| 234 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE
personalty and was transferable. The company was chartered
until 1820.
Of the mutual companies, the other class of fire insurance
companies chartered by the Maryland legislature, only the
Baltimore Equitable Society is doing business today. In fact,
it is the only insurance company, fire or marine, chartered be-
tween 1777 and 1807 which is in existence in Maryland at
present. The company was organized in February 1794 by a
group of Baltimore businessmen when a "Deed of Settlement
of the Society for Insuring Homes in and near Baltimore " was
adopted by them. By March 4 the Society advertised that they
were open fox business.211
That year the stockholders applied for incorporation, and
a charter for the " Baltimore Equitable Society for insuring
houses from loss by fire " was passed on December 26 by the
General Assembly, the charter closely following the wording
of the Deed of Settlement. The preamble, repeating the pur-
pose expressed in the Deed, stated that those forming the So-
ciety, having " taken into consideration the dangers to which
houses are exposed by fire, and the calamitous consequences
resulting therefrom," unanimously agreed to remedy those evils
" so far as in our power lies, . . . by each indemnifying the
other against such losses, and participating therein." 21g
The Equitable Society was to be a mutual company with
no capital stock. The Society was to be a local one, its busi-
ness being limited to the city and five miles around it. Any
Baltimore house owner who deposited a certain premium
would receive a policy for seven years and would become a
member of the Society. In houses in which a hazardous busi-
ness was conducted insurance was to be granted only on spe-
cial terms?la
Whenever a fire loss among the members occurred, the pres-
ident of the Society would set the rate of contribution for
members {not more than one-half of the deposit for a single
2"Md. ]., Feb. 28, Mar. 28, 1794.
x11 A[d. Sess., 1794 c. 39.
""Among such businesses listed in the charter were the following: " brew-
house, bake-house, coopers or joiner's shop, apothecary, chymist, ship
chandler,
tallow chandler, stablekeeper, innholders, malthouses, or store houses for
bemp,
flax, tallow, pitch, tar, turpentine, hay, straw and fodder."
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