gtfd47 said:
That is an awesome find...the Buckle is of a hand tub...They were ususally horse drawn and were as stated manual firepumps, usually drawing water from ponds or cisterns...Generally speaking, they were named and assigned a number...that would have been worn as part of the uniform specific to that tub...google search Fire Hand tubs local to your area, or swing by the FD in the area found...For example, some of the Tubs from my Department way back when in the 1800s were the Erie 4, & Washington 3....Sweet, and definatley a huge market for that piece
Thanks for the info. I will check with the town and see what they can tell me. I didn't know if the 5 meant station #5 or was the designated number of the hand tub. But a small town like this would not likely have had 5 stations at any point.
@dg39
I went out metal detecting Saturday with my partner and a new guy from RI. We hit a spot that turned out to be a dud except for an Inidan I found. Decided to just drive around and eyeball a spot and found 4 fields down the street that we're pretty sure are town owned. Pulled out a large cent (no date def pre-1808 though) and my buddy pulled an old button. Then I found the buckle. When it first popped out of the whole I nearly wet myself because I thought it was something else. I'm still pretty excited about it as I've found close to a hundred buckles this years. And aside from the colonial stuff, they've all been junk. We left a short while after because of the blazing heat. We plan on going back again this week when it's not so rainy. The town it was found is here on the south shore of MA.
Dave