It was on March 14, 1955, that a group of nine men met at the Reformed Church of Middletown with the idea of forming a fire company in the Village section of Middletown Township. It was agreed to hold an organization meeting at the church the following week.

On March 23, 1955, this group of men, 25 in number, assembled at the church. The first discussions produced a working organization headed by Harold Jacobsen Sr., president; E. Hall Kempson, secretary; and Nick D'Anthony, treasurer.

All the members had at that point was a dream of establishing a fire company. The treasury total amounted to zero. In order to provide some kind of start on the long road to the realization of their goal, the men decided to contribute $1.00 each, per meeting until a total of $5.00 was reached. Meetings were held every Monday night for almost a year.

The first rung on the ladder of accomplishment was the acquiring of a piece of fire apparatus, the second rung was represented by obtaining a piece of property, and the third rung toward success, was having a firehouse.

The first fund-raising activity of the newly born company was a spaghetti supper May 4, 1955. Late in June of the same year the company purchased its first truck, a 1938 Brockway hook and ladder, from the Borough of Fair Haven on the installment plan at $50.00 per month.

At that point the fire company, still in its infancy, had a fire truck but no place to house it. Soon after acquiring the truck, Anthony Bishoff offered the men the use of his old machine shop on Liberty Street, if the truck would fit. With the housing of the truck, Bishoff's Garage became the company's first firehouse.

Soon after, the company accepted an offer of Middletown Township Fire Company No 1 for the use of its old siren, and thus another step forward was taken. With the approval of the Middletown Township Committee, the Old Village Fire Company was incorporated under that title on September 7, 1955. This, however, did not mean that the fire company was permitted to fight fires in the township. It was still necessary for the Middletown Township Fire Department to formally accept the new fire company and its equipment.

In November, 1955, the fire company moved its hook and ladder from its original home to a barn on the old Schulz farm on Route 35 near the intersection of the Keyport-New Monmouth Road. Before the barn could be pressed into service, many hours of labor were required to make it suitable for housing the fire truck. This barn when properly prepared, became the company's second firehouse and was used for that purpose until July, 1957.

The Old Village Fire Company purchased its first pumper again on the installment plan, from the Borough of Rumson, in December, 1955. The truck, a 1927 American-LaFrance, l000-gallon pumper, had been the first fire truck of the Rumson Fire Department and now is the pride and joy of the Old Village Fire Company.

With these two pieces of equipment, the men started to hold fire drills. Many of the men had no prior experience in this field but they set themselves to the task in earnest, determined to master the intricate skills of efficient fire fighting.

In September of 1956, the fire company took another big step forward with the purchase, also on the installment plan, of a third truck, a l000-gallon tank unit.

During these months drills were held all over the township and the members of other fire companies in the township provided invaluable aid in instruction and guidance. Without this aid the men of the Old Village Fire Company would have had a difficult time in reaching their goal.

It soon developed that the new fire company could not be accepted into the township's fire department unless it owned a piece of property and because of this the firemen of the still infant fire company approached Herman Barkei, who donated a piece of land suitable for a fire house. With clear title and plans, for a building, a committee attended a special meeting of the township's fire department to present the case of the Old Village Fire Company.

On May 29, 1956, an initiation drill was held for the company members by the township fire department on Route 35 and also at the Central School.

A really monumental step forward occurred on May 14, 1956 at a meeting of the Middletown Township Fire Department at the Lincroft Firehouse at which it was voted to accept the Old Village Fire Company as a member of the department. This was done on the recommendation of Fire Chief Joseph Munch. The new fire company became No. 11 in the township.

On March 18, 1957, the deed for a new piece of property was acquired on Route 35. Purchased because it was larger in area than the former site and also more centrally located. Groundbreaking of the new firehouse was on March 28 with Mayor Frank Blaisdell of Middletown hefting the first shovelful. With the firemen donating much of their time and labor into the construction, the building had to be ready by the winter of 1957.

On July 20, 1957, with its three pieces of equipment, the Old Village Fire Company moved into its new firehouse on Route 35. The building contains a kitchen and meeting room and has three bays for the fire apparatus and is located on approximately two acres of land.

All of this effort and energy, which began officially on March 23, 1955, was in reality aimed at an unknown date in the future. That unknown date was the all-important "first" -- the first alarm that the Old Village Fire Company would roll out on. The date turned out to be June 11, 1956, when the company extinguished a fire in a car on the Garden State Parkway near Red Hill Road. The company's first call on a house fire was on August 25, 1956, on Middletown Road, Middletown.

Thus the Old Village Fire Company became an active element in the safety and security of its community, an organization dedicated to service and protection.

The path between March 23, 1955, and June 11, 1956, was a long and arduous one, open to many pitfalls between the idea and the realization of a new fire company.

In the decades to come, when the Old Village Fire Company has grown with its area and has developed into the large fire-fighting organization that it ultimately must become, the residents of the area can look back over the years in appreciation and gratitude to that small group of 25 men who many years before banded together in a sense of community pride and community service to establish one of the most important organizations any community can have.

The charter members of the Old Village Fire Company were as follows:

Henry J. Bielecki, Joseph Busel, William J. Boehm, William Champlin, Rocco Cione, Nick D''Anthony, Andrew D'Anthony, Louis DeChicchio, Richard Garrison, Leroy R. Gray, John Hulsberg, John Hayden, Robert Henschel, George Harmyk Jr., Harold Jacobsen Sr., Stanley Kerr, George Kinkade Jr., E. Hall Kempson, Kenneth G. Kempson, John F. Leach, John L. Lindauer, Don MacLaughlin, Theodore Morse, Harold B. Millward, Jesse McCandless, William Orbann, John V. Pohl, Robert Railton, Graham Rockafellow, William Strohkirch Jr., William Strohkirch Sr., John Wyman.

The Old Village Fire House in 1958

The Old Village Fire house today

The information displayed on these pages are property of the Old Village Fire Company, Middletown, N.J.

Copyright © 2008 Old Village Fire Company Inc.