Weymouth’s prosperous business district devastated by ’29 fire

On the eve of the Great Depression in 1929, the village of Weymouth was enjoying a period of great prosperity with three and four-masted schooners in the harbor, waiting to load their cargo of lumber or pulp wood or unload salt, coal or molasses.

Weymouth could boast that it had poolrooms, blacksmith shops, silent movie theater, bowling alley, dance hall, telephone office, dry goods store, tailor shop, several general stores, sawmills and lumber businesses. 1200 people supported the village and had the services of doctors, a dentist, a banker and a judge.

Young people, like Cliff Campbell and Clotilde Comeau, living in Weymouth at the time, stated that these were the good times, where everyone could find employment.

In the early hours of Oct. 2 that all changed when a fire broke out in Captain Barkhouse’s general store in the center of Weymouth’s business district.

Mary Hankinson, a switchboard operator at the Maritime Tel & Tel office near the general store, was on night duty. She woke to sounds of shouting that Barkhouse’s store was on fire. She was quick to call the firemen and warned other downtown merchants of the danger until flames forced her to flee the office.

Giant embers, carried by the breeze, ignited the nearby roofs of Herbert Journeay’s Dry Goods store and George Hankinson’s General store. Flames quickly spread due to the age of these and other buildings and their close proximity to one another.

When the wind changed direction, businesses on the other side of the street caught fire and in a short time the whole south side of Weymouth was a burning inferno.

Capt. Barkhouse, the fire chief, Lloyd Potter, the Royal Bank manager and Capt. Arthur Moore worked to get the village’s lone piece of firefighting equipment operating. The American LeFrance “Village Queen” pumper with a Model T Ford engine had to be hand drawn or hauled behind a truck. According to first hand reports, the pumper either wouldn’t start or quit in the early stages of the fire.

Forest Ranger Ephraim Gates helped out with his small pumper but some felt that “The few streams of water were of as much use as a bucket of water on a magazine of TNT.”

It was reported that a hole was cut in the bridge in order to obtain a source of water but unfortunately the tide was out. Weymouth was in danger of having its whole business district destroyed.

Cars were sent to Digby and Yarmouth seeking firefighting assistance but the Digby equipment was of little value as there were no fire hydrants for their hoses in Weymouth. The Yarmouth pumper had greater success fighting the blaze. The Digby Courier reported that dynamite was used to blow up several buildings in order to halt the progress of the fire.

Carloads of people from neighboring communities arrived to help fight the fire, salvage valuable records, furnishings and merchandise from the burning buildings.

The incoming tide and heavy rain gave the weary firefighters a much needed break and by 12:30, the blaze was under control.

The fire extended from Capt. Moore’s garage to the Fred Melanson building on the north side of Main Street and from Herbert Journeay’s store to Israel Melanson’s building on the south side.

Twenty-five buildings on both sides of the street had been destroyed in six hours and by the end of the day, only a few smoldering embers remained where, hours before, flourishing businesses stood.

When the finally tally was taken, $250 000 was the estimated damage with barely $20 000 of that covered by insurance. George Hankinson’s loss was the greatest at $50 000 with nothing of value saved from his store while Capt. Moore’s was estimated to be the least at $1000.

While the financial loss was staggering for the time, it was remarkable that there were no serious injuries or loss of lives. As to the cause of the conflagration, it was suspected that a cigarette left to smolder in a wastebasket may have been responsible for the blaze that left most of Weymouth devastated.

Gradually some of the village’s business section was rebuilt. George Hankinson eventually built another store at the head of his wharf on the south side of the bridge but hard economic times slowed down any major recovery and Weymouth never regained the prosperity it once knew.