In 1947 residents in the northern wards of Jefferson Township in Allegheny County voted, subject to court approval, to secede from the township in a bid to create a more responsive government. The resulting court approval allowed the Borough of Pleasant Hills to incorporate. Pleasant Hills became another element of local government in a county already fragmented by local governments. Incorporating a new borough raises several questions. Why was it necessary to form another borough in a county with a number of boroughs already? What would the citizens of the new borough gain? Where do boroughs fit in the structures of local government in Pennsylvania? This article will endeavor to answer these questions.The scholarship on boroughs in Pennsylvania is limited. There are studies on the historical and political aspects of Pennsylvania's boroughs, but little describing the process and reasons leading to their formation.1 Boroughs have a long history in Pennsylvania, beginning with the incorporation of Germantown in 1691 and continuing until the present day.In the late twentieth century, criticisms of the complexity of local government, including boroughs, appeared.2 In the 2002 Census of Governments, Pennsylvania had 2,630 local governments consisting of 66 counties, 1,018 cities and boroughs, and 1,546 townships. This does not include school districts.3 In 2010 eleven members of the Pennsylvania House introduced a bill to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution to make the county “the basic unit of local government.”4 The House referred this bill to the Committee on Local Government but no further action occurred.Boroughs are a reality in Pennsylvania. The process leading to the incorporation of the Borough of Pleasant Hills provides a window into some of the challenges to borough incorporation as well as the reasons residents petition to form boroughs. At the heart of borough incorporation is a variety of local interests.The first plan of government for Pennsylvania allowed residents to participate in their own government by transplanting English local institutions to the colony. On March 4, 1681, William Penn received a charter from King Charles II of England that gave to Penn “his heirs and assignees, free and absolute power to Divide the said Country, and Islands, into Townes, Hundreds and Counties, and to erect and incorporate Townes into Borroughs, and Borroughs into Citties.”5 These units of government (aside from the hundred) took root and spread in Pennsylvania.William Penn established three counties in Pennsylvania: Bucks, Philadelphia, and Chester. He established in each a county court, which had authority to raise revenue through taxation to provide for public works, the poor, and prisoners.6 He also created townships in these counties for the purpose of controlling settlement. Each township was to have about 5,000 acres distributed among ten families. These townships followed English practice where justices of the peace held court and carried out daily administrative tasks. Townships became the basic county subdivision with powers to levy taxes for poor relief and maintenance of roads.7 Over time, townships received additional powers from the General Assembly and eventually were divided into first- and second-class townships based on population density. The 1933 first-class township code granted forty-five powers ranging from the power to regulate conduct, maintain a police force, provide for fire protection and sanitary facilities, and maintain water troughs and rest areas on township roads.8As early as the seventeenth century, towns developed within townships. As the towns grew in population and size, the need for order and government at this level became apparent to the residents. This led them to petition either Penn, the General Assembly, or the County Court of Quarter Sessions (depending on when the borough was incorporated) to erect a borough.Along with counties and townships, boroughs are clear evidence of the English roots of Pennsylvania local government. Pennsylvania boroughs originally had the same government and functions of British boroughs. Most of the current cities in Pennsylvania began as boroughs. To understand the nature of boroughs in Pennsylvania, it will be helpful to survey borough development in England.In England boroughs were important centers of trade and local administration. The term borough comes from “burgh,” which in England referred to a military structure or fortress used as a base for both territorial conquest and refuge.9 Boroughs had the ability to elect burgesses to Parliament.10 Some burghs were “a special form of government,” receiving “special privileges from the king, which in effect meant they were excluded from the supervision of the county authorities.”11Other boroughs received their charters when citizens petitioned the crown. The petition was the first step in the process and usually contained specific language that the citizens desired to have included in the charter. They requested powers that made for better government, good order, or means of regulating business.12Under British law, boroughs were municipal corporations, defined as “many persons united together into one society, and are kept up by a perpetual succession of members, so as to continue forever; of which kind are the mayor and commonalty of a city.”13 They were incorporated under a name, such as “Mayor, Alderman, and Commonalty,” or “The Mayor, Bailiffs, and Burgesses.” Many were closed corporation boroughs in which the present borough