Sound Beach (Greenwich) Seagrave a die-cast model

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Sound Beach Seagrave fire engine gets toy treatment

By Martin B. Cassidy

Staff Writer

February 25, 2007

The unblemished red body of the 1931 Seagrave is embellished with several seashell crests, a visual pun on the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department's name cooked up by the legendary fire engine manufacturer.

"It's unique to the truck and one of the great things about it," said Capt. Stanley Thal, a longtime Sound Beach firefighter. "Seagrave prided themselves on the artwork and doing something different."

Opening the hood of the engine compartment, Thal gingerly lifted the hinge to avoid scratching the pristine red paint.

After several rounds of design between the department and a Norwalk-based toy company, a die-cast miniature of the truck, complete with the Sound Beach moniker, will soon begin coming off an assembly line in China for sale to the general public, Thal said.

Anticipated by May, the department will receive a free carton of the toy trucks, which it will sell for $20 to $25 apiece to raise money, giving longtime department supporters first crack at the toy. It will also stock up on the toy trucks to use as a promotional item, Thal said.

The manufacturer, Lipenwald Inc., took the trouble to get the truck right, even mimicking the antiquated appearance of the engine, the rich wooden compartments and vintage leather helmets hanging aboard the truck.

Last year a company representative contacted the Sound Beach department about making a toy based on the 1931 Seagrave after seeing a picture of the firetruck.

"We're very excited about it," Thal said. "The level of detail is amazing."

Lipenwald Inc. declined comment on the new truck but made a photograph available through the Sound Beach department. The company has also made die-cast collectibles of other fire engines, including the 1949 St. James Fire Department Mack L. Pumper and the 1947 Ahrens-Fox HT Piston Pumper. The company also makes a range of other police, military, and hot rod die-cast collectibles, according to its Web site.

The Sound Beach department acquired the truck in July 1931 for $13,000 from the Seagrave Fire Apparatus Co., according to its bill of sale. The still-active company is now based in Philadelphia.

It remained in service until 1964, when it was sold to a collector in Clarion, Pa.

When the collector was dying, he contacted the department, offering to sell the engine back, and the engine was reacquired by firefighters in 1979 for $5,000.

Clifford Frost, a former deputy chief who joined the department in 1947, coordinated the refurbishing of the truck, which took about six years. The Seagrave now appears several times a year during the Old Greenwich Memorial Day Parade, an Easter egg hunt, to deliver gifts at Christmastime and out-of-town parades.

"We bought it back so we could restore it and maintain some of the history of the company," Frost said.

For Frost and former Sound Beach Chief Paul Palmer, the firetruck spurs memories of its days as a working apparatus and the free spirits who served in the department.

Starting the truck requires an elaborate priming process including pouring gasoline into each cylinder of the engine, Frost said, and using a hand crank under the engine compartment to get it going.

"It takes half an hour to start," Frost added.

"It's really an art form getting it into gear," Palmer added.

Palmer, the grandson of founding department member Nelson Palmer, recalled an incident in the 1950s when the overheated truck's exhaust vent set a grass fire around the truck as firefighters waged a prolonged battle against a blaze at a wool mill.

"So we were fighting the fire around the truck too," Palmer said. "If the flames had jumped to the gas tank the whole thing might have gone up."

Frost said that when the truck was in service it would sometimes stall going downhill, leaving the driver at the mercy of its sometimes dicey brakes. "You'd be rolling downhill and waving to people but they didn't know you couldn't stop," Frost said.

One time the truck crashed into the front of Cuffy's, a newspaper store owned by volunteer fireman William Cuff directly across from the firehouse, Palmer recalled.

"The mechanical brakes couldn't stop that rig," Palmer said. "You could slow it down but you couldn't make a normal stop."

It was normal from the 1930s to 1960s for Sound Beach Avenue merchants like Cuff to be firefighters, Palmer said.

When Cuff would respond to calls, customers would help themselves to merchandise and leave him money to pay for it, Palmer recalled.

"It was positive because the merchants were very close to the fire station," Palmer said.

Discussion between Frost and Palmer also turned to a firefighter who once helped care for the decommissioned truck and once rode his motorcycle through the second floor of the station, crashing into a door, Frost remembered.

"Oh boy, they were a lot of characters," Frost said, cracking a smile and wincing. "Now they're all gone."

Palmer said he felt the toy truck was a great event for the fire department, which had invested so much time and energy keeping the Seagrave in good condition.

"I think it's going to be great and I'm looking forward to getting one," Palmer said. "We always thought the truck was something we cherished and liked, and that it was a very impressive engine."

Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc

Former Sound Beach volunteer Fire Department Deputy Chief Clifford Frost with the department's 1931 Seagrave firetruck.

Edited February 25, 2007 by nutty1