brick or stone chimney." The same commissioners were also instructed to lay out the towns of Franklin and Warren, and in 1796 the legislature, we find, passed an appropriation bill of $4,719.63, to pay a debt incurred in laying out these and other towns in that part of Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the encouragement given to towns by the proprietaries and the legislature, their growth was retarded by various causes in the eighteenth and the first part of this century. The population in the early days was largely agricultural; we have seen that the land office lacked system, and consequently there was much uncertainty of titles, especially to western lands, which checked the growth of population considerably;3 border life was full of dangers in the eighteenth century; the quit-rents were obnoxious and a source of dispute; and when the mines and forests began to be utilized, there was a lack of means of transportation to convey their products to good markets. When a better system of internal communication was established, and the hidden resources of the country were more extensively developed, the growth of towns received a new impetus. It was no longer necessary for the government to lay out towns; private individuals with an eye to fortune. promptly came forward. About the years 1828 and 1829, when the coal mines were opened and internal improvements rapidly projected, intense excitement prevailed in some counties, and the wildest speculation in town lots set in. It is said that in Schuylkill county nearly all the towns have been laid out by speculators. Pottsville is a conspicuous example of this exciting time, and its growth was then considered chimerical, though since far surpassed by many cities. It increased from five houses in 1824 to five hundred and thirtyfive in 1831, and in 1880 its population reached 13,253.

'Laws of Penna., vol. III., p. 758. Laws of Penna., vol. IV., p. 67. History of Western Penna., p. 49. 4 Gordon's Gazetteer of Pa., p. 33.

The town had its origin in a spirit of rivalry. Several prominent adventurers laid out towns in the same vicinity, each on a favorite location. Town lots doubled, trebled and quadrupled in price as the more greedy speculators came, and they passed from hand to hand like currency. In 1828 several of these villages were incorporated into the borough of Pottsville' making a town of "magnificent distances." The same features of the sudden rise of towns in the mining districts. has also been witnessed in the oil regions of the State, but the "oil town" has its ups and downs, and like the oil well is not a constant quantity. Many a little village that has lighted its borough lamps in the first flush of success has failed to keep them burning, has abandoned its organization and gone into an early decline. In Crawford county five of its smaller boroughs have decreased in population between 1870 and 1880, whilst others have sprung into life. Other counties have the same experience to tell.

Last among the important causes of town life, and the most important, is the manufacturing industry, too common a feature of the country to need any further comment. It will be seen in reviewing the history of the towns, that they have long since outgrown the first discouraging influences, and in . the nineteenth century they have made a rapid advance. In 1880 the census gave the number of boroughs then existing as 549, with a total population of 713,714, giving to each an average of 1,300. This large number is owing to the absence of any limits to the size of a borough; consequently they range all the way from the tiny village with a score of houses to the great town of York with probably sixteen thousand people. The population of the twenty-four cities of Pennsylvania was 1,419,159 at the same period, so that one half the

Day's Historical Collections, p. 60.

Some towns in the mining regions have also decreased, but the instability is most conspicuous in the oil regions. Greece City and Pitt Hole City are good examples of towns abandoning their borough governments.

State population was then living in boroughs and cities. In addition to this, it was estimated that there were thirty-one towns with upwards of one thousand inhabitants each, yet unincorporated and consequently subject to township legislation. These, in time, will become boroughs together with many of the smaller villages.

These figures it is hoped will show in an outward way the position and relative importance of the borough system in the municipal government of Pennsylvania. Let us now turn from numbers to the more immediate line of our study, the historical development of the borough organization.

BOROUGH OF GERMANTOWN.

The first borough organized in Pennsylvania of which we have any account was Germantown,' and the history of its government forms the most curious and interesting chapter on the early boroughs. It was founded by a colony of Men

'If Philadelphia was ever a borough it matters little in our study, for no records are preserved of such an organization, at least, historians and annalists of Philadelphia make no mention of any. The exact nature of its government between 1682 and 1701, the time when it became a city, has never been very adequately treated. Even the last encyclopedic work of Scharf and Westcott fails to do so. From the scattering records we meet in the minutes of the provincial council, in reference to the municipal affairs, it seems quite clear that the council and the county court of Philadelphia exercised considerable authority in governing the town during this period. For instance, in July, 1693, the Governor and council endorsed an order of the county court against negroes of the county round gathering in the town of Philadelphia on First-days. In another case the court ordered the inhabitants along Front street to represent to the council the need of a channel to convey the water. The inhabitants consented to have the water-way, and the council thereupon ordered three men to oversee the work. In October, 1693, the governor and council issued their regulations controlling the market, ‡ and the clerk of the market was also appointed by