corporation selected its successors, that is, “ensuring to the Borough, in uninterrupted succession, the necessary group of governing personages, and placing their authority beyond dispute.”14 Borough officials included, variously, mayors, aldermen, bailiffs, and burgesses. Burgesses originally were the privileged members of the borough, men of trade; the term later meant a magistrate. Aldermen were originally leaders of the guilds; later, the term meant “associates to the civil magistrate of a city or town corporate.” Bailiffs administered justice and served writs, though in some cases the chief magistrate was a bailiff. The mayor was the chief magistrate of a city or town and also served as a justice of the peace.15 The commonalty usually referred to members of a community who were not part of the nobility. This included knights, esquires, gentlemen, yeomen as well as tradesmen, artificers and laborers.16This brief summary of the English borough provides a context in which to understand Pennsylvania's boroughs.At present, Pennsylvania has 962 boroughs.17 This high number may suggest that borough formation is easy. While this may have been true for the early boroughs formed by William Penn and his successors and those incorporated by the General Assembly, following the Borough Code of 1834 and its revisions, the process of incorporating boroughs became harder and more open to challenge.18Boroughs begin with a request from the inhabitants. Citizens petitioned either the proprietor (William Penn and his descendants), state legislature (the earliest borough so incorporated was Carlisle in 1782), or the court of quarter sessions in a given county (following the passage of the Borough Code in 1834). The first borough was incorporated in 1691, the most recent in the 1990s.There are similarities between Pennsylvania and English boroughs. Both share the status of municipal corporations, their corporate names, the titles of their officers, and their identity as a body politic. Like English boroughs, they were created in order to manage their own affairs. Boroughs allowed the residents to have “the power of regulating their markets, fairs, wharves, street, and other public concerns.”19 This set boroughs apart from townships where the residents did not have these powers, at least in colonial and early post-Revolutionary Pennsylvania. Townships would later receive these powers, so that by the twentieth century both townships and boroughs were roughly equal in corporate powers.20Germantown was the first borough in Pennsylvania. The Dutch and German residents of what was called German Township “Did Request the Proprietor to grant Certain priveledges to our Dutch Nation who according to his honourable Mildness Did grant our Request and promised to gratifies us profitable priveledges.”21 William Penn incorporated Germantown in 1689, although the charter was not issued until 1691.22In 1701 Penn granted a charter incorporating the Borough of Chester at the request of the inhabitants. The charter set the geographic boundaries of the borough. Penn named three men to serve as burgesses and one as constable until elections were held to elect citizens to those offices. The burgesses had power to keep the peace, much like justices of the peace in the county. The charter also records Penn's permission for the borough to hold a weekly market and two fairs, one in the spring, the other in the fall. This charter is very similar to the one establishing Germantown.23Boroughs reflected the interests of the residents calling for incorporation. This is apparent in the charters for Germantown and Chester discussed above. The law forming the Borough of Harrisburg in 1791 is another example of local interests driving incorporation.24 They believed that becoming a borough would “contribute to the advantage of the inhabitants” by preventing “nuisances, encroachments of all sorts, contentions, annoyances and inconveniences.”Harold Alderfer has identified three kinds of local interests behind borough incorporation: “a greater degree of local control over their local government, a desire to escape greater amounts of township taxes … and a desire to provide locally for better or more numerous government services.”25 In other cases, local business interests were the driving force for borough incorporation. In the cases of the Borough of Seven Fields in Butler County, formed in 1983, and Bear Creek Village in Luzerne County (1993), developers laid out streets and a sewer system and then petitioned for incorporation as a borough, based on his evaluation that the township would not be able to provide adequate services to the planned community.26 The Borough of New Morgan in Berks County was proposed in 1988 by a developer with plans for a landfill, a trash-to-steam facility, and a village center that were rejected by the local townships.27 Not all petitions for incorporation were successful. Attempts to incorporate boroughs in Linfield in Montgomery County, the Pocono Speedway in Monroe County, and Chilton in York County all failed.28With this survey in mind, we can now consider the process by which one borough was formed.In mid-1946, the residents of the two northern wards in Jefferson Township petitioned the court of quarter sessions in Allegheny County for permission to incorporate as a borough. Following a legal process, the Borough of Pleasant Hills was incorporated in April 1947.29 The first government of the new borough was elected in August of that year.Pleasant Hills lies in what was originally a portion of Mifflin