Fire Bucket, "Franklin Fire Company of Charlestown, MA"
date: label: date made
content: 1830
name: label: referenced
content: Franklin, Benjamin
label: maker
content: unknown
notes: label: Description
content: This bucket belonged to Edward Carnes, Jr. (1807-1883). He is listed as a “rigger” in the 1831 Charlestown (Mass.) city directory. In later years, he would serve as the superintendent of an alms house in that area. In 1843, Edward Carnes, Jr. had the honor of riding the capstone to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument upon its completion. His father, Edward Carnes, was also a rigger, and was the first foreman of Warren Engine No. 4 in Charlestown. Edward Carnes, Jr. was a member of the Franklin Fire Society in Charlestown. Such neighborhood organizations were common in the Boston area in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Officers were elected from a membership that ranged from 10 to 30 men, each required to have leather buckets, bags, and tools like bed keys in good order and at the ready. In the event of a fire, members brought these to the scene with the intention of saving the property of other society members. A doorkeeper was often appointed to guard the property and a password used to prevent looters from entering. This bucket appears to have been painted the year the society was organized.
label: Description
content: It was common for volunteer firefighters to name their organizations after Benjamin Franklin, who many credit with founding the first volunteer fire company, the Union, in Philadelphia in 1736. Franklin, having experienced the chaos and confusion that characterized ad-hoc volunteer firefighting in the colonies, was frustrated with current practices of firefighting. Large crowds gathered at the scene of a fire, and bystanders often got in the way of those trying to extinguish a blaze. As owner, editor, and publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette, Franklin began writing articles on fire prevention and extinction. When he was thirty, Franklin organized a fire company of thirty volunteers. Additional companies, modeled after Franklin’s, quickly sprang up in Philadelphia; at the outbreak of the Revolution, there were eighteen companies in the city. Many later companies and fire societies, such as the one to which the owner of this bucket belonged, took the name of “Franklin” to pay tribute to this man’s contribution to the organization of volunteer firefighting. Indeed, several Franklin Fire Societies existed in the Boston area alone, including this one from Charlestown.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: classified
content: Fire Fighting
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Fire Fighting and Law Enforcement
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of CIGNA Museum and Art Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2005.0233.0238
label: accession number
content: 2005.0233
label: catalog number
content: 2005.0233.0238
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bucket, fire
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: leather (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 13 1/2 in x 8 5/8 in; 34.29 cm x 21.9075 cm