Lillie Hitchcock Coit

[1] "Firebelle Lil" Coit was considered eccentric, smoking cigars and wearing trousers long before it was socially acceptable for women to do so.

After her return, she married Howard Coit, the "caller" of the San Francisco Stock Exchange during an economic boom.

[2] In 1903, Alexander Garrett, a distant cousin of Mrs. Coit, arrived at her Palace Hotel apartment armed with a gun to settle a business dispute.

[1] She was thereafter treated as a "mascot" of the firefighters, and after her return from travel in Europe, in October 1863, she was made an honorary member of the engine company.

The remainder of her bequest also sponsored another neighborhood landmark, a statue of three firefighters at the northwest corner of Washington Square Park.