It would only have taken a few minutes for a fire truck to drive from the center of Grafton to the Watsons’ garage, but that was of little value to the Watsons, in part because, in 1938, Grafton had no fire truck, and also, and mostly, because Grafton had no fire department. This was not simply a sign of the times. By 1938, the fire department in Hampton, New Hampshire, had been operating for more than a century. Canaan equipped its first firefighting squad with hooks, ladders, and hoses in 1890; Enfield, Grafton’s western neighbor, followed suit in 1892. But Grafton voters had refused to
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