The fire being refrred to actually occured about 1872 according to an article published in the Plainfield Courier News on Saturday, June 7, 1934 recalling some historic events. On page 20 it contains a picture of the ruins that destroyed Dr. Voorhee's Drug Store on Front Street. Men from the Gazelle Engine Company No. 1 were given credit for extinguishing the fire. There was always great rivalry between fire companies to see who could get to the fire first since apparatus was either towed by men and boys and later on horse(s) before the advent of mechanized fire wagons. The picture contains a lineup of firefighters in front of the ruins, but mentions no one by name. In the background can be seen Hogan's Blacksmith Shop on Somerset Street. The only date was given in the article was a generalization stating that the fire occured about 1872. In another column on page 22 in the same issue was an anticle by Philip Swain, a 91 year old cub reporter, writing about life in 1868. In it he states that there was only one brick building in the entire block on West Front Street between Somerset and Grove .That was on the corner of Grove Street. All of the rest were old wooden dwellings containing: Doc Voorhee's Drug Store, Martin Giles Paint Store, Oliver Runyon's Furniture and Undertaking, and Mrs. Conklin's Ladies Furnishings. Also Samuel Vermeule, Gents Tailor, and L.L. Compton, Wholesale and Retail candy maker. The article goes on to mention that " there were men who used to number your store if you paid them." He then goes on to mention other establishments along the way to the site of the Oxford Theater plus an alley running down to the Brook. I found this old newspaper in my mother's trunk after she passed on. I guess she kept it for me to later discover more about my great grandparents. Her father was John H. Tier owner of Tier's Ice Creamery and Pavillion and Plainfield's first ice man who havested ice from Tier's Pond behind the Strand Theater. He was the first to make homemade ice cream and sell it in the Plainfield area. His ice house and elevated coveyor was also destroyed by fire in the early part of this century. The site was later to filled-in and eventually become a municipal parking lot. William Langstaff Smalley, my other great grandfather was a prominent Plainfield meat merchant who operated Smalley's Meat Market and the father William Jr. and Newton Smalley who served terms as Mayors of North Plainfield. Good luck in your quest to learn more about the fire of 1872. William Smalley Cadmus [email protected]