UNION FIRE COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. Original manuscript “List of the Names of the Union Fire Company,” written and kept by founding member Joseph Paschall, a Philadelphia common councilor, The Union Fire Company was the first Philadelphia volunteer fire company, founded by Benjamin Franklin and a small group of associates in 1736. Each member was required to keep and maintain “Two Leathern Buckets and Four Baggs.” Thebuckets were to help douse the flames, and the bags to cart away members’ goods to “some safePlace.” (Two members would be assigned to watch the door, so that “suspicious Persons” would beprevented from entering the house and bagging up goods on their own.) In the event of the property of any of the members catching fire, the whole Company was expected to tum out and “employ our best Endeavours to preserve the Goods and Effects of such of us as shall be inDanger.” Each member was further required to make and keep two lists of the names of the Company, one to remain posted by his bags and buckets, and the other to be carried and produced at Company meetings. A six-pence fine resulted if a member failed to produce his personal list at a fire Company meeting. This list is one of Joseph Paschall’s two mandatory lists of names, and was almost certainly the one he carried with him, judging from the small, tight 1” folds in the paper and the lack of evidence that the note was ever attached or posted. The Union Fire Company clerk was a rotating office, with a one-month term. Each member took a turn, in the sequence their names appeared on the Company list. As the first name to appear, Joseph Paschall was the first clerk of the Company. It was the clerk’s duty to care for the Company funds, inspect the members’ bags and buckets, and keep records of the meetings. Despite a rule in the Company articles limiting membership to 25 people, exceptions were made early on, and Paschall’s list contains 26 names, Paschall’s list is headed “theList of the Names of the Union Fire Company viz,” and matches the sequence of “subscribers” recorded in the manuscript minute book of the Union Fire Company now in the possession of the Library Company of Philadelphia. The original members of the Company feature some of the most prominent Philadelphians of the era