Mose Humphrey was a member of Fire Company 40 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the 19th century, and the inspiration for the

folk hero A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore; a ...

character "Mose the Fireboy". Harvard Theatre Collection - Chanfrau as Mose, TS 939

The character of Mose first appeared on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

in Benjamin A. Baker's ''A Glance at New York'', in 1848. Mose was featured in several stage shows and penny novels in the mid-19th century. The character was most identified with actor

Frank Chanfrau Francis S. Chanfrau (1824 – October 2, 1884) was an American actor and theatre manager in the 19th century. He began his career playing bit parts and doing impressions of star actors such as Edwin Forrest and of ethnic groups. In 1848, he app ...

. The Fireboy character was said to have a height of and hands as big as Virginia hams, able to lift trolley cars over his head and rescue babies inside a stovepipe hat, as his own beaver hat was two foot across the brim. Certain stories recall Mose performing extraordinary deeds, such as swimming the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

with two strokes, or tearing up

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 ident ...

and cherry trees to use as a bludgeon against the Plug Uglies, a gang that were at odds with New York Firemen Co. 49. The real Mose was a parishioner of St. Andrew's Church.

Notes

Further reading