As another Charlie Poole fan. . . been singing the song since learning it from the NLCR in 1962 or so, always sang "brave firemen struggled with devotion" since that made sense. Learned the 3rd verse posted (which started this thread) from Judy Cook a few years ago.
I have seen somewhere (in Rorrer?) that the original first verse about Boston started out "It was only by a fault and by an error", but Poole's "silver falls by a narrow" makes sense too, especially if you've seen Jones Falls.
A friend of mine wrote a third verse covering RangerSteve's point, it went: When pipe threads wouldn't fit, what consternation!
Which caused a cry for pipe thread standardization
Which spread like a fire throughout the nation
So this tragedy would not have been in vain
better stop here before I start babbling about the Holy Modal Rounders and "Nova". Slime, slime is on my tide. . .