USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > History of Delaware county [Pa.] for the past century Read before the Delaware county institute of science > Part 1
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HISTORY
OF
DELAWARE COUNTY
FOR THE
PAST CENTURY.
/
BY HON. JOHN M. BROOMALL.
READ
BEFORE
THE
DELAWARE COUNTY INSTITUTE OF
SCIENCE AND FILED WITH THE CONGRESSIONAL
LIBRARIAN AT WASHINGTON.
-
MEDIA, PA: VERNON & COOPER, STEAM POWER BOOK PRINTERS, 1876.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
To the Delaware County Institue of Science :-
The undersigned, appointed at the meeting of the Institute in May last to prepare a brief history of Delaware County for the century just now closing, respectfully submits the following report :
The appointment was made pursuant to a recommenda- tion of the National and State authorities that such outlines of history be prepared for every City and County in the Union, to be read on the Fourth of July, 1876, and preserved as mat- ter of local history for future reference and use. What is desired is to make a record of the progress of the County materially, morally, and politically during the last century .- The task imposed is rendered easy up to 1860 by the elabor- ate and valuable "History of Delaware County," published in that year by the President of the Institute, Dr. George Smith. Indeed, little has been attempted prior to that date except to extract from that work in a condensed form such materials as were supposed to be appropriate to a brief review of the cen- tury called for. Tendering thanks to the author for the val- uable aid rendered by the work is but feebly expressing the obligations of the people of the County to their historian.
The territory embraced within the limits of Delaware County contained the earliest European settlements in Penn- sylvania, but the County as a municipal organization was not created until 1789. The first settlers were Swedes who came about the year 1640, and located themselves along the Delaware River. Many of the present inhabitants of the County are descendants of these people and their names, sometimes more or less changed, are still common among us. The settlements were within the limits of Chester County, one of the three laid off by Penn at the founding of his colony, the other two being Philadelphia and Bucks. These Counties abutted on the eastward upon the Delaware, and extended westward without definite limits. In 1729 the
4
HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
County of Lancaster was created on the west of Chester, and thus the boundaries of Chester County became fixed. They remained the same until the division of the County in 1789.
Delaware County owes its existence to a contest about the seat of Justice of Chester County. The little village of Chester, being on the river, and about the middle of the settlements, was the seat of government of the colony from its commencement until the laying out of Philadelphia .- After that time it continued to be the seat of Justice of Chester County. As the settlements extended westward the location of the Courts and records became more and more inconve- nient to the average population, and from this arose the project of removing the seat of Justice inland. The site selected was a place in Goshen Township, called "The Turk's Head" from the sign of the tavern which constituted almost the entire village. The movement began in 1780 and lasted some half dozen years, ending in success. The new seat of Justice was called West Chester, and the first Court was held there in November, 1786.
The people of Chester and its vicinity were so exasperat- ed by what had been done, that they applied to the Legislature and in 1789 procured an act erecting Delaware County out of the eastern portion of the old County and fixing the County seat at Chester. The townships so cut off were Aston, Bethel, Chester, Concord, Darby, Upper Darby, Upper Chichester, Lower Chichester, Edgmont, Haverford, Marple, Middletown, Nether Providence, Upper Providence, Newtown, Radnor, Ridley, Springfield, Tinicum and parts of Birmingham and Thornbury. The boundaries of these townships remain nearly the same, no new ones having been created, and only that of Aston and Concord changed.
The extreme length of the County is twenty miles and the extreme breadth fourteen, and it contains about one hundred and sixty-five square miles. At the first census in 1790 the population was 9483. The increase to 1800 was 3326; that to 1810, 1925 ; to 1820, 84; to 1830, 2513; to 1840, 2468 ; to 1850, 4888; to 1860, 5918 ; and to 1870, 8906, making the population in 1870, 39,403. The last rate of increase continued would make the present number of inhab- itants over forty-six thousand. The small increase given by the census returns between 1810 and 1820, only 84, may be an error, due to careless enumerating previously, or if correct, it may have arisen from the troubles with England deterring emigration.
1
5
HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Chester is the oldest town in the State. The first settlers called the place Upland, a name which it bore until Penn gave it the present one in 1682. The date of its first settle- ment is unknown, but in 1668 it had become the chief town of the Upper Delaware settlements, and the place where the Courts were held. In 1682, Penn took formal possession of his new colony of Pennsylvania and established his govern- ment at Chester, where it remained a year or two, when the newer City of Philadelphia robbed it of its honor.
It has been said that the reason Penn did not locate his City at Chester was the fear that it might not be within his boundaries, and in fact according to the letter of his charter from the crown it is not. But the beautiful highland lying between the two rivers was doubtless sufficient to induce the change; and to the small vessels of that day and with the channel of the Delaware as it was then, Philadelphia was about as accessible to the Ocean as Chester.
In 1776 the population of Chester was probably about four hundred. Dr. Smith, in his history, page 286, gives us one hundred and sixty-eight as the number of taxables in Chester township in 1775. The Borough being in the township, probably contained the half of these-eighty-four ; assuming five persons to one taxable and we have four hundred and twenty as the probable population one hundred years ago.
It is very doubtful whether the number of inhabitants increased at all between 1776 and 1827. At the latter date the whole number of buildings in the Town was but seventy, including barns, stables, and shops ; and six persons to a building is a full estimate. Between 1830 and 1840 the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad was built, passing through Chester, and extensive stone quarries were opened in the vicinity furnishing large quantities of stone to the Delaware Breakwater. These enterprises gave an impetus to the town which in 1840 increased its number of buildings to two hundred and twenty-four and its population to something over seven hundred.
