The Charter
Charter
Summarized as of July 18, 2026 · Official text on eCode360 →
This is the founding legal document that created the City of Pottsville in 1911, issued by the Governor of Pennsylvania under the state's law for third-class cities. It transformed the Borough of Pottsville into an incorporated city, fixed the city's boundaries by surveyed metes and bounds, and granted it the rights, privileges, and franchises of a Pennsylvania city.
Preamble and Recitals
The document opens by citing the Act of May 23, 1889, "An Act for the incorporation and government of cities of the third class," which allowed a town or borough (or contiguous towns/boroughs in the same county with at least 10,000 people, per the last U.S. census) to become a city of the third class if a majority of its voters approved at a general election. Under that law, once election returns showed a majority in favor, the Governor was required to issue Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Commonwealth defining the new city's boundaries and formally making it a body corporate and politic.
Findings Supporting the Charter
The Governor recites the specific facts that trigger the 1889 Act: an election held in the Borough of Pottsville on November 8, 1910, returned a majority in favor of a city charter; the borough's population, per the last census, was at least 10,000; and all requirements of the 1889 Act and its amendments/supplements had been satisfied.
Declaration of Boundaries
Governor John K. Tener declares and defines the boundaries of the proposed City of Pottsville. The boundary is described as a single continuous survey line, starting at a point on the West Branch of the Schuylkill River where it crosses the North Manheim Township line, and proceeding through a long sequence of compass bearings and distances (in degrees, minutes, and feet) to fixed markers — points, posts, stones, and a stake — passing along and between North Manheim Township, a detached portion of Norwegian Township, the Borough of Mount Carbon, the West bank of the old Schuylkill Canal (the line of the Borough of Palo Alto), the Borough of Port Carbon, and Norwegian and Branch Townships. The line crosses the Schuylkill River at the mouth of "Young's Brook," continues through numerous additional survey courses along township and borough lines, and finally returns down the West Branch of the Schuylkill River (roughly 6,700 feet) back to the starting point, closing the boundary.
Incorporation and Grant of Corporate Status
Having made the document Patent and sealed it with the Great Seal of the State, the Governor constitutes and erects the former Borough into a body corporate and politic under the name, style, and title "CITY OF POTTSVILLE." Under that name, the city is vested with all the rights, privileges, and franchises afforded by the 1889 Act, and is likewise subject to all of that Act's duties, requirements, and restrictions.
Execution and Attestation
The charter is dated and signed at Harrisburg on March 22, 1911 ("the one hundred and thirty-fifth" year of the Commonwealth), under the Governor's hand and the Great Seal of the State. It is signed by Governor John K. Tener and countersigned "By the Governor" by Robert McAfee, Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Historical context
Pottsville's charter was issued under Pennsylvania's Act of May 23, 1889, which created a uniform process for boroughs and towns to become "cities of the third class" — the state's classification for smaller cities, as distinct from the larger "cities of the first class" (Philadelphia) and "second class" (Pittsburgh). Reaching city status typically reflected a community's growth past a population threshold and a local desire for expanded governmental powers and structures beyond what a borough government offered.
The boundary description's reliance on compass bearings, distances in feet, and physical monuments (stones, posts, a stake, a canal bank, a brook mouth) is standard for land surveys of that era, known as "metes and bounds" description. Many of the referenced landmarks — the old Schuylkill Canal, the neighboring boroughs of Mount Carbon, Palo Alto, and Port Carbon, and surrounding townships like North Manheim, Norwegian, and Branch — reflect the built and natural landscape of Schuylkill County's anthracite coal region in the early 20th century, some of which (like the canal) no longer exist in their 1911 form.
As a legal instrument, this charter document is largely historical and ceremonial in its present-day force: it established the fact and boundaries of incorporation, but the detailed rules of city governance have since been shaped by later state statutes (including subsequent Third Class City Code revisions), home rule provisions, and locally adopted ordinances that make up the rest of the City Code. Its continued inclusion in the Code preserves the documented origin of the city's legal existence.
This section draws on general historical knowledge, not only the charter text.
The official, authoritative text is the Charter on eCode360 →