1. The fire department was founded in the late 1800s by the Village of Suffield. When did it become the town fire department?
a. 1911
b. 1933
c. 1947
2. According to Steve Sorrow, a long-time fireman in town, each resident in the 18th century had to have two of the same items to be used in case of a fire. What were they?
a. Ladders
b. Leather buckets
c. Protective helmets
3. When the firefighters moved into the West Suffield Fire Station in March 2005, they performed a traditional ceremony. What was it?
a. Each firefighter was doused with water.
b. The fire engine was pushed into its bay.
c. Each firefighter had to climb a ladder.
4. Thaddeus Leavitt was a wealthy Suffield merchant who invented an improved cotton gin. He also purchased a large portion of the Western Reserve lands in Ohio. He helped to settle the border disputes between Connecticut and Massachusetts. Three of his great grandsons became prominent men. Who were they?
a. The Booth brothers
b. The Marx brothers
c. The Hunt brothers
5. The Seth Thomas clock in the First Church of Christ, Congregational, was given by Cordelia Pomeroy Newton in 1900, in memory of Chauncey Pomeroy, her father. A series of pulleys and a hand crank lifts the 900 pound weight for the clock and the half-ton weight which drives the striking hammer of the clock. How often does the clock get wound?
a. Twice a week
b. Once a month
c. Every day
6. Halladay Avenue used to be known as….
a. Meditation Lane
b. Easy Street
c. Lovers Lane
7. Where is Christian Field?
a. Hickory Street
b. Hale Street
c. Hill Street
8. What business has a robot?
a. Hastings Farm
b. CVS
c. Suffield Village Market
9. Are all the following statements true? The Suffield High School class of 1943 is part of the local lore because…
a. It was the first class to graduate from Suffield High, now called
McAllister Intermediate School, who attended the school for four years.
b. Before the school was built, the town voted for a bond issue to pay for partial construction, then rescinded the vote but then re-authorized it again.
c. Hawley Rising, town historian before Lester Smith, was a member of the class.
10. Before Police Chief Harold Hill and policemen Gordon Hayes and Bud Brockett raised money for the first ambulance in town, people who were severely ill or injured, might get a ride to the hospital in a hearse, a moving van or other towns’ ambulances. Suffield’s first ambulance was a 1947 Pontiac which was garaged in the Ahrens home on Main Street. What was the ambulance’s nickname?
a. The Bandaid Bus
b. The Crisis Queen
c. The Blue Goose
Answers:
1. c. 1947
2. b. Leather buckets. Residents were required to buy leather fire buckets and keep them in good repair. In later years the buckets were metal. Often the resident’s name and bucket number were painted on it, sometimes very decoratively, so that the bucket would be returned to its owner after a fire. During a fire alarm, citizens were expected to throw their buckets into the street to be picked up by able-bodied persons who formed a bucket brigade to douse the fire.
3. b. The fire engine was pushed into its bay. In the late 1800s when hand-drawn pumpers and horse-drawn equipment were used, horses could not easily back the equipment into the station after a fire call, so they were disconnected from the equipment and firefighters would push the equipment back into the bay themselves.
4. c. The Hunt brothers: Biltmore house architect Richard Morris Hunt; Boston painter William Morris Hunt; and lawyer and photography pioneer Leavitt Hunt
5. a. Twice a week.
6. b. Easy Street.
7. b. Hale Street. In the early 1960s, the Christian family permitted the Suffield Little League to build a baseball field on their land.
8. a. Hastings Farm. The cows are milked by a robot which at the same time determines the health of the cow and the volume of milk.
9. Yes
10. c. The Blue Goose