Passin’ along Grand street recently I walked by the old store–or rather the old site that was occupied by the store–of Henry J. Gratacap, the man who made all the caps for the fire-laddies in town, and a good many of the fire-laddies in other towns. In his palmy days Mr. Gratacap had two stores, one on Broadway and one on Grand street, but the Grand street store was the boss of the two. Gratacap made fireman’s hats for over thirty years, and sometimes he turned out at the Grand street store over a hundred caps in a week. One would hardly believe now the amount of money that was sometimes spent, and spent proudly and gladly, on a fireman’s hat.
Over one thousand dollars have been planked down for one show fireman’s hat. Once $1,350 was paid for an elegant affair of this kind, mounted in gold and silver. This was for a New York fire laddie who had gone to California in ‘49, got rich in minin’, and got to be chief of the fire department in ‘Frisco. Ball & Black, then the leadin’ jewelers of New York, did the mountin’ of this extraordinary hat. It had one hundred and eighty divisions, or “cones,” as they were called. The fireman’s hats abounded in these “cones,” the most ordinary hat had from four to eight, some had thirty or forty. One hat is said to have had three hundred and twenty cones, the highest number known.
The “presentation” hats, which were given at testimonials to popular firemen had forty-two cones, as their regulation number.
In the course of his thirty years as hat maker graticap got up a lot of novelties or improvements in hats.
This first new thing was a “stitched front” in the cap, then he got up a “raised front,” then he introduced a brass eagle head in the front of the cap, which was quite showy. Then he made a specialty of “presentation fronts” for hats, which cost anywheres from ten to fifty dollars, accordin’ to the popularity of the man “presented” or the funds of the company “presentin’.”
Gratacap had the advantage of comin’ after old Matt Du Bois, who was the first man to make firemen’s hats a specialty. Matt had a shop on old Anthony street, where he made caps with iron rims. A man called Baudoine also made fireman’s hats till he drew $25,000 in a lottery. Then he got too big to make any more hats.
There were three points in a fireman’s rig that were quite characteristic–the hat, the red shirt and the suspenders or gallowses [galluses], as they were called.
Old Engine Company 5 was the first company to introduce the red shirt. It was thought a tremendous, big and startlin’ “innovation” in its day, and Engine Company 5’s boys were as proud of their red shirts as a turkey-cock in a barnyard. Company 5 was one of the crack companies of its period, and claimed to dress for a fire in quicker time than any other company in the department. One of the boys averred that on one occasion he had got out of bed, at an alarm of fire given by the old jail bell, had thrown his boots out of the window, and had then dressed and got down stairs in time to catch his boots before they touched the sidewalk!
Anyway it was really astonishin’ how quick the boys could, and did, “dress” for a fire alarm.
Ex-Mayor Wickham, who was an enthusiastic fireman, said that he or any good old fire laddie could dress in just three motions, when “bunkin’” in the engine house.
He used to lay down with his boots at the foot of his bed, and his trousers wrapped loosely round his top-boots. When woke by an alarm, his first motion was to put on his boots, his second motion was to draw up the trousers from where they were wrapped up round the boots, and his third and last motion was to fasten his pantaloons round his waist. Then he was all ready to run. Gildersleeve, Wickham and others have practically Illustrated this style of dressin’ made speedy in three motions, hundreds of times.
The suspenders or gallowses were also characteristic parts of a fireman’s rig, though in course of time the regular fireman dropped wearing ‘em and left ‘em to the followers or hangers-on of the engine companies and the boys.
The gallowses were united at the back by a leather clasp, or shield, with the number of the wearer’s engine or hose Company on it. Some pairs were very handsome and costly. Brokaw, the tailor, paid $17 for one pair.
These gallowses, with their numbers on the back, used to serve as “badges” to their wearers to prove that they belonged to such and such a company. It thus got ‘em out of scrapes occasionally, but it sometimes got ‘em into ‘em.
The old chief of the Volunteer Fire Department, Gulick, when a youngster, once found himself in the midst of a company bitterly hostile to the one he ran with. He tried to wiggle out of the uncongenial crowd, and was on the point of bein’ successful. He was just on the outskirts of the hostile company when a boy who knew him, saw him. The boy pointed Gulick out as one of the other company’s fellers. A push was made on him and Gulick was caught. He came near denyin’ his company in the excitement of the minute, but to a fire laddie, even to a fire lad, the goin’ back on one’s company was like goin’ back on one’s mother, or one’s religion. So he simply held his tongue and looked his indignation at the charge he could not deny. Indirectly and by pantomime, at least, he denied the charge against him, but his suspenders proved too much.
Seizing him by the back, despite his struggles, the crowd pulled up young Gulick’s coat, and there on the middle of his back was revealed indisputable evidence. His gallowses fairly bristled with the fatal numbers of the hated company, and he got a sound drubbin’. Still he kept on wearin’ his numbered suspenders.
[Editor’s notes: The source for this column was George William Sheldon’s The Story of the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York, Harper & Brothers, 1882.]
