BEAUFORT, NC

Left top image: Documents show Beaufort, NC as having black firefighters as early as 1908 with 20 members manning a hand engine and a hose reel.

Left middle image: Sanborn Fire Insurance maps from December 1913 list Beaufort's second fire company as colored and housed next to Town Hall at 305 Broad Street, with 20 volunteers.

Left bottom image: Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1924.
.

BEAUFORT, NC

Documents show Beaufort as having black firefighters as early as 1908 with 20 members manning a hand engine and a hose reel.

1913 gives the same numbers while records for 1924 show 21 members manning a hose reel with the hand pumper gone.

The Beaufort News on May 6, 1943, included a retrospective that cited a fire in 1907 or 1908, "when the new [fire department] was eleven months old."

The newspaper at the time reported that the Robert E. Lee Fire Company and the "Colored Fire Department" battled a blaze at the Robinson House on the northwest corner of Ann and Turner streets, in which "Miss Henrietta Roberson was burned to death."

The fire engine was connected to "the fire plug on the corner" but "as the water did not come promptly," the engine was moved to water front at Turner Street and "the hose thrown overboard."