Full Text
Lighting Fair Haven By Susan Parsons Early street lights were composed of candles, or oil or other combustible lighting sources with wicks. Residents of towns or villages lucky enough to have street lighting could see the lamp lighter go to work before dusk carrying his ladder and implements. The lamp lighter might have to trim the wick and refuel the street lamp before lighting it for the evening. After a time candles became obsolete and mantels replaced wicks, increasing the efficiency and candlepower of the lighting. As with many potential expenditures in Fair Haven, controversy reigned between conservatives and progressives over the necessity and price of lighting the streets. Ray Sant, in Fair Haven Folks and Folklore, (1941, 2002) wrote that the Village “had a real metropolitan air when the street lights were placed on each corner” (113). He further stated that the progressive faction had won out. Six-foot tall posts were placed on the street corners. Kerosene lamps were perched atop which had to be filled allowing the lamp to stay lit most of the night. Street Lamp (short pole next to phone pole) at the corner of Lake and Main Streets, Fair Haven (Note the boxcar at the right of the photo) ---PAGE BREAK--- Street lamp next to phone pole at the corner of Richmond Ave. and Main Street, Fair Haven ---PAGE BREAK--- Street Lamp in center of photo, at front of Robinson and Phillips’ Store, North Main Street, Fair Haven. The location was approximately at the east end of the present location of Bayside Grocery In 1896, the Fair Haven Village Board awarded a contract for street lighting to A. W. Bancroft for $140.00 (Fair Haven Register). Albert Bancroft (1835-1899) had once owned a billiard parlor in Fair Haven. He is buried at Springbrook Cemetery. The Fair Haven Register (3/10/1897) noted that Oscar Pitts of the Town of Wolcott had moved into the Wellington House on Richmond Avenue, Fair Haven. Pitts, a Civil War Veteran, became the lamplighter. The Fair Haven Register (3/14/1901) published Fair Haven’s financial report, the annual statement of the Treasurer of the Village for the year 1900. It showed that Oscar Pitts was paid $40, $30, $30, $40 for the year of 1900, with the money coming out of the “Lamp Fund.” The only other expenditure from the Lamp Fund during that year was to Deitel’s Hardware Store in the amount of thirty cents. (Besides the Lamp Fund, disbursements were paid to the ---PAGE BREAK--- following funds: highway, printing, contingent, bond, crosswalk, lumber, cement walk, clerk and health. For that year total health costs to the Village were $19.63.) For years Oscar Pitts could be seen, summer and winter, on his evening rounds carrying his stepladder, funnel and kerosene can. He was faithfully providing lighted pathways for the residents and summer visitors. He may have served as night watchman as well, as lamplighters often did. In the shorter nights of summer he may have had to snuff out the lights at dawn, though in the winter perhaps the lamps ran out of fuel before dawn. Oscar Pitts (1843-1927), a member of the 97th Regiment during the Civil War, is buried at Springbrook Cemetery. His great grandson and great granddaughter are area residents Frank Perkins of Sterling and Jan Perkins of Fair Haven. In 1911, Miles Dakin took the contract for lighting the street lamps (Fair Haven Register, 1911). He was a pensioner from the Civil War and died in 1929 at age 92. The Fair Haven Register, in its June 6, 1912 edition contains a News Brief stating that “the north end citizens and cottagers have asked the village board for several street lamps in their locality.” It is noted in the August 31, 1916 edition of the paper that two street lamps had been erected on “Fancher Avenue on the north end.” By about 1921, the Village was wired for electric current and the days of the lamplighter were reaching their twilight. The Fair Haven Register noted that the “old oil street lamps that had glimmered and twinkled throughout the village were being taken down giving place to the brilliancy of electric lights” (1922).