Bernard Boltz believes Perseverance Fire Company in Jonestown has a long history of using cutting-edge firefighting technology.
“History runs deep with the company, and we’re the second oldest in the county,” said Boltz, noting that Union Fire Company Engine 16 in Lebanon is the oldest, having been founded in the late 1700s. “Our members take pride in it and we’ve always tried to be cutting edge.”
Nowhere is that more evident in the historic firefighting gear and other apparatus that’s featured in their fire museum. Situated in several rooms in their firehouse, the museum contains artifacts from as early as the 1800s. (One of the two museum rooms mostly houses historic items related to Jonestown, founded in 1761, and other memorabilia from the surrounding area.)
The most prominent and noteworthy piece in the museum is a wooden hand pumper, which is believed to have been built around 1805 and purchased on an unknown date thereafter by three community leaders. The year 1803 is etched into the side of the hand pumper, but that apparently was done by members to honor the year the company was launched.
An undated article that is framed and hangs in the museum says “the engine (hand pumper) was purchased at Philadelphia and brought to Jonestown overland drawn by horses by some of the older citizens of town, including George and Henry Heilman and William Rank, the latter an Associate Judge of Lebanon County Courts.”
The article — which appears to have been printed in an unknown publication for firefighters that also does not provide a date nor identify the author — also notes that the trip was “an expensive one in those days. It required almost a week to make the trip with the engine from Philadelphia.”
The same article states that the hand pumper was also a local “hero” during its time.
The engine was integral in saving Old Stumpstown (present-day Fredericksburg) from utter destruction when a fire that began upwind blazed through the town on May 12, 1827.
“The engine was taken there to assist in fighting the fire,” the article explains. “It was due to the service of this hand engine and the heroic service of the gallant Jonestown firemen, that Fredericksburg was saved from complete destruction. At that time Fredericksburg had no fire protection and depended entirely upon Jonestown, three miles away, for assistance.”
Boltz said the hand pumper was a local legend, too.
“It was a big deal back in those days because it was brand new and one of the first of its kind in the area.”
The museum also contains historic water buckets that were used by members of the bucket brigade to fill the hand pumper manually with water to fight fires. A bucket brigade was important in firefighting before the advent of pressurized fire engine pumper trucks. Firefighters and even town residents would pass buckets down the line to each other to fill the hand pumper to extinguish a blaze.
“If you were a member of the fire company and not necessarily a firefighter, per se, you’d load two leather buckets and anytime there was a fire, you’d empty the buckets as a member of the bucket brigade and fill up the sides to pump out the water,” said Tom Mohn, who is one of four generations of the Mohn family to serve at Perseverance.
Read More: 4 generations of Mohns have served Jonestown’s Perseverance Fire Company
The other family members were patriarch Leroy P. Mohn, who was chief from 1936 to 1942, his son Philip, who is 97, and Dan, who is Tom’s son and the current company fire chief.
Philip said he remembers company members building a pressurized fire engine pumper tanker out of a gasoline tank in the 1960s. A picture of the tanker, along with Leroy and a young Philip, hangs on the museum wall to recognize the company’s ingenuity in crafting its own tanker. That picture includes the old firehouse in the background, which at that time was located in the borough hall.
“The fire company was on the first floor, the borough offices on the second floor and the jail cells were in the basement,” said Dan about the fire company’s headquarters at the time.
There is also a photo of one of the company’s first ambulances, which was totaled shortly after it was acquired when one of the members crashed it into the rear of a tractor-trailer near Bunkerhill, according to Philip.
Another fascinating piece of memorabilia is the fire company’s original charter, which is framed and placed in the museum gallery.
“This is the fire company’s charter, which is written in German,” said Dan. “It’s dated 1816 but the fire company formed in 1803. It took them a few years.”
The museum — believed to be the only one of its kind in Lebanon County — contains an array of firefighting memorabilia that spans two centuries. Tom said one antique lamp is pushing its centennial birthday, adding he doesn’t know its exact age because it predates him.
Other gear is more “modern” like the Indian brand fire tank worn by firefighters during the 1950s. “It holds about five gallons of water so that when you are fighting a brush fire you can carry it on your back,” added Tom, who joined the company in 1964.
The idea for a museum came a few years after the current firehouse, located in the 100 block of South King Street, was built in 1966. It started to germinate when the company constructed an addition in the mid-1970s, according to Boltz.
“The museum actually only started in 1976 when we put the addition on the fire station,” said Boltz, who added that some gear in the museum was already located in a storage room at the firehouse. “A decision was made that we needed a museum more than we needed a storage room.”
Dan said four company members — Leon “Goldie” Gerberich, Henry “Skip” Gerhart, Franklin “Bickle” Bachman and his grandfather — were the original fire museum committee members. A framed picture of the foursome posing with the 1803 hand pumper adorns the museum wall to honor their legacy. Boltz noted the foursome were “the keepers of the museum for many years.”
“Skip and Goldie did a lot of the history, preserved a lot of the history of the company,” said Dan, who added that the only one of the foursome still alive is his grandfather. “When I was a kid, this was basically a storage room with a limited museum and they built it out from there.”
While company members had the foresight to preserve their legacy by essentially never cleaning house, so to speak, other items have been donated to the museum.
“Some items came from families who had company members, and when they knew we had a museum or when a family member who was a firefighter became deceased, their family would donate to the museum,” said Boltz. “People in the community had items and would later give them back to the fire company.”
Although space is at a premium at the museum, which can be viewed by adult groups who make arrangements in advance, fire company officials are still willing to accept items to display. (The station is also a destination for school children on field trips.)
“Anything that is donated we’d gladly accept,” said Boltz. “If it has significant importance, we’ll display it. If it is something that we already have, maybe it wouldn’t be displayed, but we won’t turn away anything that people would want to donate.”
Boltz said he’s amazed by the volume of memorabilia that clearly shows the progression in technology over time, adding the company is fortunate to fund the new gear and equipment it needs via its social club “The Perse.”
Read More: The Perse social club is expanding with outdoor deck, beer garden in Jonestown
“There are nozzles, firefighting gear, there are pictures of firefighting apparatus, and what it shows is the timeline from what it may have been like way back when and what it is like today,” he said. “You can see the different advances that were made and how extreme they changed.”
That’s especially true over the five decades since Boltz, who is now retired from volunteer firefighting and as a professional firefighter from Fort Indiantown Gap, realizes when he visits the museum.
“It’s just stunning from when I started in the mid-1970s until now, things have changed so drastically — including the price tag to purchase this stuff,” said Boltz. “But so much of it is for the better because it enhanced firefighter safety and reduced injuries. Even though it’s more expensive, it’s for the better.”
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