Certificate, Membership
Detroit Fire Department appointment certificate issued to Welcome W. Hart of Lafayette Company No. 4. The certificate is signed by Common Council clerk Robert E. Roberts, Fire Department President Chauncey Hurlbut, and Fire Department Treasurer Mason Palmer, and bears both the metallic copper-colored embossed seals of the Fire Department of the City of Detroit, and of the City of Detroit. At the top, an engraving, by George W. Hatch, based on a painting by Henry Inman, captioned "Protection and Benevolence," shows the Roman god Neptune receiving a pair of keys from a woman, who wears a crown, holds a caduceus and stands beside a shield, possibly intended as either Minerva or Mercury. To their right, another woman hands a document marked "The Department Fund," to another woman, dressed in black, who sits cradling a baby. An engraving, credited to N. Gray, of the fire engine labeled Lafayette Company No. 4 is at the bottom of the document.
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