272 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



that they were especially suited to the purposes of that organiza- 

 tion. As a rule these Grange fire insurance companies were 

 confined to a single township or county and were very simple 

 in form. Small fees were paid for admission to the company 

 and proportional assessments made upon members whenever 

 a loss occurred. 1 Organizations of this sort were formed by the 

 Patrons of Husbandry in every state in the Union in which the 

 order flourished. The careers of many of them in the western 

 states were checked by the dissolution of local granges during 

 the later seventies; but in the East, where the order suffered 

 no set back at this time, they continued to flourish and multiply, 

 and many of them are still in existence. 2 In a number of the 

 states more ambitious schemes for fire insurance were attempted 

 by the state grange or by Patrons' stock companies. Thus the 

 California Mutual Fire Insurance Company was organized 

 by Patrons of that state in 1874 as a stock company, with a 

 capital of one hundred thousand dollars and with a somewhat 

 complicated method of doing business. 3 Grange fire insurance 

 companies which were state-wide in their scope were also organ- 

 ized in Kansas in 1874^ New Hampshire in 1878,* and Maine in 

 1879.6 The Maine company seems to have been formed by 

 the consolidation of the several local companies previously 

 existing in that state. 



The first and one of the most flourishing Grange life insurance 

 companies organized was the Patrons' Mutual Aid Society of 

 Elmira, New York. 7 The mode of operation of this society, 

 which was established in December, 1874, was fairly simple. 



1 See constitution of a company formed at Muscatine, Iowa, in 1873, in Prairie 

 Farmer, xliv. 387 (December 6, 1873). 



2 F. W. Card, " Cooperative Fire Insurance and Telephones," in Bailey, Cyclo- 

 pedia of American Agriculture, iv. 303-306. 



3 Carr, Patrons of Husbandry, 168-172, 175. 



4 Kansas State Grange, Proceedings, iii (1875); J- K. Hudson, Patrons' Hand- 

 book, 27. 



6 New Hampshire State Grange, Proceedings, i-iii, v, vii (1875-80). 



6 Maine State Grange, Proceedings, vi. 26, 29. 



7 Patrons' Aid Society of Elmira, New York, By-Laws, adopted December, 

 1874, By-Laws, as amended March 16, 1876, Sixth Annual Report (1881); New- 

 York State Grange, Proceedings, iii (1876). 



