Before I leap into this week’s post, I want to share with you some information I received in the form of a comment from no less of an authority than the chief of the Westville Fire Department!

Regarding last week’s photos of John Capewell in uniform and a piece of firefighting equipment, Chief Eric Farley of the Westville, NJ Fire Department had this to say:

“The photo of the hand cart was taken on West Olive Street, Westville, NJ on what is today 218 W. Olive Street. The house in the photo still stands today located at 224 W. Olive. The other homes in the background are 254 W. Olive, 270 W. Olive (burned down in September 1995) and 300 W. Olive. The Independent Fire Co. No. 2 was located in the 200 Block of Chestnut Street from 1907 to 1922, moving to Broadway and Olive St until 1987 when the two Fire Companies merged. Today, the Westville Fire Department operates out of that Building.”

With this in mind, I’m pretty sure this is the firehouse when it was on Chestnut Street, and taken some time before 1922. I’m sure the Chief or some history buff out there will give me the date of when the department traded the horses I posted a couple weeks ago for the snazzy motorized equipment that they are showing off in this shot.

Judging from last week’s photo of John Capewell in uniform, he was probably a member of this fire department, but he doesn’t appear to be in this shot. It’s a little hard to tell with this photo. In the past he has managed to take self-portraits through the use of a timer or a length of string attached to the shutter release. This time it looks as if Capewell is behind the lens documenting the Fire Department’s latest upgrade for posterity.

As with all of the photographs in the Capewell Collection Glass Negative Collection, I placed this 5-inch x 7-inch glass negative on a lightbox and shot it with a digital camera locked down on a tripod. The processing was done digitally on a Mac using Adobe Photoshop.

Last: Fireman Capewell and an Apparatus | Next: Mama and the Boys

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