On March 13, 1817, the Commissioners of Havre de Grace agreed to purchase a lot of land for $50 for the purpose of building a school house. That lot is #133, on the southeast corner of North Union and Congress Avenues, and became the first “Little Brick School House.” The current building was constructed in possibly five stages and the original school house (c. 1822) is the room in the southwest corner of the current structure.

In 1880, the “Hook and Ladder House” was completed and was attached to the side of the School House. The Havre de Grace fire department, now known as the Susquehanna Hose Company, has been located here since the days of hand-pulled fire carts. The first horse-drawn cart, built by Burns Brothers Carriage Factory on Green Street, arrived in 1905. The horses were kept in the Currier livery stable at Franklin and Stokes Streets until the first motorized vehicles arrived in 1910.

A Servicemen’s Center opened in this Firehouse on March 14, 1944–though opening ceremonies weren’t held until July. They held weekly dances and free Sunday suppers, as well as very popular Bingo nights. At peak activity, attendance reached about 6,000 each month–mostly sailors and WAVEs from the U.S. Naval Training Center at Bainbridge. The club closed on December 31, 1946, with a formal party for junior hostesses and awards presented.

The building still houses Susquehanna Hose Company Division #2, now headed by Bobby Goll, Jr., better known to some as a member of the Goll’s Bakery family. However, Ginny Fenner Corona, Bonnie Merrill White, and Rose Hamilton remember it as the place of their wedding receptions. Rose, who married the late James “Jim” Hamilton of the Bel Air Bakery in 1955, says there weren’t many venues back then. Walter McLhinney also sometimes used that hall for the annual banquet for his newspaper boys.

With the redesign and restoration of the Cultural Center at the Opera House in 2017 this building was connected to and is accessible from the glass-enclosed lobby of the Opera House.

County Records
Recorded with 121 North Union Avenue.