Township, one of the county's original townships, which then became Jefferson Township. At the time of the initial steps to separate Pleasant Hills from Jefferson, Jefferson was considered a first-class township with all the corporate powers enumerated in a 1933 law.The oldest existing building in Pleasant Hills was built around 1774.30 Land warrants were issued on June 1, 1785, to John Kinkead for 102 acres, to Martha Lapsley on May 1, 1786, for 288 acres east of John Kinkead's, and to John Reed for 378 acres for a tract named Reedsburgh.31 Reed, like many others in southwestern Pennsylvania, operated several stills but apparently did not oppose the excise tax on whiskey that led to the Whiskey Rebellion. He was warned in a paper signed by Tom the Tinker about his failure to come “not forth to assist in the suppression of the execution of said law [placing an excise tax on whiskey production].”32The 1850 U.S. census for Jefferson Township, Allegheny County, Hope Church post office lists the families of Jeremiah Sickman (farmer), David Torrance (farmer), John Beam (blacksmith), and William R. Livingston (farmer) living in what would become Pleasant Hills.33 An 1876 map of Jefferson Township identifies the landowners in this area: David Walker, D. Torrence, W. R. Livingston, the estate of J. Sickman, J. Carlisle, John Beam, and John Mowry. In addition to farming, the 1876 map also indicates that Walker, Torrance, Livingston, Sickman, Carlisle, Beam, and Mowry had coal on their property.34An 1898 map of this part of Jefferson Township shows property owned by J. W. Snee, Joseph Wilson, J. Carlisle, the Torrence and Sickman estates, William Work, and J. L. and J. Livingston. These maps also show the early development of the area that would become Pleasant Hills. A school (variously identified as either the Sickman or Torrance school) appears on contemporaneous maps along what is now known as Old Clairton Road. The roads to Bruceton and Gill Hall were in place, as was Lebanon Church Road.35Census records indicate that farming continued to be the major occupation of the residents in this part of Jefferson Township until the early twentieth century. Other residents worked for the railroad or in the local coal mines. Census records also reveal that the residents were white and mostly native-born Pennsylvanians with a small number of foreign-born residents. Properties in the area were both owned and rented.Change came to this predominantly farming community beginning in 1929. Two developers, N. H. Hankoff and James H. Rose, operating as Pleasant Hills Realty Company, began to purchase land in Jefferson Township for proposed housing developments to be known as Pleasant Hills Plans 1–4.36 Another sign of development was the opening of Bill Green's Casino and Terraced Garden in 1934 at the Cloverleaf, the junction of the newly constructed PA Route 51 and Lebanon Church Road. Started as a barbecue stand, it soon became known for dancing and dining in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.37 The opening of Route 51 was a third part of the development that affected the northern part of Jefferson Township. Connecting it with Pittsburgh to the north, and Uniontown to the south, it opened the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh to development and growth in population.38The impact of the new housing developments is evident in the 72 percent increase in population in the northern part of the township from 1930, when development began, to 1940.39 News articles in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette record the new housing construction in Pleasant Hills. In May 1935 the paper reported the construction of new homes under the auspices of the Pleasant Hills Realty Company. In August 1935 the paper reported the transfer of two lots in Pleasant Hills Plan no. 1 to Sarah V. Cooper for the price of $1,195.40 By 1939 at least 300 new homes had been constructed in Pleasant Hills. The construction included new roads and a new “modern sewage disposal plant.”41 Various newspaper articles in the early 1940s identified by name the people who had purchased these new houses and were moving into Pleasant Hills.42As the community grew, community organizations formed including churches, a school, and a volunteer fire company. First came Bethany Lutheran Church in 1937 by the Pittsburgh Lutheran Extension Society. It met originally in a private home, moving in 1940 to an old school building, and then to its own newly constructed building in 1942. The Presbyterians followed with their own congregation in 1939 when services were held in a local family's home. By Palm Sunday 1940 they had erected their own building.43 The fire company was formed in 1937 and the Pleasant Hills Elementary School opened in 1941.With new houses and a growing population came a distinct community awareness made evident in the formation of the Pleasant Hills Civic Association in 1939. One of its early projects was a supper dance to raise money for the Pleasant Hills Volunteer Fire Department.44 The Civic Association served as a community club, organizing social events for the community and recognizing new residents. It also seemed to function as a quasi-governmental body with committees including the Fire and Police Protection Committee and the Streets and Sewers Committee. In January 1942 the Fire and Police Committee reported the action of Jefferson Township to set aside funds for a police car. The Streets Committee, on the other hand, noted on “the deplorable condition” of Pleasant Hills' streets.Police