History

In the autumn of 1961 the Squannock Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 found itself in possession of an outboard motor, a 40-horsepower Evinrude of that model year, donated by Pratt's Marine of Westerly on the occasion of that firm's closure. A raffle was got up for the harvest supper, the drawing to conclude the evening. It did not. Ticket receipts were reported as not small, and it was felt, on the motion of Mr. E. Carswell, duly seconded, that further sales might reasonably be anticipated were the drawing deferred to the spring meeting. The motion carried, 9 votes to 3. The spring meeting received a similar motion, similarly carried. The pattern will by now be apparent to the reader. The relevant minutes form the opening entries of Volume One, which is complete.

The motor has remained throughout in its original shipping crate, the seals unbroken. The crate measures four feet by two feet six inches (1.25 m by 0.79 m) and is stencilled EVINRUDE — THIS SIDE UP, an instruction that has been observed without exception. In 1968 a standing Committee on the Motor was constituted, three members, its remit being custody, quarterly inspection, and the greasing of such external points as present themselves, in accordance with the manufacturer's care pamphlet, which is held with the minutes. Inspection is conducted through the slats by torch and, twice yearly, by a gentle rocking of the crate, the Committee minuting on each occasion that the contents move 'as one object,' which has been felt to be reassuring. After sixty-five years the recorded condition is unchanged, which is not a small achievement.

The raffle is the Company's principal instrument of fundraising, and it was recognised early — the point is made without ornament in the Auditor's Letter of 1971 — that this is so precisely because the drawing has not been held. A drawn raffle concludes; an undrawn raffle accrues. Proceeds have reroofed the engine bay (the sum appears in the Treasurer's Statement for 1974, Schedule B), contributed materially to the present pumper (Schedule D of the 1987 Statement), and met the insurance in the leaner years. The price of a ticket has been revised four times, most recently in 2002; the current figure is posted on the noticeboard and will not be repeated here. It was felt, and continues to be felt, that to hold the drawing would be to extinguish the instrument, and the Company has annually declined to do so.

The postponement is now understood to be the senior item of old business in the state, a distinction the Company does not press. The minutes of every postponement, 1961 to the present, are bound in eleven volumes and may be consulted at the card table provided; they are complete, an adjective the Recording Secretary applies with some care. A motion to hold the drawing was received in 2004 from a newer member and was ruled out of order by reference to Standing Order 6, adopted 1979, which provides that a drawing may occur only in a year in which no tickets have been sold. Tickets having been sold in every year since, the Order has proved robust. Visitors may purchase a ticket at the side door, view the crate through the bay window, and satisfy themselves as to the record. The matter rests.

Local Legends

It is said in Squannock that the drawing of 1961 did in fact begin, that a ticket was drawn and returned to the drum unread, and that the hand which drew it belonged to Mr. Carswell himself, whose motion to postpone followed directly. The minutes record the motion and are silent on the hand.

Several residents maintain that the motor turns over 'sweetly,' though none can say who has turned it, the seals being intact. The Committee on the Motor, invited to comment, observed that the crate has never once been heard not to.

It is occasionally suggested that the crate was quietly opened in 1979 and the motor exchanged for a newer example, the original having gone to a collector from Barrington. The Committee's greasing records for that year are described as neither supporting nor excluding this, which is the Committee's description of most things.

The Controversy

In 1993 the Town Solicitor raised by letter the question of whether a raffle in which no drawing has occurred constitutes a game of chance within the meaning of the state licensing statute, chance being, arguably, the element withheld. The Company's position, minuted that November, was that chance is present but pending. The Solicitor's second opinion allowed this to be 'a fair characterisation of most things.' The annual permit has since been purchased without prejudice, in an amount that may be consulted in the Town's fee schedule, and the arrangement is regarded on both sides as considerably cheaper than certainty.

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