Fighting Fire on the Island

Fireman from Around the Turn of the Century (Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute / )

Firefighters have been part of the Long Island scene since the first volunteer fire department was organized in Sag Harbor in the early 1800s.

Tis uncaptioned photograph of a fireman from around the turn of the century comes from the files of the Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute.

The Ships of Yore

Several readers identified the scene in the accompanying photograph as Baldwin Harbor on Millburn Creek.

"The large two-masted boat in the background of the photo is the Grace M. Denton," writes Al Grover Jr. of Center Moriches. "She was a dragger owned by Roger Carman, and my father mated on this boat for $2 a day ... The large net reel on the left side of the photo was used to wind up the nets to dry. The reel was rotated by walking a plank inside the net reel."

Fred Scopinich of the Hamptons Shipyards in East Quogue adds, "The bow of the skiff in the right edge of the photo is a Verity Skiff built in Baldwin by Sam Verity and his son-in-law, Nip Jackson. In the spring, these skiffs were used by the commercial fishermen of Baldwin to set gill nets in the ocean at night. On the dock is a winter pilot house installed on the skiffs in the winter."

As for the man in the foreground, Laura Krapf Moon of Baldwin says that it's her father, Fred Krapf, who was an iceman. She says the photograph was published in a magazine in 1942.

"I used to ride with him in his truck as he delivered to customers, some of which were fishermen, who iced their fish prior to shipment to the Fulton Fish Market," she writes. "The picture reflects him waiting for boats to return to the dock with their catch of the day."