protection and road maintenance became flashpoints in the relationship between the people of Pleasant Hills and Jefferson Township government. In the summer of 1942 Jefferson Township took over the Pleasant Hills sewer system due to arguments between the township and the people of Pleasant Hills. Controversy between the two parties led the township to postpone improvements to Audrey Drive. A meeting between Pleasant Hills' residents and the township commissioners in August 1942 was the occasion for a heated discussion over sewage assessments and damage to roads following a major storm.45These matters were but prelude to the postwar actions that led the residents to petition the court to incorporate Pleasant Hills into a borough in the summer of 1946. Leaders of the Civic Association began to speak at community meetings to announce plans for a new borough.46 Engineers also began to work surveying the part of Jefferson Township that would become Pleasant Hills.47The major step toward forming the new borough was the drafting of a petition to be presented to the residents of Pleasant Hills for their signatures. Fifty-one percent of the residents would need to sign the petition for it to be presented to the court, though those behind the petition believed they could get the signatures of 80 to 90 percent of the residents. This petition began to be circulated on August 10, 1946.48Court hearings on the petition were begun on November 19, 1946. However, a technical problem arose when it was pointed out that part of a street to be included in Pleasant Hills actually belonged to Baldwin Township. As a result, the Pleasant Hills petition was withdrawn.49A new petition was ready for circulation on November 22, 1946. It contained a new plat map excluding the street that caused the first petition to be withdrawn.50 The petition charged Jefferson Township with failure to provide adequately for the residents of the seventh and eighth wards (the area to become Pleasant Hills) as the language of the petition makes clear: EIGHT: That your petitioners are in need of more adequate police protection to better secure the safety and property of all those living within the area proposed for borough incorporation, because at the present time and for a long time in the past, police protection has been almost entirely lacking on account of failure or inability of the present township government to provide necessary and adequate protection.NINE: That your petitioners are in [d]eed [sic] of a stronger government to secure measures needed for protection against fire hazards, because at the present time and for a long time in the past, the volunteer fire department, protecting said area proposed for borough incorporation has not been properly supported by the township government and in inequitable burden has been placed upon a great number of the petitioners residing in said area.TEN: That your petitioners are particularly in need of a more forceful, effective and efficient health supervision, because at the present time your petitioners and the other residents in said area have practically no health supervision whatsoever, and the lives and welfare of the people in the area proposed for borough incorporation are in constant jeopardy.ELEVEN: That your petitioners are greatly in need of proper laws and ordinances of a local government designed to promote the present and future welfare of the people in a fast growing community, because at the present time no laws or ordinances have been in existence or been enforced in regards to construction of buildings, zoning and planning, and as a result thereof a chaotic condition may result in the near future, by reason of the lack of local government control in said area proposed for borough incorporation.51These examples of complaints by the residents of Pleasant Hills all involved matters that Jefferson Township, as a township of the first class, had the power to deal with according to the 1933 act governing first-class townships. The petitioners claimed and believed that Jefferson Township was not fulfilling its responsibilities toward the northern part of the township. The Jefferson Township Commission had nine members. Only two represented Pleasant Hills.52This petition asserted that approximately 3,000 people lived in the area being considered for incorporation, and that the number of dwellings was 800, more or less. The petition included a land plat for the proposed borough, a description of the boundaries, and the signatures of roughly 900 freeholders.The new petition was presented to the court on December 27, 1946. The hearings began on March 3, 1947, and ended on March 12. Jefferson Township opposed the new borough, arguing that the borrowing power of both municipalities would be threatened. Other opposition came from residents who held that land used for farming should not be included in the borough limits.53The court's opinion came on March 31, 1947. It affirmed the petition in support of Pleasant Hills and ordered the incorporation of the borough. The judge wrote: “As a matter of expedience and in the interest of good government, we are of the opinion that the prayer of the petitioners should be granted and that the proposed borough should be incorporated.”54Borough elections were set for April 12, 1947. A meeting was called for April 9 by the Pleasant Hills Civic Association to discuss a slate of officers for the election. The officers to be elected were burgess, tax collector, councilmen, high constable, and auditors, as enumerated in the General