February 19, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry presents some history and genealogy based on a 19th century photo album of volunteer firemen. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
The Society of California Pioneers holds in their collection a leather-bound album which contains cabinet photo cards of the San Francisco volunteer fire department company known as the Tiger Engine Company No. 14, organized in 1855.
This treasure was a gift to the Society of California Pioneers from Miss Marian Doolan in 1951. With the help of GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives as well as collections from the California archives, I was able to find some background on these first responders who served in Tiger Engine Company No. 14.
The fire department of San Francisco sprang into existence because of disastrous fires that occurred in the city during the month of December 1849. A report of one fire event was detailed in a local newspaper, titled “Destructive Fire in San Francisco – Some Thirty Houses Consumed – Several Lives Lost – Loss of Property Estimated at $1,000,000.”
This article reports:
The lowest estimate which we have heard of the entire loss of property caused by the fire is placed at a million of dollars… The public authorities and the police were of course upon the spot in the discharge of their appropriate duties, yet, owing to the great scarcity of wells in the city, our want of [fire] engines and hook and ladder companies, and the entire absence of any organized fire department, we cannot but look upon the saving of one half of our city as little less than a miracle.
Why didn’t San Francisco have a fire department in December 1849? The answer is quite simple: the city grew too quickly because of the California Gold Rush. San Francisco was a sleepy little settlement of about 200 residents in 1846. Then gold was discovered in the American River in northern California on 24 January 1848 and word spread, leading to a huge population increase in San Francisco in 1849. While prospectors rushed to the gold fields, merchants and their families settled in San Francisco – by 1850 the city’s population had swelled to 25,000!
Tiger Engine Company No. 14 was formed in response to San Francisco’s “entire absence of any organized fire department.” Many of the men who served were known as the 49ers, or Pioneers, and their professions ranged from butchers to brigadier generals.
Six men whose photo cards appear in the album are listed in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1856.
This article reports:
Tiger Engine Co. No. 14 – This company elected for officers last evening the following gentlemen: Foreman, Caleb Clapp; First Assistant Foreman, P. C. Wilk[i]nson; Second Assistant Foreman, John Carroll; Secretary, J. Sewall Reed; Treasurer, Wm. M. [P]ayne; Delegates, Chas. M. Pl[u]m, J. Sewall Reed.
Here are their photo cards from the album:
Here is the history and genealogy I’ve discovered so far in my research.
Charles Mortimer Plum
Charles Mortimer Plum (1827-1897), born to Elijah Washburn and Elizabeth M. (Hotchkiss) Plum, is a direct descendant of Samuel Hotchkiss and Elizabeth Cleverly.
Plum died of pneumonia on 14 December 1897, at age 69. Here is his obituary, complete with a portrait, published in the San Francisco Chronicle.
This article reports:
Charles M. Plum, a veteran furniture manufacturer and one of the best-known of the pioneers, is dead. Mr. Plum died yesterday morning at the residence of his sister, Mrs. Edwin Joy [born Christinia Plum, married 1st to Henry C. Rendell], 207 Fell Street.
Mr. Plum came to San Francisco from his birthplace, New York, in 1849, and went into the [wall] paper-hanging business. He returned to his Eastern home, only to come back to California in 1851 and establish the furniture business which bears his name and which prospered so greatly.
Mr. Plum served in the capacity of president of the Exempt [Volunteer] Firemen and the Mechanics’ Institute.
Here is a photo of a group of exempt firemen – men who gave their services as firemen without compensation from the city from 1849 to 1866 – in front of their headquarters, taken in 1893. Some of the men from the Tiger Engine Company No. 14 photo card album are in this photo.
In addition, Mr. Plum was a member of the Pioneers, Masons, Knights Templar, and Knights of Honor.
The obituary further notes:
Mr. Plum had a most successful and honorable business career and accumulated a large estate, which was divided among the members of the family some years ago. He was a fine-looking and genial man and was possessed of a wide circle of friends. He left a wife [Catherine Sophia McDougal (1830-1904)] and five children, the latter all grown and married. His only son and youngest child, Charles M. Plum Jr., has for some time been associated with his father in business.
Charles and Catherine’s children:
- Louissa Elizabeth Plum (1838-1959), married Christian Fradelle Krauss (1867-1952).
- Mary Catherine Plum (1845-1935), married Frederick Charles Christian Keil (1845-1893) from Denmark.
- Jeannette “Janet” McDougal Plum (1855-1941), married Marion Edward Knoph (1854-1895), son of Thomas and Lucinda (Brownson) Knoph.
- Frances Anita Plum (1863-1909), married James Harvey Irvine II (1867-1947), son of James Harvey I and Henrietta Maria (Rice) Irvine.
- Charles Mortimer Plum II (1866-1915), married Lilian M. Bachelder (1867-1955) of New Hampshire, daughter of Alvah Harris and Harriet Lurena (Holt) Batchelder.
James Sewall Reed
Captain James Sewall Reed (1832-1864), born to John Puffer and Mirenda (Barker) Reed in Milton, Massachusetts, married Harriet Lydia “Hattie” Wales.
Captain Reed organized the celebrated “California 100,” a regiment of 100 volunteers who left the state of California to join the forces of the Union Army and served in the 2nd Massachusetts Calvary.
Here is a pre-Civil War photo of J. Sewall Reed as a member of the California First Light Dragoons, the first legally organized militia company mustered in under the first Militia Law passed by the first session of the California Legislature, held in San Jose in 1850.
The photo card in the photo album above states that Capt. Reed was “killed on Thanksgiving Day 1864,” but that is incorrect. He was killed in battle on 22 February 1864, in Virginia. Below is a newsclip of Captain Reed’s funeral.
This article reports:
Funeral of Capt. Reed. The remains of Capt. J. Sewall Reed, 2d Massachusetts Calvary, have been brought home by the Chaplain of the regiment, and will be buried with military honors from Rev. James H. Means’ church, in Dorchester, Thursday, March 3, at 11 o’clock. The National Lancers have handsomely tendered their services as escort.
Captain Reed left no descendants, but his brother John Reed (1826-1894), was a surveyor, farmer, and one of the founders of Lompoc County, California. He had several children who married into lines of the Stuart, Cline, Fisk, Miller, and Marks families.
To be continued…
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Note on the header image: 1860 fire engine in San Francisco, California. Credit: Roy D. Graves Collection, Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.
