In Memory of Our Members - Orston (Audubon), NJ
N 39° 53.465 W 075° 04.100
18S E 494157 N 4415670
Yet another Camden County "boilerplate special" at the Oaklyn Fire Department. This one, also, was donated by the Ladies Auxiliary. This memorial simply reads "In Memory of Our Members".
Waymark Code: WM7R9V
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 11/26/2009
Views: 2
The memorial is in poor shape and has no date but based on the scores of other memorials within one square mile, chance are it was attached in 1959 or thereabouts. The Audubon fire company, .31 miles away, has the same memorial attached to its front as well.
Although it seems to have recently been resided, this fire station remains unconverted and closed since 1996. They were constituted and began operations in 1895. I discovered this from the Audubon Fire Co. website. It seems, when Audubon grew in size, Orston was swallowed up and without fanfare or even an acknowledgment of their contribution or proud history, so was the fire station.
The only account of a history I could even locate was on a blog where former members and residents tell tales of their days with Defender. It is a very nostalgic website where members regale each other of a time where Defender was an active member of the community. They are very critical of Audubon for ignoring this fire house and its men as though they never existed. On the Audubon website, the Defender fire company is only mentioned once, and briefly.
The fire house itself is in very nice shape. it consists of one bay, a flag pole and a boilerplate memorial attached to the front of the station. In front of the fire pole is a memorial stone dedicated to J. Fred Buchner, "sorely missed by his friends". Overall, I do not think I would have noticed the house had it not been for a sign hung (and by the looks of it, rather recently) indicating this to be a former firehouse.
As I was stymied about their history, I did a literature review of Oaklyn Fire Company, a bordering town and was rewarded with an excerpt which sheds some light on the origins and fate of this company. "...The company [Oaklyn Fire Co.] was formed by Oaklyn residents who had been volunteering their services at the nearby Defender Fire Company (Station 1-2), which was located in the community of Orston (then another section of Haddon Township, now part of Audubon borough). Until the formation of the Oaklyn Fire Company, the Defender Fire Company handled firefighting duties in the Borough of Oaklyn (The Defender Fire Company was subsequently taken over by the Audubon Fire Department (Station 1-1) as of 1996). SOURCE