Forming a More Perfect Community: An Early History of the Friendship Fire Company Historic Alexandria Quarterly, Summer 2002 T. Michael Carter, Ph.D.

In 1857, John Muir delivered a lecture in the firehouse's meeting room on the "origin, progress, and present condition of the Friendship Fire Company." Muir was a former mayer of Alexandria, and clerk of the Friendship Fire Company. The lecture was printed in that year in the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser, and is reprinted here with an introduction by Dr. Carter.

The Friendship Fire Company was established in 1774, as the first volunteer fire company in Alexandria. The current firehouse was built in 1855, two years before Mr. Muir's lecture.