Service Honors Lawrence Fireman Killed 75 Years Ago

Many Lawrence Township residents aren’t aware that the majority of the township’s firefighters are volunteers who do not collect a paycheck for regularly putting their lives in danger to protect the community.

An even lesser known fact is that, over the years, seven Lawrence Township volunteer firefighters – all members of the Slackwood Fire Co. – have died in the line of duty.

On Saturday (May 28), after taking part in , members of the township’s three volunteer fire companies – Slackwood, Lawrence Road and Lawrenceville – gathered in front of the small memorial garden outside the Slackwood firehouse to honor one of their own.

During a brief, yet solemn ceremony, the firefighters paid tribute to William Rathbone, a Slackwood volunteer who was fatally injured while the fire company responded to a house fire 75 years ago.

“William Rathbone made the ultimate sacrifice. He gave up his life in service to the people of Lawrence Township. That sacrifice should never be forgotten,” said Slackwood Fire Co. Chief Mike Oakley. “Today we honor his memory. He is at rest with all the other American heroes this Memorial Day.”

Volunteers from the three fire companies stood at attention before the Slackwood memorial – which includes a large bell and plaques bearing the fallen firefighters’ names – while Oakley read a newspaper account of the fire in 1936 that led to Rathbone’s death.

With the volunteers offering a traditional hand salute, the firehouse siren was sounded to conclude the service.

It was about 6 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 31, 1936, when members of the Slackwood Volunteer Fire Co. were alerted to a fire in the home of Walton Oakerson at 719 Trumbull Ave.

Rathbone, who worked the night shift at Mason’s Garage, left his job at the service station on Brunswick Pike (now Business Route 1) and took a position at the corner of Brunswick Pike and Slack Avenue.

There were no traffic lights at that intersection back then. Whenever there was a fire call that required the fire engines to cross Brunswick Pike, a member of the fire company would step out into the roadway in advance of the engines to stop oncoming traffic.

It was at that same intersection late on Jan. 30, 1934, that five Slackwood Fire Co. volunteers were fatally injured when their fire engine, while attempting to cross Brunswick Pike to respond to a fire, was struck by a truck.

Rathbone, 60, “began to halt traffic on the pike by means of a red lantern and a police whistle,” an account in the Aug. 31, 1936, edition of the Trenton Evening Times read.

George Langford, a 21-year-old resident of Atlantic City, was driving south along Brunswick Pike and did not see the red light of Rathbone’s lantern until it was too late to stop. Langford’s car struck Rathbone, crushing his left leg and causing numerous head and internal injuries.

Volunteers from Slackwood Fire Co., aided by members of the Lawrence Volunteer Fire Association (now known as Lawrence Road Fire Co.), battled the blaze while their brother firefighter Rathbone, in critical condition, was rushed to McKinley Hospital (now Capital Health Regional Medical Center) in Trenton.

Rathbone underwent multiple blood transfusions and had his left leg amputated above the knee as doctors struggled to save his life. Sadly, he succumbed to his injuries and died in the hospital on Sept. 6, 1936. His funeral was held a few days later from his home at 759 Puritan Ave. He was survived by his wife, Cecilia Woodhead Rathbone. The couple had no children.

Langford was charged by police with reckless driving and “atrocious assault and battery with an automobile.”

On the reckless driving charge, according to a newspaper account, Langford was fine $100 and sentenced to serve 30 days in the Mercer County workhouse. He also had his driver’s license revoked for one year. Langford was arraigned on the assault charge, however it is unclear whether he was ever put on trial.

The injury and subsequent death of Rathbone sparked a firestorm of anger from area residents who recalled only too well the accident at the same Brunswick Pike intersection two years earlier that claimed the lives of five Slackwood volunteers.

It was about 11 p.m. that fateful night in January 1934 when Slackwood Fire Co. was alerted to a grass fire. As the fire engine was crossing Brunswick Pike to head onto Cherry Tree Lane, it was slammed into broadside by a northbound truck. The fire engine flipped onto its side.

Firefighters George H. Combs, 62, and Howard Grant, 27, were killed instantly, while Frederick Russell Turner, 23, and Walter Oliver Penrod, 20, died a few hours after the crash in McKinley Hospital. John Morton, 21, who had been driving the fire engine, lingered in the hospital and died on Feb. 4, 1934.

Two other Slackwood volunteers who had been aboard the fire engine during the collision – George Hancock, 21, and Wesley Gromikowski, 23 – were injured but survived.

After that tragedy, residents of the Slackwood community demanded that traffic lights be installed at the intersection. But that never happened.

According to newspaper accounts of the time, Lawrence Township appropriated one-third of the estimated $3,000-cost of the lights and the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders pledged another one-third. But the New Jersey State Highway Department never came through with the remaining share.

Just days after Rathbone was injured, as he lay dying in his hospital bed, a group of Lawrence Township committee representatives and residents – including the parents of Turner and Morton – went before the county freeholders to demand that immediate action be taken to end the “sacrifice of life” at the “death trap” intersection.

A meeting was held the following day with representatives of the state.

“Marvin Howell, state highway auditor, told the delegation that appropriation of $25,000 last year, which might have been used [for the traffic lights], was reserved for highway landscaping,” the Trenton Evening Times reported on Sept. 2, 1936. “A highway landscaping law was enacted several years ago at the instigation of women’s groups interested in roadside beautification.”

From that meeting with the state, an agreement was reached for traffic lights to be installed at the intersection.

“The new lights, to be operated from the two side roads – Slack Avenue and Cherry Tree Lane – by magnetic pads in the roadway, will have a control switch in the firehouse, which is on Slack Avenue, near Brunswick Pike,” the Times reported. “When an alarm is sounded, the firemen can throw the light to ‘red,’ stopping traffic in all directions."

On Tuesday, Sept. 8, 1936, two days after Rathbone died, installation work on the traffic lights began.

Ironically, only a few weeks ago, during the , it was reported that the Lawrence Township had appealed to the New Jersey Department of Transportation to make safety improvements to the intersection of Brunswick Pike and Slack Avenue/Cherry Tree Lane.

“This intersection is not completely aligned and the timing of the traffic signals makes it somewhat confusing for motorists making lefts,” Township Manager Richard Krawczun noted during the meeting.

The seventh Slackwood volunteer to die in the line of duty was fire police Capt. Walter A. “Luke” Lukaszewski.

Lukaszewski, 72, suffered a fatal heart attack while directing traffic on Route 206 during a blaze that badly damaged part of the Lawrence Road Fire Co. firehouse on Dec. 21, 1986.