Plaque honors five Lynchburg firefighters killed in 1883 blaze

Four pieces of Lynchburg Fire Department history are slowly crumbling under a canopy of trees in the Presbyterian Cemetery.

The 125-year-old marble tombstones marking the graves of four firefighters who died in the largest fire in the city’s history are growing harder to read.

In a ceremony just one day shy of the 126th anniversary of the Jones, Watts Bros. & Co. hardware store fire that consumed 19 buildings and killed five firefighters, the Lynchburg Fire Department on Friday dedicated a monument to telling their story.

The cemetery is just off the Expressway near Grace Street.

Firefighters feared that one day people visiting the graveyard won’t know who these men are and the sacrifice they made.

Years from now, when the head stones of Felix Delbelvre, James Thomas Clement, James A. Vaughan, William Halsey Gouldman and William R. Moore are no longer legible, their story will remain, thanks to the monument.

“It’s good for us to remember,” said Capt. Dennis Dodson. “We don’t want them to ever be forgotten.”

The story of the first Lynchburg firefighters killed in the line of duty began on May 30, 1883, in the cellar of the hardware store on Main Street around 10 a.m. An employee of the store lit a piece of paper to use as a light and dropped it, igniting some waste oil that had leaked onto the floor, according to The Tri-Weekly News’ June 1, 1886, edition.

The fire department, formed just six weeks prior and still comprised of volunteers, responded within two minutes, but the flames spread to The Virginian newspaper building and then farther, burning buildings along Main, 10th and Church streets.

By 1 p.m. the fire, which had been mostly knocked down, rekindled at The Virginian and the five men went in despite orders to stay back.

“There were many who looked on who thought the risk was too great to be taken for the amount of good to be served, and so the result proved; for just about 1 o’clock, with a sudden rush and tumble, the partition wall between Jones, Watts Bros. & Co.’s fell down in a mass of debris, burying beneath it the hapless firemen, instantly crushing them into indistinguishable death!” the paper wrote.

Chief Alexander Thurman wrote of the destruction and the challenges in putting the fire out in the department’s first logbook.

“Whilst it is laudable to report the death of five noble men battling as they thought for the best, it is but justice to the chief of this department to state that his orders were not observed, and their sad fate can be attributed only to their zeal which impelled them beyond the points defined to them,” he wrote.

City Council purchased a plot of 12 graves to inter Lynchburg firefighters killed in the line of duty. Four of these men are buried there; the fifth was buried in a family plot in Spring Hill Cemetery. In later years, four more were buried in the plot and four spaces remain vacant. To date, 22 city firefighters have been killed while on duty.

“This event stopped the city,” said Capt. Robert Lipscomb. “And it has, for the most part, been forgotten.”

Their story is taught along with the department’s history to new recruits, Lipscomb said. The firefighters of the Grace Street station, which overlooks the cemetery, developed the habit of checking on their fallen comrades buried next door.

They noticed last year that the aging gravestones were becoming hard to read and looked into restoring them, said Dodson, a captain at that station. But the marble isn’t repairable, so they decided to erect a monument in front of the graves.

“They were looking kind of worn, and we wondered if there will ever be a day when someone can come into the cemetery and look at these stones and not be able to read the names on them and know their importance,” Dodson said.

The Lynchburg Firefighters Association funded the project, he said. The firefighters had hoped it would be part of the 125th anniversary celebration last year, but it took more time to finish than they thought.

“We wanted the opportunity for firefighters and friends to come here on the 150th anniversary or the 200th anniversary and still recognize this part of the cemetery and still recognize how important it was that five of our firefighters died (six weeks) after the formation of the Lynchburg Fire Department,” Dodson said.

“There are still open spaces and still room for more firefighters to be buried. Our hope is the only time that we come here is to meet for occasions like this, that there will never be any more firefighters buried in this place.”

The men:

Felix Delbelvre

The native of New Orleans was a first generation American born of French parents. He was married to Mary J. Mays.

The Confederate War veteran became a bartender after the war. He died at the age of 42.

James Thomas Clement

The Lynchburg native was married to Sarah Elizabeth Brooks.

He died at the age of 25.

James A. Vaughan

The Richmond native moved to Lynchburg about seven years prior to his death.

The 33-year-old was the father of two and was widowed at the time of his death.

William Halsey Gouldman

The Lynchburg City Police officer was married to Elizabeth Johns Murray. He left behind several small children.

He had so often “exposed his life” that his mother was concerned that his time had come, the paper reported.

William R. Moore

The Franklin County native was working as a conductor for the Norfolk & Western Railroad.

He was widowed at the time of his death and had been serving as a captain in the volunteer fire organization in the city.

His body was buried in a family plot at Spring Hill Cemetery.