Sec[Section] 1^st Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly: That hereafter it shall be lawful for any number of persons, resident within any Town, or Corporation within this State, exceeding forty persons, to form themselves into a Company, or companies for the purpose of extinguishing fire; who on having their names and subscriptions recorded in the Recorder’s Office of the proper County, are hereby authorized to make such rules and regulations, as to a majority of said Company or Companies, may seem proper and necessary, for the procuring of engines, buckets, hooks, ladders, and all implements necessary for working said engines, and exercising the Companies^; Provided, no by-laws shall be contrary to the laws of this State.^

Sec 2^nd So soon as such persons shall have had their names and subscriptions recorded as aforesaid, they and their successors shall be in law and in fact a body Corporate and politic to have continuance forever by the name and style of “TheFire Company”; and by such corporate name and style, shall be forever

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able and capable, in law and in Equity, to sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, answer and be answered, defend and be defended, in all manner of suits, actions, plaints, pleas, causes, matters[,] and demands, of whatever kind and nature they may be, in as full and effectual a manner, as any person or persons, bodies Corporate and politic, may or can do.

Sec 3^rd All fines and forfeitures, for non attendance, or delinquency imposed by the bye laws and regulations to be adopted by the Companies provided for by this act, not exceeding twenty dollars, shall be recoverable by action of debt, before any Justice of the peace of the proper County, by the said Company, in their Corporate capacity, which said fines and forfeitures, shall be for the use of the Company suing for the same.

Sec 4^th All persons who shall form themselves into fire Companies as is provided in the 1^st Section of this act, shall be exempt from militia duty,

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during the time they belong to such Company; and all persons who shall have served twelve years in succession in any such fire Company, shall forever after be exempt from doing militia duty in this State, except in time of war. This act to be in force and take effect from and after it’s passage.