Dispute Turns on Beloved Weather Vane

CONCORD, N. H. —  In a land where antique weather vanes are akin to crown jewels, city leaders and firefighters are at odds over one gilded prize that graced this capital for roughly a century.

It is a meticulously detailed, 4-foot-long fire wagon, cast in copper and covered in gold leaf. Two strong horses race ahead of a big-wheeled engine complete with kerosene lanterns, nozzles, a wood-fired boiler and pumping equipment. A helmeted fireman holds the reins taut as another stokes the boiler.

The Cushing & White Co. of Waltham, Mass. (no longer in business) designed the vane around 1871 for $200 (then about half the cost of a working man’s house). Experts today believe the vane could fetch $100,000.

The vane decorated the cupola of Concord’s main fire station until 1980, when the firefighters took it down and put it in a room full of memorabilia in a south-end station.

Weather vane thieves were active then and the city was planning to sell the main fire station, said fire department Lt. Robert Constant.

The firefighters have opposed subsequent city efforts to return the vane to outdoor view.

“This is a valuable part of the firefighters’ heritage, and it belongs with us. No one can protect it like we can,” said Wayne Nickerson, a fireman for 13 years.

“We don’t pay the firefighters to be custodians of antiques. We pay them to put out fires and to save lives. . .,” said Martin Gross, a lawyer who was mayor of Concord when the vane was stored away.

The dispute flared anew when the current mayor, Elizabeth Hager, decided that the vane belonged to the city.

Hager said she had become fond of the vane, and her children learned to use binoculars by focusing on the intricate details of the horses and wagon.

“I was heartbroken when it came down,” Hager said, “and recently, I just decided we should stop futzing around and get it back up where it belongs.”

Weather vanes are popular with thieves in New England, a region once filled with copper rooftop designs of animals, farm equipment and other symbols of country life. Many of the most valuable vanes have been turned over to museums or private collections and replaced with copies.

It is “deceptively simple” to steal a weather vane, said Samuel Pennington, publisher of the Maine Antique Digest. Vanes turn on a spindle and need only be lifted inches to remove them, he said.

In 1983, Pennington helped find and recover a valuable weather vane that was stolen from the fire station in Hallowell, a tiny town in central Maine.

As for putting Concord’s fire wagon back on view, Pennington said that would be like “tying 10 $10,000 bills up there and daring someone to steal them.”

Two fire department vanes similar to Concord’s in age and style disappeared during the renovation of buildings in Nashua and Manchester. The Manchester vane was discovered six years ago in a museum in Shelburne, Vt., but the Nashua vane has not been found.

The Concord firefighters recently wired their one-room museum with an ear-splitting security alarm. Visitors are welcome to come see the vane and the photos, records, badges and helmets on display there, but that means catching the firefighters between engagements.

In June, the City Council unanimously ordered the firefighters to relinquish the vane. Later they rescinded the order and formed a study committee.

Both sides appear to be leaning toward commissioning a replica for the roof of the original fire station, now an office building.

Hager said she would have no objection to a replica if firefighters paid for it, and Constant said the fire department is studying how to raise about $5,000 for the project.

“We probably wouldn’t have it golded over, though, because that would just be an incentive to steal the replica,” Constant said.

Meanwhile, ownership of the original remains unresolved. “We don’t want an argument, but the vane belongs with the firefighters,” Constant said.

To which Hager replied: “Oh, there won’t be any argument. The weather vane belongs to the city.”