Fire Mark
The Sign of the Clasped Hands, so frequently seen on the exterior of houses in the region, means that the home is (or was) insured by the Baltimore Equitable Society (Baltimore Equitable Insurance). The Society chose the clasped hands, depicting the hand of the company and the hand of the policy holder shaking, symbolizing the agreement by both parties to the contract of insurance. Called a “fire mark,” this sign of coverage was once just as important as the paper policy document.
In Europe insurance companies owned the fire companies that fought the fires. At one time fire companies would only extinguish the fire if the home had the proper fire mark.
This was never the case in the United States. Here, Benjamin Franklin established public and volunteer fire departments that responded to fire danger regardless of insurance arrangements. Still, the fire mark was a very important feature of most insurance companies of that day. The society still gives the fire mark to any person insured with Baltimore Equitable who wishes to receive it. It is numbered and painted in the traditional black with gold leaf.
Read more about this topic: Baltimore Equitable Society
Famous quotes containing the words fire and/or mark:
“The fire burns as the novel taught it how.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand—Did one but know!”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)