Borough Code of 1927. However, on April 7, the Jefferson Township commissioners voted to appeal the judge's ruling. Nevertheless, Pleasant Hills went ahead with the election plans, forming two slates of candidates. On April 11 the election was postponed because the court accepted Jefferson Township's appeal.55Jefferson Township's appeal was scheduled for April 28 before a panel of judges of the Pennsylvania Superior Court.56 It was based on two contentions: the manner in which new boroughs' boundaries were determined and surveyed, and the “adverse financial effect of the incorporation on the remaining township.”57 On July 17, 1947, the court's opinion was published, rejecting the arguments of the township and affirming the decision of the court of quarter sessions.58The Supreme Court recognized that Pleasant Hills had few options in regard to its relationship to Jefferson Township short of incorporating as a borough. It wrote: Problems of sanitation, health, building restrictions, public safety measures, regulations with respect to small businesses, the control of public highways, and all the various questions necessarily arising through a concentration of homes in a substantial group are matters which may much more efficiently be solved through a borough council than through a township commission.59 The court went on to note that the problems between Pleasant Hills and the rest of Jefferson Township were related to the rural nature of most of the township, compared to the development taking place in Pleasant Hills.With the Supreme Court's decision, candidates for the new borough's officers filed their petitions for office in anticipation of a special election. Authority for the election was given on August 1, 1947, with the date of the election set for August 9. Two lists of candidates were again put forward, one sponsored by the Borough Committee and the Pleasant Hills Civic Association, the other by the Citizens Committee. The election took place as scheduled. Candidates from both groups were elected with the majority of the new officers sponsored by the Borough Committee. They were sworn in on August 14.60The leaders of the new borough included people prominent in the movement to incorporate. C. C. Larson, leader of the Civic Association, was elected burgess. Walter Brand, one of the two Pleasant Hills representatives on the Jefferson Township commissioners, was elected a member of the council. All those elected to office had signed the petition to incorporate the borough. Louis Rosenberg, attorney for the pro-borough group, became the solicitor.61The incorporation of the Borough of Pleasant Hills offers some insights into the process of borough creation in the mid-twentieth century, the forces leading to incorporation, and the role boroughs play in Pennsylvania government. First, boroughs are populist and democratic institutions, created by the people, not the Commonwealth (other than as Commonwealth law provides for their incorporation), which reflect the interests of a community. In many cases, the driving force for incorporation was a growing community, such as an urban area in a predominantly rural township, desiring the ability to manage their affairs. A core group of residents rallied other members to address common problems and participate in finding solutions. Even before the borough was incorporated, residents of Pleasant Hills were involved in a quasi-government of committees focused on their own needs.Rather than wanting more government, the residents of Pleasant Hills wanted a responsive government. Incorporating a borough did not create another layer of government; it only exchanged township government for borough government. The provisions of the Borough Code of 1927 provided clear guidance how to create the borough and the enumeration of powers in the code set forth the powers the petitioners would acquire.62Second, local interests were the key to borough formation. In the court cases that followed the incorporation of Pleasant Hills, one court observed: “The very persuasive fact appears that the residents of the area designated within the borough boundaries have little in common with the rest of the township.” The appellate court wrote: “There is a community of interest calling for the establishment and maintenance of a local government adapted to their common necessities.”63Third, borough residents gained power to enact ordinances that met the needs of their situation. Soon after it first met, the borough council enacted speed limits, an ordinance to tax pinball and slot machines, an ordinance for road construction and maintenance, and an ordinance regulating the sewer system.64 By the end of August 1947, the borough had its first police car to patrol the borough and to enforce the newly enacted traffic laws. To take a later example, in the case of the Borough of New Morgan in Berks County, the incorporators were able to build the landfill that Caernarvon and Robeson townships had turned down.65The days are gone when the incorporation of boroughs allowed them to hold markets and fairs. They are well-established bodies with the legal status of municipal corporations. While the unique privileges and powers they once had are now shared by townships, the continued attempts to incorporate boroughs (whether successful or unsuccessful) suggest that they still offer those Pennsylvania residents, who consider themselves a distinct community with different interests from the larger entity that governs them, a means of protecting and furthering their local interests.