*

See first vol. of Colonial Records, p. 341. +See first vol. of Colonial Records, p. 343. Colonial Records, vol. I., p. 353.

nonites from Germany and Holland, many of them from the town of Crefeld, still so noted for its weaving. Penn had preached among these people, and many of them inclined to his faith, hence they were the more willing to come and settle in his province. A number of them came and settled near Philadelphia in 1683. Among them was one Francis Pastorius, a highly-educated man, who easily became the leading spirit among them and acted as their agent or trustee. Several thousand acres were laid out in 1684, and the purchasers met in Pastorius's cave to draw lots for situations, then began to build huts and dig caves for their winter shelter. Their first settlements were not at all compact, but they soon began to build a village. Pastorius has given us an interesting record of this beginning. "On the twenty-fourth day of October, 1685, have I, Francis Daniel Pastorius, with the wish and concurrence of our Governor, laid out and planned a new town which we call Germantown or Germanopolis, in a very fine and fertile district with plenty of springs of fresh

the council. In 1694 the council issued an order for laying out a street upon petition* from the inhabitants. In 1699 the people of the town signed a petition setting forth the neglect of the care of streets, and requested the council to appoint persons to remedy this. † These facts would point to the absence of any organized borough government. On the other hand there are a few things to keep us from denying positively that Philadelphia was ever a borough. In the minutes of the provincial council in July, 1684, it is recorded that Thomas Lloyd, Thomas Holme and William Haigue were appointed to draw up a borough charter for Philadelphia, providing for a mayor and six alderman. Watson, the annalist, says that the town had a mayor named Humphrey Murrey signing its official acts in 1691. In the preamble to the first city charter, in 1701, Wm. Penn said that he had "by virtue of the King's letters patent, under the great seal of England, erected the said town into a borough, and by these presents do erect the said town and borough of Philadelphia into a city." We are obliged to leave this subject without further investigation, for the present, not having access to anything that is at all conclusive on the subject.

*Colonial Records, vol. I., p. 409.

+ Col. Records, vol. I., p. 527.

Watson's Annals, vol. I., p. 25. (Edition of 1850).

water, being well supplied with oak, walnut and chestnut trees, and having besides excellent and abundant pasturage for the cattle. At the commencement there were but twelve families of forty-one individuals, consisting mostly of German mechanics and weavers. The principal street of this, our town, I made sixty feet in width, and the cross streets forty feet. The space or lot for each house and garden I made three acres in size; for my own dwelling however, six acres."1 The cross streets did not have many houses however, and the village consisted mainly of one long street with houses on each side, generally with their gabled ends towards the highway. These weavers proved to be as industrious as spiders; their village flourished, and they set a good example of industry to the neighborhood. Weaving, making paper and digging gardens became a little monotonous in time, and they tried to throw more variety into life by going into politics. In 1689 a borough charter was procured which did not go into effect till 1691, when Germantown properly became a borough. This being the oldest borough charter known to exist in Pennsylvania, it is highly important to examine it with care, especially as it bears a closer analogy to the old English borough charters than any subsequent ones. This quaint document abounds in strange German names in its preamble, which is as follows: "I William Penn, Proprietor of the Province of Pensilvania in America under the Imperiall Crown of Great Brittain by virtue of Letters Patents under the great seale of England DO grant unto ffrancis Daniel Pastorius, Civilian and Jacob Telner Merchant, Dirck Isaacs Optegraaf Linen maker Herman Isaacs Optegraaf, Towne President, Tennis (?) Abraham Isaacs Optegraaf Linen maker Jacob Isaacs, Johannes Casselle, Heywart Hapon (?) Coender Herman Bon, Dirck Vankolk, all of

Memoirs of Penna. Historical Society, vol. IV., p. 90. For the general subject of the settlement see S. Pennypacker's articles in vol. I. of Pa. Hist. Magazine.