The Philadelphia Contributionship

Benjamin Franklin seemed to be preoccupied with the danger of fire. In 1736 he helped found Philadelphia’s first volunteer firefighting brigade, the Union Fire Company. His experiments with electricity led him to propose in 1751 that lightning rods could protect buildings from fiery destruction. And in April 1752 he convened property owners to form a “mutual” insurance organization, owned by its policy holders, who would share risks. Its symbol, affixed to the facades of protected buildings, was four clasped hands.

This was the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, the longest-lived insurance company in America. It prudently surveyed buildings before agreeing to insure them, and in 1769 this prudence led the company to cease insuring wooden structures. In I78I it went further, stopping the issuance of policies to houses surrounded by trees—which were thought to impede firefighters. This restriction prompted tree lovers to found the Mutual Assurance Company for Insuring Houses from Loss by Fire, nicknamed the “Green Tree” company, whose firemark depicted an oak tree.

The directors of the Contributionship first met in taverns and other public meeting spaces, but Horace Binney, who was elected to the board in 1831, championed the construction of a headquarters building. This site was purchased in 1835, and the fast-rising Philadelphia-born architect Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887) was hired. Having worked for William Strickland, he had launched his independent career with the Gothic-style Moyamensing Prison (1831-1835) and won the national design competition for Girard College (built 1833-1848).

For the Contributionship, Walter designed a Greek Revival building—really an oversize house—that was completed in 1836. Its marble portico, supported by four classical columns in the unusual Pergamene order, has welcomed clients ever since. In 1866-1867 Edward Collins and Charles Autenreith added a mansard-roofed fourth floor and replaced the already deteriorating marble portico, to which they introduced lateral steps with curved railings.