Jennie Cameron

The Jennie Cameron was a four-wheel hose carriage that was purchased by town council from the Hope Fire Company, Harrisburg, Pa. for the Vigilant Fire Company in August 1877. To tell the story of the Jennie Cameron I need to start in Harrisburg in 1866.

A the soldiers monument fair, September 1866, held at the State Capitol a number of fund raising events were held to help fund the erection of a monument. I could go into greater detail on the monument its location and the reason for it but I will try and keep the information centered on the rig itself. One of the events held by the committee was a polling, or purchasing of votes by the seven different fire companies of the city.

The prize for the company gathering the majority of the votes was a hose reel. The reel was a gift of Mrs. Virginia “Jennie” Cameron MacVeagh, the daughter of Simon Cameron, President Lincoln’s first Secretary of War. The carriage was awarded to the Hope Engine Company No. 2, which after the votes were tallied garnered 548 votes.

The Button Company of Seneca Falls, N.Y, built the hose carriage. As stated in the Harrisburg Telegraph the carriage was handsome in design and elegant in its ornamentation. The unit was built as a parade carriage, painted white and was valued at $700. On April 18, 1867 the Hope took possession of the rig.

In February 1877 the Hope moved to give the trustees the power to sell the Jennie Cameron. In April of the same year the company agreed to sell the carriage for $400. In May a committee of firemen from Shippensburg traveled to Harrisburg to look over the rig. In June town council offered the Hope $300 for the rig, they were informed that the price was $400 and they would go no lower. In August the sale was completed and on August 4, 1877 the Vigilant’s took possession of the carriage.

There are many stories about the Jennie Cameron from it being shipped down the valley during the railroad riots to the bells that adorned it; all can be read at the Pennsylvania National Fire Museum in Harrisburg. All are probably true stories but they apply to two different carriages. When the Jennie Cameron was placed in the museum and the history boards placed behind it we believed that it was the rig the Hope won in 1867. But after research by David Houseal and myself it was determined that the rig in the museum is not the original Jennie Cameron but a rig purchased in 1858 and that the Jennie Cameron had been sold to Shippensburg.

Because the paper never mentioned the rig by name or of council or the company selling a carriage of this type it is not known when the Vigilant’s stopped using it or what its final outcome was. Unfortunately the Vigilant’s no longer have their minutes from this time period. There is only two know photographs of the rig, one a stereoscope view taken July 4, 1876 in front of the Hope and the other a post card from the 1889 Pennsylvania Sate Convention held in Carlisle. Because of this card we know the Vigilant’s still had the carriage in September 1889. In December 1908 the Vigilant’s got a new hose wagon. They may have used the rig up until then but I doubt they used the rig after this.

If you have never been to the Museum make it a point to stop sometime. The carriage on display (Jennie Cameron 1858) there is much like the one the Vigilant’s used. The building is beautiful and the artifacts are second to none.

If you click on the photographs they will get larger. The quality is not the best but that is what we have and it is better than no photographs. In the post card the Jennie Cameron is in the center of the picture to the left of the steamer.

I guess I failed to point out that no major incident occurred on this date, unless it was last year and I have not entered that information yet.