Alexandria to Honor Firefighter Charles Glasscock 174 Years After His Death

On a June night in 1852, the alarm bell rang and members of Alexandria’s Friendship Fire Company ran for their engine. It had no horses and no brakes. Firefighters pulled the heavy machine through the streets themselves, with men at the front steering it toward a reported fire.

Charles Glasscock was among them. He fell, the engine’s wheels struck him, and he died from his injuries two days later, on June 30. According to the Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association’s history, the alarm turned out to be false.

The machine involved in his death is still in Alexandria. The 1851 Rodgers suction pumper is on display at the Friendship Firehouse Museum on South Alfred Street. This Sunday, the community will gather at Glasscock’s burial place to honor the man behind that startling piece of local history.

How His Grave Was Found

Glasscock was the first Alexandria firefighter to die in the line of duty, but his grave in the Methodist Protestant Cemetery had no marker. For generations, its exact location was uncertain.

In 2024, David Heiby of Gravestone Stories worked with Friendship historian Catherine Weinraub and archaeologist Mark Ludlow to investigate a fire company burial plot. Weinraub recalled Glasscock’s death, and Ludlow found a cemetery record showing that Friendship acquired the plot on June 30, 1852—the day Glasscock died. A ground-penetrating radar survey showed one burial in the relevant half of the plot. The combined evidence points to Glasscock, though the radar alone cannot identify a person. Heiby’s firsthand account documents the team’s work and the archival evidence behind the identification.

That discovery gives Sunday’s ceremony a particular meaning: the city can honor Glasscock at the place where the historical record indicates he was buried.

A Public Tribute on Sunday

The Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association will hold a wreath-laying ceremony from 2 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4, at the Methodist Protestant Cemetery, 1500 Wilkes Street, according to the Office of Historic Alexandria. It is free and open to the public, with Oct. 5 as the rain date.

The ceremony will also offer the first public look at a bronze plaque commemorating Glasscock. The plaque is intended for permanent display at the Friendship Firehouse Museum, where visitors can see the restored pumper that links his story to the present.

Alexandria’s fire department still places Glasscock first on its Roll Call of the Fallen. Sunday’s gathering brings his name, and the people who worked to find his grave, into the same place.