Lesson Plans
Unit Introduction

Image 13:

Possibly Henry Dawkins.
American
Certificate of the Hand-in-Hand Fire Company, 1753 (detail)
Engraving

I.N. Phelps Stokes Collection
Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs
The New York Public Library,
Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

Image 14:

J. Fenno
American
Fire Bucket, 1799
Leather

Courtesy of the Bostonian Society/Old State House

Information:

These two objects were used in firefighting in colonial Boston. The possibility of fires getting out of control in the colonial city was a constant threat. Most of the homes in the city were made of wood and were tightly packed on narrow, winding streets. In 1760, Boston suffered a severe fire that destroyed 176 warehouses and left many families homeless.

The fire staff shown would have been similar to one used by Nathaniel Hurd around 1759 when he served as a fireward in Boston. When a call was put out that there was a fire, the fireward would come with his staff to direct the firefighting. The leather bucket is an example of the participation of most civilians in fighting fires. Most households would have owned a bucket like this. Neighbors would take their fire buckets and form a double line, one to pass water towards the house and one to pass empty buckets away.

Suggested Lesson:

Firefighting and Community in Colonial America: What can objects tell us?

Suggested Websites:

• http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/boston/index.html "Colonial Boston Unearthed"
  *Discusses archaeological findings from 'The Big Dig'. The contents of a colonial privy are used to make a hypothesis about the occupation of a woman who lived and worked in her house.
• http://www.history.org/almanack.htm "Colonial Williamsburg"
  *Go to 'Archaeology for Kids' page. There are a lot of interesting activities for students to explore, but most relevant is the 'Artifact Challenge' which provides photographs of artifacts and has multiple choice questions asking the students what they believed these objects were used for. When students guess the correct answer, there is an explanation of what the object is and how it was used. The page 'Experience Colonial Life' is also very interesting.
• http://theweboftime.com/ "American History from the Web of Time" *A magazine of American history, archaeology, and museum exhibits for kids.
• http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/game/ "Road to Revolution: A Revolutionary Game"