PREFACE.
 

The history of the New Orleans Fire Department has awaited until now a suitable chronicle.
The details of its rise and progress are preserved in countless records, private and official, and in the
memories of men. But the records are perishable, and time is rapidly thinning the ranks of those
who recall the past, as it has indeed removed nearly all who could have told of the early days of the
Department. The purpose of this work is to collect from the innumerable sources in which it must
be sought, and preserve in proper form and under suitable arrangement, the story of a service as heroic
as it has fallen to the lot of man to perpetuate in the memory of a grateful community.

Of course this record is essentially that of the Firemen's Charitable Association and the companies
composing it, which for fifty-six years stood between the people of New Orleans and the dread foe which
threatened their households. If in telling the story a tone of eulogy has been adopted, all who know
the story must realize that that was inevitable. The writer who could approach such a task in any other
spirit is surely not to be envied. The New Orleans Picayune-, on the occasion of the retirement of the
Firemen's Charitable Association from the active control of the fire service, said, " Its history, were it
fitly written, would be an epic of civic devotion." As such has it been treated in these pages, which
are dedicated to the surviving members of that noble Association as a perpetual reminder of their
past services, services in the discharge of which they faced dangers as subtle, as sudden, and as awful
as ever confronted a soldier on the field of battle.

In the preparation of this record, the necessity of selection has been clearly manifest. A simple
itemized list of events in the history of the Fire Department since 1834 would alone fill several vol¬
umes ; and it has been necessary to choose only the leading and typical events for this chronicle. In
favor of other matter that seemed of vital importance, the fire record has been very slightly touched
on. In so large a city that too would suffice to make a library of books. What has been attempted
is to present a running account of a very remarkable, indeed a unique institution, with such fulness of
detail as the space at command would permit. The relations of the Firemen's Charitabe Associa¬
tion with the City of New Orleans were deemed of sufficient importance to be given with some ful¬
ness, in order that the successful administration of a city department by a private corporation, the like
of which was never seen before in the history of the world, might be comprehended by later genera¬
tions.

Throughout a large portion of this narrative, personal mention of the editor of this work has been
unavoidable, because of his official connection with the Department and his active agency in the mat¬
ters here discussed. It is proper to state that such portions of the work have been left entirely to the
hands and the judgment of others.