A fire truck with a rich history will be celebrated on Sunday as it’s dedicated back to the Greenport Fire Department, its original home.
The road that brought the fire truck full circle was long and fraught with challenges — and the story of how a community came together in an effort to restore the truck to its former glory is a testament to brotherhood, friendship, and a deep-rooted respect for Greenport history.
The Star Hose truck was first put into service back in 1933, said John Grilli, current Greenport Fire Department warden.
The truck was a familiar sight around the village until it was taken out of service in 1962, when it was put in the hands of the village board.
Bob Jester, who joined the fire department at 18, because he wanted to continue his family’s legacy of community service, had a fierce love for the truck.
“When I was younger, my dad used to drive the truck,” he said. “We lived on Fifth Avenue and I remember seeing it when I was a kid as it carried members to the cemetery. I remembered the truck fondly.”
So fierce was his commitment that Jester tried to buy the truck. “I always loved it and, when I was 18, all I had was $618. I offered $618 to the mayor to sell it to me.”
Parts disappeared, he said, during the time that the village had used the truck for a sewer pumper; the vehicle was “cannibalized.”
Later, the truck was left outside in the park for well over a year. Jester was the last person to drive the truck before it was parked and left to the elements. The passage of time took a devastating toll, he said.
“Everything that could be taken off, was taken off,” Jester said. “It was totally destroyed. Within a year and a half, you’d have a hard time telling it was a firetruck.”
By 1978, Greenport’s Al Herzog asked Jester if he was still interested in purchasing the truck. “The Greenport village board was about to sell it to the junk man,” Jester said.
When he said he would like to save the truck, Herzog spoke to George Hubbard, and just under the wire, with only hours to spare before the junk man took the truck, the village board agreed to sell a piece of Greenport history to Jester for the princely sum of $10.
“I brought it home and put it under plastic in a building in the backyard and started restoring it, very slowly. At the time, I had five fire trucks. My wife’s put up with a lot.” Jester laughed.
Over the years, he said, he’s tried to trace the fire truck’s history, not easy, since some records burned in a blaze at the firehouse on Carpenter Street.
But Jester estimates that the fire truck responded to well over 500 blazes by 1952, approaching 1,100 alarms in total before it was put out of service in 1962.
The fire truck remained with Jester until 1987, when former Greenport Village Trustee Jamie Mills — whose family, well-known for their longtime canvas business, Wm. J. Mills & Co., a bastion in the village, also had a long legacy of community service in the fire department — expressed an interest.
“Jamie Mills loved that truck as much as I did,” Jester said. “He was third generation in our fire company. His dad Billy Bob and his grandfather Robert used that truck when they were in service to the fire department.”
The two men worked together to decide the truck’s future. “I told him it would be a gentleman’s agreement. I said I’d give him the truck if he would promise that it would never leave Greenport. He agreed, and we shook hands.”
Mills, Jester said, took great pride in working on the fire truck, restoring it until it was “beautiful, and running nicely.”
But once again, Mother Nature was unkind: The fire truck was left in an outside building and, during a snowstorm, the roof fell in on the truck. Mills covered the truck and it stayed at the site until two-and-a-half years ago, Jester said.
“I was the keeper,” Mills said. “No one owns a firetruck. Just like a firehouse, one becomes the keeper of the legacy.”
Reflecting on his time with the truck, Mills said, “Bob Jester, the savior, passed it on to me to restore. A number of years after I restored it, I ran out of space and with the help of a family of raccoons it again fell into disrepair. When approached, I gladly offered it to the fire department, so they could be the next keeper.”
Jester said Mills initially asked him to take back the truck, but he was unable to take on the project alone. “It was in really rough shape. The engine hadn’t been tuned in 15 years. It was rusted and had deteriorated, the seats were ripped up.”
And so, Jester reached out to the Greenport Fire Department, and the journey toward restoration began.
A meeting was held, with about 24 in attendance, to discuss plans.
“When we got it, it needed a lot of work,” Grilli said.
But not willing to give up on such a majestic piece of Greenport’s history, they got to work.
Jester said Grilli’s whole family, including his wife Jen and son Jared, worked tirelessly on the project.
Jared, he said, “worked as hard as any person on that truck. He’d be underneath, with grease and oil on his face. Some nights we’d have to shut off the lights to the building, so he’d leave, because he had school the next day.”
Charlie Hydell, who restored all the gleaming woodwork, and George Capon were also critical to the project’s completion, both Grilli and Jester said.
On Sunday, a ceremony will be held — the event is not open to the public — to dedicate the truck back to the fire department and to thank the long list of village volunteers who donated time, effort, and supplies.
“So many people were involved, giving us machine parts parts and information and expertise,” Jester said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Grilli said while there are still some things that need fixing, such as a pump that doesn’t operate, the goal is to restore the truck to a different capacity of service.
Describing the years of work that went into the restoration, Grilli said all the chrome was pulled off and cleaned; Hydell lovingly tended to the wordwork.
A frozen engine, clutch and transmission were repaired; the engine is now running. The old tires, rims and brakes were cleaned and are now in working order.
The entire truck was sanded down, re-primed, and painted by Brewer Yacht Yard, with the gold leaf once again glowing.
All of the work was done by volunteers, Grilli said, with a core five working round the clock to get the project completed.
The shining truck made an appearance at the Tall Ships festival in July, where visitors donated funds to its ongoing restoration.
The work has been a labor of love, Grilli said. “It’s an antique and it’s just a beautiful truck. I know it’s going to mean more to us, having it in a fireman’s funeral again, rather than just riding it in a parade. It’s an important piece of Greenport’s history.”
Jester said he hopes the firetruck will help to bring history alive for a new generation. Now that the project, which took two years and three months, is coming to a close, Jester said the restored truck offers a glimpse back into the days when people used to hang off the back steps of the truck, rather than just sitting in cabs, as is the practice today.
“It’s been an evolution,” he said. “My hope is that in the next year or two, this becomes the truck that carries Santa to Christmas tree lightings and caroling.”
He’d like to see the truck used to captivate children at parades and during fire prevention week, as well as utilized in the junior fire department program.
And Jester, too, would like to see the beautiful firetruck, back in service after 53 years, carrying loyal first responders to their final resting place. “It’s a reminder to people, a connection to the past, and that’s a really important thing.”
