Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Mass.

Title

Greenwood Sunday School Outing Tasker's Grove, circa 1885

Description

Thought to be a Greenwood Sunday School outing, this gathering of children and adults enjoyed a day at Tasker's Grove, which was located at the west end of Linden Avenue, near Crystal Lake. The group included Rufus Kendrick, the large man with the moustache at the right in the photograph. A resident of Greenwood, Kendrick was the founder of the Wakefield Home Fire Protection Association, 'an independent volunteer association for extinguishing fires, working entirely with small apparatus, appliances generally ignored by fire departments, such as buckets, cans, Johnson hand force pumps, garden hoses attached to house faucets, or any appliance which could readily be made use of.' Hundreds of galvanized pails, milk cans, and Johnson pumps were located throughout the town; the first 'getting a stream of water' on a fire was rewarded with $1.00, and the first one to 'give the first still alarm' was rewarded with 25-cents. Kendrick also served as a fire warden and was well informed about trees and flowers, taking great interest in gypsy moths. As a member of the short-lived Wakefield Improvement Society, he planted a row of 52 trees, from 'Mr. Lee's store on Main Street north to the railroad bridge', which he called Soldier's Row in memory of those who served in the Rebellion.

Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2018

Photo courtesy of the Wakefield Historical Society.

Contributor

Institution: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)

D'Onofrio, Jayne M.

Coverage

Massachusetts--Middlesex (county)--Wakefield

Date

ca. 1885

Format

image/jpeg

Publisher

Wakefield, Mass. : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department

Subject

Fire prevention

Kendrick, Rufus

Type

still image

Photographs

Original Format

1 picture: b & w

Extent

32 x 17 cm