Out of the Archives is a weekly blog highlighting items in the collections of the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives.
Leather Fire Bucket, circa 1800
Adam Douglass Collection, 70 THL
May 7, 2025: May 4th was International Firefighters’ Day. Seems like a good time for us to showcase a firefighting object found within the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives collection.
From the seventeenth through to the nineteenth century, householders would equip themselves with leather fire buckets like this one to extinguish fires occurring both in their own homes and those of their neighbors. In the event of a house catching fire, neighbors would gather water and form chains to douse the flames. While such actions did not always result in saving a burning house, they may have slowed the fire and prevented it spreading to other homes.
These buckets were identified by name and number to ensure they were returned to their owner. You can see on this bucket the name of a Winchester resident, Adam Douglass, and a number. It is unclear which Adam Douglass this bucket belonged to, since there were a few people with the name living in the area during that time frame. However, it is possible that it was the Adam Douglass who owned what is today known as the Godfrey Miller house in the early 1800s.