The disastrous fire that decimated the
170 year old Somers Congregational Church on New Year's Day shows the
frailty of our historic New England wooden structures. East Hampton
has not been immune to such tragedies. On November 4th a month before
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Congregational
Church, a mainstay of our Village Center, erupted into flames.
Unlike Somer’s fire, our own was not started from some unknown
origin. Three painters from the Goodrich Construction Company of
Cromwell were using blow torches to soften and remove old paint. Wood
beneath clapboards ignited near the northwest corner of the church
proper carrying undetected flames throughout the balloon framing.
Their job was nearly complete when the workers noticed smoke coming
from the belfry where the fire had spread into the attic.
Two of the
painters ran across the street to the Barton Drug Company (now Devine
Jewelers) to get a fire extinguisher. Paul "Pat" O’Connell,
assistant fire chief, in his barber shop next door, went to the
firehouse (located on Watrous St.) and sounded the siren twice. He
drove the pumper to the church and went back for a second pumper,
sounding a 12 alarm alert to which Middletown and Portland fire
companies responded. Within 20 minutes the fire had spread through
the roof of the north end of the church.
The judgment of the
firefighters was to grab hold of ropes hanging from the steeple put
up by the painters. With assistance of the gathered crowd, they were
eventually able to pull the steeple into the church and away from the
parish house; quick thinking that saved the parish house as a steady
stream of water from the local mill ponds poured onto the north wall
of the church. In 1976, I had the opportunity to climb into the
church attic and inspect the Chestnut beams and charred wooden
girders that remain not only rock solid today, but a tribute to the
firemen who were able to preserve them 70 years ago.
