Chris Brock
Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
(TNS)
Jul. 30—CHAUMONT — Another chapter has been uncovered in the 1946 Dodge pumper that the Chaumont Fire Department recently purchased, adding to the gritty vehicle’s history involving an anonymous millionaire, an “American Pickers” episode, an estranged mother and a restaurant in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
Add a “flabbergasted” former owner of the truck to the mix.
On July 22, some department members traveled to Wayne County to pick up a fire truck from the 1940s that once belonged to the department. It’s now raising funds to go toward the purchase. The department posted on Facebook that the truck is from 1947, but the seller said it’s a 1946 model.
Keith Casillo is an antique authenticator and hobbyist, raised in Marion, Wayne County. In the nearby hamlet of North Rose, there’s an old barn owned by a friend of his, who is a millionaire. “He wants to be anonymous,” Casillo said, but his first name is Roger. “He just buys things. He lives in St. Thomas and comes back and forth. He’s had this building for years. He’s got projects. He rescues things.”
The fire truck has been in the building for about a decade, sharing space with a couple of airplanes, which are being stored in pieces, along with other items.
Casillo developed a bond with the truck, which had been stored in the barn for about a decade. Roger, seeing that bond, sold the truck to Casillo.
Casillo said he was estranged from his mother, Marianne Bellinger, but he finally met her when he was 14 when Marianne, who he said is now deceased, was living in Chaumont.
“So I’ve always had a soft spot for Chaumont,” he said, adding he often visits the area to fish.
Casillo said that shortly after he posted the truck for sale on an online marketplace, a handful of Chaumont Fire Department members contacted him. The truck was sold to the fire department. Casillo declined to list that price.
Roger purchased the truck after he saw a glimpse of it in 2013 on the History Channel program, “American Pickers.” The show, at that time, featured Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz as they traveled the country searching for relics that they sell for a profit. They had described the property of David A. and Frances A. Pietroski on Jericho Road in Watertown as a “honeyhole.”
Casillo said his millionaire friend, Roger, watched the episode, saw the fire truck and purchased it for $3,500. On Monday, David Pietroski returned a phone message from the Times left on Friday, a day before the Times published a story on the truck’s sale and history. He confirmed the sale price.
“I don’t think they showed too much of it on ‘American Pickers,'” Pietroski said. “They said it was hard to film it, or something.”
He said that he also listed the truck on Craigslist, and Roger may have also seen it there.
Pietroski said that he purchased the truck years ago at a Chaumont Fire Department auction. “I bid on two of the trucks,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t get the other one. This was the better one. They told me they paid $1,000 for the paint job on the truck.”
At first, he couldn’t recall the year of the sealed-bid auction, but was pretty certain he had paperwork somewhere detailing the purchase. In the meantime, the fire chief of the Chaumont Volunteer Fire Department, William Lipczynski, returned a call to the Times on Tuesday and said that he was told by a veteran member of the department that the truck was sent out for refurbishing years ago to a place in Dexter, and the department never got it back after that firm went out of business.
Shortly after that conversation, Pietroski informed the Times that he finally found the advertisement that he saved which ran in the WDT in May of 1987. The ad notes that the Chaumont Fire Department sought sealed bids for two trucks, the 1946 Dodge pumper that wasn’t working and a 1952 Ford pumper that was. “I have a strong box, and I thought, ‘I wonder if it’s in there, and sure as shoot it was!” he said of the paperwork.
The advertisement noted that the bids would be opened on May 11, 1987. Pietroski said his winning bid for the 1946 pumper at that time was between $800 and $900. He said the truck ran when he owned it. When he sold it about a decade ago, it was driven onto a trailer for its trip to Wayne County.
“I used to bring it out of the barn at least once a year and drive it around the yard, but then it go so that I didn’t do that,” he said. “She started sitting and the wheels were getting bad on it and I said, ‘I’d better get rid of it before it gets too bad.'”
Pietroski was unaware and “flabbergasted” when informed Monday about the fire truck’s return to its home in Chaumont. “Are you serious?!” he said. “Oh, my God. Wait until I tell my wife. She will flip out. What a story. That’s unbelievable. Isn’t that something? The truck goes away and comes back to its roots where it started from.”
The truck nearly made it to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean Sea.
Roger, who travels back and forth between the U.S. and St. Thomas, had plans of displaying it at a restaurant he owns on the island to act as sort of a mascot.
“It almost went there this year,” Casillo said. The restaurant, he said, is “high class” and features “repurposed stuff Roger had shipped from Florida and the states. “
On Sunday, the fire truck was an attraction at the Chaumont Fire Department during the village’s sesquicentennial celebration.
“I gotta go over there and see it,” Pietroski said.
Lipczynski said the department paid $6,000 for the truck.
“When we purchased the truck, we were very careful with purchasing it so that we didn’t use any taxpayer money that we received for our funding for the regular fire service,” the chief said.
He added that the department discovered some funds in old bingo accounts. The department no longer hosts bingo games.
“We’re only using fundraising dollars to purchase the truck,” Lipczynski said.
The department is celebrating its 110th anniversary. “That was kind of why we wanted it when we saw it, and decided to jump at it and get it,” he said.
Sunday’s celebration included a sold-out benefit chicken barbecue hosted by the department.
“It’s stuff like that, the fundraising, that we use to be able to do stuff like this, besides obviously from putting extra equipment on our trucks, to be able to help the community,” the chief said.
Lipczynski said the truck is not in running condition.
“Our first assistant chief, Fred Jackson, who used to own Fred’s Quick Lube, is willing to help us get some time into it as we get funding available to hopefully get her running again,” he said.
The transmission of the truck, Lipczynski said, “Is sitting in a crate.”
“Apparently, they sent the transmission out for a rebuild,” he said. “So, we’re hoping that the transmission is in good shape. We’re going on everyone’s word here, hoping that when we put it back in, it’s going to work.”
The vehicle’s brakes also aren’t operational. “The gentleman did send all new brake pads and everything like that with the truck,” the chief added.
Donations for the purchase of the truck can be mailed to Chaumont Volunteer Fire Department, P.O. Box 129, Chaumont NY 13622.
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