Back in the late 1800s, before Onset was called Onset and before the invention of the automobile, there was a group of women among the earlier settlers known as “Spiritualists” that decided they wanted to make the area a better place to live.

Initially, the all-female group, who called themselves ‘The Ladies Industrial Union,” worked in the area then known as Pine Point to help provide for the poor, start a library, install street signs, and start a Sunday School for children.

At some point in the late 1880s, the group decided it was time to start a fire department in the area. It’s rumored that the group held bake sales to raise funds, and eventually donated $50 that helped purchase ladders, hooks, buckets, and axes for the purpose of fighting fires in town. After a fire 1886, which was diffused with the help of the equipment, the community decided the ladies were onto something, and by 1890, the Industry Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1 was formed.

According to Lenny Gay, who is currently the second oldest active member on the Onset Fire Department serving since 1958, the main goal of the original “Hook and Ladder” was to limit the spread of fire to multiple buildings.

Gay referenced a large fire on Shell Point early in Onset’s history that if not for Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1 could have burned down all or most of the residences in the entire area.

“If we didn’t have a fire department here, there probably wouldn’t be any Shell Point,” he said.

All of this, of course, took place before the invention of the automobile, and all of the department’s equipment was either horse-drawn or had to be pushed by hand. That includes the original hose reel, which still sits in the original Onset Fire Department building now located besides the current station on Central Avenue (it was previously located across the street on West Central Avenue). Similar to a wheel barrow, the hose reel was hand-drawn with no engine power to pressurize the water.

Gay said that Industry Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1 was integrated from day one, as the clerk for the department, George Law, was black. He also said that it wasn’t until 1923 that they got their first fire truck, an Ahrens Fox, and that they were the first in the area with a street box alarm system, meaning a fire box located in a neighborhood could be pulled to notify the department of a fire.

As for the formation of the Onset Fire District, Gay said that in 1894, Onset petitioned the town of Wareham to be a separate entity from the town. Selectmen put the petition on the town’s warrant, and in 1895, it was ratified, freeing the district and the department from being overseen by officials from the town of Wareham.

According to Gay, from there, the Onset Fire District bought the Onset Water Company, which created Onset Water Department.

Though most of Massachusetts’ cities and towns have one official fire department, Gay said there are around 20-25 separate fire districts in the state today, including three in Dartmouth and the two in Wareham.

“They’re not uncommon in the state,” said Gay, noting that all of the fire districts in the state have a Prudential Committee and a Board of Engineers to oversee them.

Gay also said that the Onset Fire District runs strictly on tax revenue, the Onset Water Department runs strictly on revenue from the sale of water, and that neither gets any revenue under Proposition 2-1/2.

“That’s all we’re getting for money,” he said. “We don’t have the access to revenue that the town does.”

In 1896, the department consisted of a Chief Engineer, two Assistant Engineers, one Hook and Ladder Company of 25 men, two Hose Companies consisting of 12 men each, and a Fire Police Force of six men, with a total of 58 men in the department.

Today, those numbers are similar—the Fire Department, according to Gay, has six full-time firefighters, with approximately 55 call firefighters on the force.

But if it wasn’t for the Industrial League of Women, there might never have been an independent Onset Fire Department and District. Gay said that like the original Hook and Ladder crew, formed with the help of those women, the current Onset department is efficient and dedicated to keeping Onset safe.

“We have a cracker-jack fire department,” said Gay. “We’re small and we can respond quickly.”