uish the fire. That first apparatus was white, which Messinger thought more visible than the conventional red in a village without street lights,[nb 2] and the village's engines remain white.[8]

The chemical apparatus was only suitable for small fires, and was soon supplemented with a steam-operated pumper and a hose wagon, both horse-drawn. The two pieces of equipment were purchased by Walter Law’s Briarcliff Realty Company and were loaned to the fire company without charge. At the time, the fire company housed its equipment and horses at the Briarcliff Farms’ Barn A (present-day St. Theresa’s School) and used the Wheelwright shop as a meeting room and for social events.[8]

After the village was incorporated, the company petitioned the village board to form the company into a village fire department. Their request was granted on February 10, 1903. In 1906, the village counsel advised reorganization, and the Briarcliff Fire Company was created in the office of Walter Law, with Messinger again serving as Foreman. The fire equipment, totaling $55.93 ($1,500 today[9]), was transferred to the new company. In 1908, American LaFrance sold a hook-and-ladder truck and two-wheeled hose-and-chemical truck (both horse-drawn) to the fire department for $2,700 ($70,900 today[9]). In the following year an alarm bell was purchased, replacing first a suspended railway iron and sledgehammer in a barn, which was followed by an ineffective steam whistle.[8]

In the first decade of the 1900s, the Archville Fire Company was formed in neighboring Archville, New York, with the company headquarters in a shed on the corner of Albany Post Road (current U.S. Route 9) and Union Street. The company’s original equipment consisted of thirty 3½ gallon galvanized buckets, and later a 50-gallon horse-drawn pumper purchased from the Valhalla Fire Department. The company was chartered in 1909 as the Archville Fire Department, with Hubert W. Mannerly as the first Fire Chief. From then until 1930 the department was autonomous, until Briarcliff Manor requested that Archville provide its fire protection services to Scarborough. In 1930, the department changed its name to the Scarborough Fire Company and became part of the Briarcliff Manor Fire Department. In 1972, the company was split into two units, with an autonomous Archville unit and the Scarborough Engine Company, headquartered in the Scarborough Presbyterian Church garage and a part of the Briarcliff Manor Fire Department.[8]

After a large fire at Miss Knox’s School (site of the Briarcliff Corporate Campus) in 1912,