![[FIREFIGHTING PHILADELPHIA]. Manuscript document, the Minutes of the Northern Liberty Fire Company Number 1, Philadelphia, 4 February 1772 to 5 May 1801. 266 pages, folio, in contemporary calf binding (spine repaired, worn), first page detached, light browning, but generally in fine condition.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2002/NYR/2002_NYR_01083_0049_000(043416).jpg?w=1)
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[FIREFIGHTING PHILADELPHIA]. Manuscript document, the Minutes of the Northern Liberty Fire Company Number 1, Philadelphia, 4 February 1772 to 5 May 1801. 266 pages, folio, in contemporary calf binding (spine repaired, worn), first page detached, light browning, but generally in fine condition.
THE JOURNAL OF ONE OF THE FIRST PHILADELPHIA FIRE COMPANIES, DURING THE UNCERTAINTY OF REVOLUTION AND OCCUPATION
A fascinating record of the membership, meetings and activities of one of the nation's early fire companies as it struggled through the uncertainties of revolutionary conflict and during the early years of the new Republic in the city which served as the nation's first capital. The Liberties region sat in the northern section of William Penn's original tract for Philadelphia (just north of current day Vine Street). Fire was a constant problem and, after a large portion of Philadelphia was destroyed in 1730, Benjamin Franklin began advocating fire protection programs. In 1736 he played an integral role in the creation of the nation's first voluntary association for fighting fires, the Union Fire Company. Other companies were formed across the city, including company number 1 in the Northern Liberties.
The company met two or three times a year and the careful minutes of the meetings give unique insight into the operations of the early fire associations. Members' attendance or absence from meetings is carefully noted, and frequent reference is made to firefighting equipment and company engines. The extensive journal begins during the tumultuous years leading up to the American Revolution. On August 6, 1776, just one month after the Declaration of Independence was approved only a short distance away, the clerk records that twelve of the company's twenty-five absent members are "at camp" demonstrating the demands that military necessity placed upon the city. The majority of the records kept during the war, even during British occupation, indicate a conscious effort to continue the company's operations through the collection of dues, the maintenance of equipment ("Mr. John Keen...to make a new fire ladder"), the admission of new members and the expulsion undesirables such as George Stresser for "disorderly behavour [sic] and being always intoxicated."
A Yellow Fever epidemic struck Philadelphia in the late Summer and Fall of 1793, forcing President Washington, Congress and many of the city's residents to flee to a safer environment; 4,002 lives were lost to the fever, and the clerk of Company 1 records the epidemic's impact on December 31: "it having pleased Almighty God to visit the City of Philadelphia and its environs with a malignant fever, [the clerk] therefore deemed it requisite to postpone the business. And especially so, as during that awful visitation several members...became victims to its Rage."
On November 4th, 1800, Northern Liberty Company 1 reports a circular letter from the Fire Association of Philadelphia seeking to unite the various companies: "The heavy calamities, to which the ravages of fire have so often subjected the inhabitants of large towns and cities have at least had the good effect of awakening their attention to the means best calculated for preventing their frequency and confining their extent...yet...great confusion is occasioned as well as much time lost and property destroyed, for want of a general concert and co-operation." On that date, the company adopted the Constitution of the Fire Association, the text of which has been carefully transcribed into the journal.
Such detailed records from early fire companies are seldom preserved.
THE JOURNAL OF ONE OF THE FIRST PHILADELPHIA FIRE COMPANIES, DURING THE UNCERTAINTY OF REVOLUTION AND OCCUPATION
A fascinating record of the membership, meetings and activities of one of the nation's early fire companies as it struggled through the uncertainties of revolutionary conflict and during the early years of the new Republic in the city which served as the nation's first capital. The Liberties region sat in the northern section of William Penn's original tract for Philadelphia (just north of current day Vine Street). Fire was a constant problem and, after a large portion of Philadelphia was destroyed in 1730, Benjamin Franklin began advocating fire protection programs. In 1736 he played an integral role in the creation of the nation's first voluntary association for fighting fires, the Union Fire Company. Other companies were formed across the city, including company number 1 in the Northern Liberties.
The company met two or three times a year and the careful minutes of the meetings give unique insight into the operations of the early fire associations. Members' attendance or absence from meetings is carefully noted, and frequent reference is made to firefighting equipment and company engines. The extensive journal begins during the tumultuous years leading up to the American Revolution. On August 6, 1776, just one month after the Declaration of Independence was approved only a short distance away, the clerk records that twelve of the company's twenty-five absent members are "at camp" demonstrating the demands that military necessity placed upon the city. The majority of the records kept during the war, even during British occupation, indicate a conscious effort to continue the company's operations through the collection of dues, the maintenance of equipment ("Mr. John Keen...to make a new fire ladder"), the admission of new members and the expulsion undesirables such as George Stresser for "disorderly behavour [sic] and being always intoxicated."
A Yellow Fever epidemic struck Philadelphia in the late Summer and Fall of 1793, forcing President Washington, Congress and many of the city's residents to flee to a safer environment; 4,002 lives were lost to the fever, and the clerk of Company 1 records the epidemic's impact on December 31: "it having pleased Almighty God to visit the City of Philadelphia and its environs with a malignant fever, [the clerk] therefore deemed it requisite to postpone the business. And especially so, as during that awful visitation several members...became victims to its Rage."
On November 4th, 1800, Northern Liberty Company 1 reports a circular letter from the Fire Association of Philadelphia seeking to unite the various companies: "The heavy calamities, to which the ravages of fire have so often subjected the inhabitants of large towns and cities have at least had the good effect of awakening their attention to the means best calculated for preventing their frequency and confining their extent...yet...great confusion is occasioned as well as much time lost and property destroyed, for want of a general concert and co-operation." On that date, the company adopted the Constitution of the Fire Association, the text of which has been carefully transcribed into the journal.
Such detailed records from early fire companies are seldom preserved.