Theres a book I read last semester called "NY Burning". Cant remember the author since it was rented, I returned it haha. Not so much about fire companies as a whole, but its something similar. It was about a conspiracy among the slave population in Manhattan in the 18th century (around the mid 1700's) to burn down all of the masters homes and businesses. The book talks about the conspiracy, talks about different sides - what exactly happened. It was cool because it was about 18th century Manhattan, particularly what would be the now Financial District area. Overall talked about how there were also other slave led conspiracies in the time period to do the same in other part of the colonies and even overseas in Britain. There is some mention of volunteer fire companies, back then horses with buckets of water, etc... it even briefly talks about the apparatus itself, the horse and pumper system that they had in play, the whole 9 yards. A lot of names, dates and places were thrown in there so it was interesting. I believe it was the Fort George fire, now in modern day Battery City that sparked the whole arson movement and led white masters on to the conspiracy...a huge what would today be a multiple alarm job that consumed the entire fort, deemed suspicious.
Its an interesting read if you can find it. (Just looked it up, the title is: New York Burning: Liberty, Slavey and Conspiracy in 18th century Manhattan - by Jill Lepore).
