the foundations of a borough system that has since become a most important factor in her local government. To judge how important this factor has become, let us first take a view of the outward progress of the towns before beginning the study of their government. Let us see what care was taken to foster their growth.

GROWTH OF Towns.

It is now a little over two hundred years since the good ship "Welcome" sailed up the Delaware with William Penn and his companions on their way to build a new State. Many great changes has Pennsylvania seen since that day. Within the limits of the province the little village of Upland was then the nearest approach to a town. It had been founded by the Swedes about the year 1645, and in 1682 it possessed a mixed population of Swedes, Dutch and English, and had a court with jurisdiction over the neighboring territory along the Delaware, but it was not an incorporated village. For some reason Penn changed its Swedish name to Chester.

When he erected the three counties of Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks, he made Chester "shire town" of the county which took its name, and here was passed the "Great Code of Laws" for the guidance of the new commonwealth. Upland had been living and growing as best it might, with little thought of companions or rivals, but with the arrival of Penn came a new era of planting villages and towns, and Upland awoke one day to find itself distanced by a younger competitor. The builders of the province were very anxious to establish towns, for they recognized them as the nerve centres of the body politic. The land system they adopted was intended to promote rapid settlements and encourage towns, but the wisdom of their ways is not always apparent. William Penn adopted no new system of distributing lands peculiar to Pennsylvania, but followed the examples of neighboring provinces. Especially was his own personal experience in the settlement

of West Jersey of value to him, and in general he introduced the same system with modifications into his own province. For example, the constitution of the land office became almost the same as provided for in the West Jersey "concessions." In Pennsylvania it consisted of the secretary, auditor-general, receiver-general, surveyor-general, the deputy surveyors, and the commissioners of property, who acted in the proprietary's place during his absence, with authority to purchase lands and grant them for such sums or quit-rents as they deemed reasonable. By the Frame of Government of 1683, there was to have been a "Committee on Plantations" in the Provincial Council, with the special duties of locating cities, ports, market-towns and highways, but as the council was much smaller than originally intended, no committees were created, and such matters were settled by the whole council. With the commissioners, the council and the special land officials, Pennsylvania was not lacking in men to carry out a consistent policy, but unfortunately she was lacking in a sound system that would inspire confidence and secure satisfaction among new settlers. Mr. Gordon, who has carefully studied this subject, tells us that there was no general and accurate system for the division of lands. "No system whatever," he says, "can be traced in the records of the land office."1 Another high authority says, "In the times of the proprietaries the land office was said by the legislature to be pretty much of a mystery. This is not to be wondered at when it is considered that the grants of lands and confirmations of titles were matters in the breasts of the proprietaries and their officers, who dispose of their territory according to their own will and pleasure, professedly by formal methods, but frequently by informal modes and agreements of their own, varying with the expediency of the times or the change of officers, or special influences."" "2 It was often

'History of Penna., p. 549.

2 Sergeant's Land Laws of Penna., p. vi.

the case that more than one system was in operation in the province at the same time, and it is manifest that such a lack of fixed policy must have retarded the growth of the colony. The large number of officials simply made confusion worse confounded. The quit-rents to which most of the lands sold by the proprietaries were subject, were most vexing to the spirit of the settlers, and kept them in a chronic state of unrest. The first purchasers under William Penn paid one shilling a year for a hundred acres,' but a half-penny or a penny an acre became more customary rates later, and sometimes the exactions were heavy enough to check materially the growth of a town."

Offsetting these disadvantages were other influences that encouraged town building, especially the personal influence of the proprietaries, who owned large tracts of land known as manors, reserved from the Indian purchases. In the "Concessions" of Berkeley and Carteret in East Jersey these rules were expressed, "That in Laying out Lands for Citties Townes Villages Burroughs or other Hamletts, the said lands be devided into seaven parts, one seaventh part whereof to be by Lott laid out for us, and the rest devided to such as shalbe willing to build thereon, they paying after the rate of one halfe penny or one penny p'acre according to the value of the Lands yearly to us."3 Penn pursued a similar plan on the west side of the Delaware. At first from every hundred thousand acres sold or surveyed, one-tenth was to be reserved to himself, to be kept together in one tract. Later instructions to his surveyors indicate that the proprietary share was increased beyond the original tenth. It became an

'Gordon's History of Penna., p. 550.

