00:08 - This is the original document that was given to William penn by king Charles the

00:11 - second of england i'm Josh Stahlman i'm the division chief of

00:15 - state archives division here at the Pennsylvania state archives

00:18 - and we are here with the original 1681 charter

00:21 - so March 4th 1681 is the date attributed to the document we bring it

00:25 - out in the beginning of march to celebrate Pennsylvania's birthday

00:28 - and it's only out from about twelve to four

00:31 - one day per year we limit the exposure limit the time

00:34 - that it is out exposed to

00:36 - ultimately light as well as changes in temperature and humidity and so forth

00:40 - because this is actually an original document written on parchment

00:44 - as you can see here on the page the first page is actually a little bit more weather

00:48 - worn then what we will see as we look at the subsequent pages here

00:51 - but this is a big C up in the corner here that sort

00:54 - of circles around King Charles the second's likeness.

00:58 - It's a large C continues Charles the second by the grace

01:02 - of god into the document and very much describes the

01:05 - the legal conveyance of the land and rights and so forth to Penn at the time and

01:10 - sixteen million acres of land that were actually conveyed to Penn.

01:14 - It's one of the largest land conveyances

01:16 - at that time but again looking back at the document you can see on the first page one

01:20 - of the things that really grabs the eye is sort of the water damage here in this

01:24 - bottom left hand corner

01:26 - certainly the worst of it here.

01:29 - Evident in the the bottom left

01:31 - but we were fortunate because if you look.

01:34 - Just under the shadow of my finger here

01:36 - you can see the first official appearance

01:38 - of the word

01:39 - Pennsylvania

01:40 - actually looks like p e n f

01:42 - that was the first time the word Pennsylvania was actually

01:45 - penned officially

01:47 - and

01:47 - you can see sort of the the design elements on this first page we'll talk a little bit

01:51 - more about that as we move on to the subsequent pages but one of the things i do

01:54 - point out out about that is the first page here again being a little bit more weather

01:57 - worn this would have been the first of four pages

02:00 - over the hundreds of years

02:02 - where this actually would have been

02:03 - bearing the brunt of exposure whether that was light or temperature changes humidity

02:08 - exposure to moisture and dirt and handling this would have been the page that was

02:12 - that was most exposed so you can actually see a

02:14 - marked difference between page one and two in terms of crispness

02:17 - and otherwise the vividness of the design elements

02:23 - and as i said we're moving from page one to page two and

02:26 - three now subsequent pages you can see on these pages

02:30 - that the imagery is much more vivid much more crisp the detail is more

02:35 - visibly evident

02:36 - and believe it or not this actually was a

02:38 - carved into blocks and stamped onto the document

02:42 - and that one of the things i should mention is this was actually on parchments we

02:45 - believe this particular document to be on sheepskin so these

02:48 - elaborate designs and you can look at the fine

02:51 - details that are evident here especially on page two and three.

02:54 - Were actually carved into blocks and stamped on it is called intaglio block printing

02:59 - this actually would have been like a

03:01 - type of stationary that came out of the king's court at this time so conceivably

03:06 - other types of land conveyances and so forth may have had

03:09 - a very similar appearance

03:12 - again of course there's nuances and specifics to this particular document

03:16 - but

03:16 - again the design elements around the page you can see

03:19 - the Fleur de Lys representing France there's the Tudor Rose

03:22 - and

03:23 - the lion

03:24 - of Scotland

03:25 - the the harp of Ireland these are all representative of

03:28 - lands that the king had some sort of tie or influence to at the time so

03:33 - sort of making that that official mark here

03:35 - on these documents but one of the things that

03:37 - we like to talk about with page two and three

03:40 - is the the conservation of these documents.

03:43 - Again i think

03:44 - 1996 was the first

03:47 - on record that i'm familiar with

03:50 - 2006 there was a large conservation effort and actually

03:53 - a lot of what you see today is a result of that

03:55 - 2006 conservation treatment

03:57 - you can see these dual cases here so this outer case is really just a display case

04:02 - it helps

04:03 - you know mitigate

04:04 - a little bit of the environmental issues

04:07 - but that interior case with the brown metal band around it

04:10 - is actually a conservation grade case

04:13 - if you look sort of obliquely you might catch the

04:15 - reflection of the lights you can see the purple

04:17 - reflection of the lights that's actually a UV

04:19 - treatment that's on the face of that glass to

04:22 - help minimize

04:23 - any damage

04:25 - that might come from UV exposure while it's out for this very limited amount of time

04:29 - this interior case also has a special silica gel backing

04:33 - it's meant to minimize fluctuations and especially humidity

04:37 - as again we have this out on display very briefly

04:40 - the rest of the year this is actually kept in a special temperature and humidity

04:42 - control vault here at the state archives building.

04:45 - That vault is kept at about fifty eight degrees

04:48 - about thirty five percent relative humidity

04:50 - and we actually have a biometric fingerprint reader

04:53 - to access the vaults and there are only very specific staff who

04:57 - have access to be able to get into the vault

05:00 - so again very secure very

05:02 - purpose built in terms of climate

05:04 - control and access and so forth.

05:08 - As we make our way to page four

05:10 - again looking at some of the visual elements or the things that grab the eye

05:14 - especially on page four here we can see this sort of half moon rust Mark

05:18 - what that actually was what we believe it to be

05:20 - was from a metal container called the skippet

05:23 - and that skippet would have ultimately held the wax seal.

05:26 - So when you look at the bottom of page four you'll see there's three holes here

05:30 - ultimately these four pages would have been bound together by a silk cord

05:35 - and what made this an official document there's no signature of the king on here there

05:38 - actually would have been the king's wax seal would have been affixed to that ribbon

05:42 - and then that wax seal would have been kept that metal container

05:45 - that's ultimately what we believe

05:46 - made these rust marks the

05:48 - the moisture and condensation and the oxidation

05:50 - from that metal container but two points

05:53 - that that brings me to

05:55 - one there's no signature of the king on this document what you do see

05:58 - on the last page here is the name

06:00 - Pickett that would have been the name of the court scribe and Picket was the

06:04 - scribe who

06:05 - conceivably would have

06:06 - either himself or with with some assistance written these four pages out by hand

06:11 - these four pages were actually penned with ink it's

06:14 - called iron gall ink it's actually made from iron filings

06:18 - so if you see the the sort of brownish or reddish hue to the ink

06:22 - sort of that that rust color

06:24 - that's not a mistake that is actually the oxidation of the iron filings in the ink

06:28 - so we display the Pennsylvania charter once a year celebrating Pennsylvania's birth

06:32 - and ultimately the significance of the charter is.

06:36 - In part of course it helped to lay the foundations for

06:40 - ultimately democracy it was

06:41 - it was a revolutionary document at the time

06:44 - ultimately.

06:45 - Laying the foundations for moving towards what we're now celebrating with

06:49 - independence with the two hundred and fiftieth

06:51 - and beyond.