100 YEARS AGO Firefighters laid to rest

The Troy Fire Department attended the funeral at St. Mary’s Church of fireman Joseph P. Mccann, who, with his colleague Lt. W.J. Christopher, died while fighting a fire at the Rome and Cohen Rag Shop on Monday. The Albany Fire Department manned the Collar City’s fire stations. The same arrangement was set to take place the following day during the funeral for Christopher, where delegations of firefighters from nearly every Capital Region community would return to attend.

Mccann had just joined the department on April 1 and Monday’s fire was the very first to which he had responded. Four months later, fellow firefighter Charles H. Vandecar died from injuries from the same fire when the second floor collapsed.

—Times Union, May 4, 1922