Quit-rents and quarreling over the same lots retarded the growth of York. This confusion was probably increased through the neglect of the land office to give proper titles or record the deeds of sale, for the officers were remiss in these important duties. John Penn himself, once stated that the deeds were not always recorded. Hist. of York, p. 35.

'New Jersey Archives, vol. I., First Series, p. 42.

object of the proprietaries to have these manors settled, and it several times occurred, as in the instances of York and Pittsburg, that the proprietaries directed that towns should be laid out in their manors and lots offered for sale.

In 1681, Penn issued his "Conditions or Concessions" which were agreed to by his purchasers. They are interesting and instructive as being the most definite expression of his plans of settlement. They were not new however, except in details, for the policy of issuing such instructions had been pursued in New Jersey. In 1665, Berkeley and Carteret made certain "Concessions and Agreements" which served as a model twelve years later for the "Concessions and Agreements" of the West Jersey Proprietors, and these in turn served as suggestions for Penn's "Conditions or Concessions." As Penn was one of the proprietaries who authorized the "Concessions" of 1677, we see how natural it was for him to adopt similar measures in his own colony. One of the first things the proprietaries of West Jersey did towards settling their province was to issue instructions to their commissioners in 1676 to sound the Delaware and find a good healthy location for a town where navigation was also possible. It is curious to note likewise, that the first thing to be done in Pennsylvania was to sound the river and found a city, that it might be the centre of trade and the political capital of the territory. So important was it held to found this city at once for the colony, that the first article in the "Conditions" of 1681 begins by saying "That so soon as it pleaseth God that the abovesaid persons arrive there, a certain quantity of land, or ground plat, shall be laid out for a large town, or city, in the most convenient place upon the river, for health and navigation; and every purchaser and adventurer shall, by lot, have so much land therein as will answer to the proportion which he hath bought or taken up, upon rent." It was fully expected that more than one city would

'See Conditions or Concessions in 2nd vol. of Poore's Charters and Constitutions of U. S., p. 1516.

find a local habitation and a name, for the same article continues thus-"But it is to be noted that the surveyors shall consider what roads or highways will be necessary to the cities, towns, or through the lands. Great roads from city to city not to contain less than forty feet in breadth, shall be first laid out and declared to be for highways, before the dividend of acres be laid out for the purchaser, and the like observation to be had for the streets in the towns and cities, that there may be convenient roads and streets preserved, not to be encroached upon by any planter or builder, that none may build irregularly to the damage of another."

...

Not having visited his colony, Penn thought that Upland might be a good place for his city. He instructed the commissioners who came over before him, to sound his side of the Delaware, "especially Upland, in order to settle a great towne." "Be sure to make your choice" said he, “where it is most navigable, high, dry and healthy. That is, where most ships may best ride, of deepest draught of water, if possible, to load and unload at ye Bank or Key side, without boating and litering it. It would do well . . . yt the scituation be high, at least dry and sound, and not swampy, wch is best Knowne by digging up two or three earths, and seeing the bottom." Having found such a choice spot, they were to lay out ten thousand acres contiguous to it as the "bounds and extent of the libertyes of the said town." In laying out the lots they were to "let every house be placed in the middle of its platt as to the breadth of it, so that there may be ground on each side, for gardens or orchards, or fields, that it may be a green country Towne, which will never be burnt, and allways be wholesome." The original intention was to lay out the city on a large scale; the agreement was that the adventurers were entitled to city lots in the proportion of ten acres to every five hundred bought in the country, if the place would allow it, but it would not. Such a ratio would

'Hazard's Annals of Penna., p. 528.