the fledgling fire company
on the firehouse roster. Sons followed fathers as chief (including the first chief, Lewis Woolley, and his son Alfred, a founding member of our Museum). The upcoming exhibit tells the story and highlights some dramatic moments. The volunteers were there in 1934 at the grounding of the Morro Castle off Asbury Park. The fire house at 68 Monmouth Rd. served from 1917 until They responded in 1937 1968, when the company moved to its new home on Larkin Pl. to the Hindenburg disaster. They fought fires at its first equipment--a hand-drawn hose the Long Branch Pier and the munitions cart from her own property. The Deal Fire depot in Perth Amboy. Other major Company donated a hook and ladder events were closer to home. Come learn machine. For its first four years, the fireabout fires at the Loch Arbour Hotel, the men met at Mechanics Hall at 76 MonOakhurst Bowling Alley, and more. mouth Road (then our Township Hall) and housed their hose cart in Elberon. The fire company acquired its first motorized equipment in 1915 and began plans for its own building. It bought and razed Marcus Coon’s blacksmith shop at 68 Monmouth Road. It built the two-story brick fire house on the site that served as its home from 1917 to 1968. Across the street was a filling station. To the north were the Oakhurst Bar and White’s grocery store. Joe Grippaldi opened his barber shop next door. The first fire whistle was an old train wheel used as a gong. For a time, a phone chain initiated at Joe’s barber shop called the volunteers to the fire! The list of early Oakhurst firemen reads like the Who’s Who of Township founding families. Woolley, Smith, Dangler, VanNote, Wells, Herbert, King, and Bennett are among the old-time families
The exhibit opens Sunday, April 7, from 1 to 4, and stays through the summer.
Lewis Woolley, Oakhurst’s first chief, and our own Eden Woolley both descend from John--the first Woolley to settle in Ocean Township (1697).