In 1850 quite a change had taken place. The seat of Justice had been removed, manufacturers had discovered the convenience of the town to the sources of the materials they needed as well as to the market for their products, and even the old residents had begun to think that the Delaware might furnish some material good besides fish.
The census returns of 1850 gave the number of inhabit- ants as 1667, and those of 1860 as 4631. In 1866 the Borough
6
HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
became a City by act of Legislature, and in 1870 the number of inhabitants was 9485. A similar increase since 1870 would make the present population over 15,000. The wealth and all the material interests of the town have increased in like proportion. Manufactories of cotton, wool and iron have sprung up all over the place, and probably no town of its size in the State exceeds it in industry and enterprise.
The history of Chester during the century is a remarkable one. After a state of almost absolute inertness for sixty-five years of that period an increase of population from seven hundred to fifteen thousand in the remaining thirty-five years, may well suggest an inquiry into the causes, and some of these are not difficult to see. Something has been attributed to the removal of the seat of Justice, and no doubt that had its effect. A certain proportion of the people of a county town depends upon the administering of Justice ; the attor- neys and other officers of the Courts, the Justices of the Peace, constables, tipstaves, tavern keepers, waiters, hostlers and a variety of similar non-producers, who hang about the public offices with the hope of picking up an occasional fee or gratuity.
Added to these and aiding them in their sphere of useful- ness are the large and small politicians of the County, who always gravitate to the County seat unless they can make more by remaining away and holding it up to public obloquy. Where these elements constitute substantially the entire population it will be readily seen that the general result is stagnation. Progress may be a thing talked of in jolly moments around a tavern bar, but it will be as we talk of the antipodes, the prehistoric or the coming man, something afar off in either time or space or both.
If the place should once outgrow these elements, forcing them into a subordinate position, where they belong, as Philadelphia has done, the Courts and their surroundings will become relatively less injurious ; but Chester in 1850, had not outgrown them, though there were indications that it might do so, and the removal of the seat of Justice, doubtless, acted as one cause of the great awakening.
Another, and a greater cause, was the discovery of the local advantages of Chester for factories. Philadelphia was becoming a great manufacturing city, and it was natural that the high rents and expensive living of that city should direct the attention of producers to the neighboring towns. Chester is upon tide water, about as convenient to coal, iron and other
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
materials, as Philadelphia, and much more accessible to the outside world, being at the head of winter navigation in severe seasons, and being the point to which vessels bound upwards usually come without towing. The water power of the county had been already appropriated and in many places steam had come to be used to compensate for the irregularity of the water power. By this means an opportunity was afforded of comparing the two powers, and it was ascertained that steam upon the tide is quite equal, if not superior in point of econ- omy to water power inland. In fact for some years, factory sites on streams remote from the river have been abandoned for steam on the tide.
The result of all this is, that an entire new population has taken posession of the City of Chester, establishing places of productive industry everywhere, building up its vacant lots and extending the town beyond its incorporated limits on all sides except where the Delaware interposes to prevent it. Many of these incomers are from the county, seeking faster modes of becoming rich than cultivating the soil, or if not changing their business, at least seeking a larger and better field for it. Many come from other states, and very many from foreign countries.
As it is the energetic who emigrate, these people brought with them more than the average energy of the places from which they came, and their advent into Chester was very much like that of the European settlers among the aborigines. After a little natural jealousy had subsided, the natives, unable to resist the stream of progress, have fallen into the current to aid and be aided by it, or have retired to vegetate upon the profits arising from the sale of their lands rendered valuable without their aid and apparently against their will. The Chester of half a century ago forms but an insignificant constituent of the Chester of 1876.
Next to Chester, Marcus Hook appears to be the oldest town in Pennsylvania. It was erected into a market town by Penn in 1701, by letters patent under the name of Chichester, and empowered to hold a weekly market and fair. The letters patent speak of it as "aforetime commonly called Marcus Hook, and of late usually called Chichester." But the new name did not supplant the old one. The Legislature in the present charter enacted in 1833, adopted the "aforetime" title. Indeed the place had never been called by any other name except in a few public documents at least a century old.
Marcus Hook is quite equal to Chester as an eligible site
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
for manufactories, if not superior. The river channel is nearer the shore, as well as deeper and broader, and the place has not been shut off from the ocean by ice at any time for half a century. Probably the accident of a few enterprising men locating themselves at Chester between 1840 and 1850 fixed that as the city instead of Marcus Hook. Before 1830 the two places were rivals in inertness and obscurity, surprised occasionally by the erection of a new dwelling on the ruins of one rotted down. Within a few years Marcus Hook has made some spasmodic efforts to imitate her more fortunate sister, and unless the old inhabitants succeed in preventing the in- flux of energy from abroad, a dozen years more will probably develop the natural advantages of the place and make it again the rival of Chester.
In 1850 the population of Marcus Hook was 492. Since then the census returns incorporate it with the township of Lower Chichester, in which it lies, leaving us to conjecture the number of inhabitants. Probably six hundred in 1870 and seven hundred and fifty now would be a close estimate.
Darby was one of the primitive settlements. The early travel among the colonists was mainly up and down the river, and of necessity it crossed the streams at first at the head of tide water. The places of crossing were favorable sites for settlements unless the river shore opposite afforded peculiar commercial advantages as at Marcus Hook and Chester. This determined the location of Darby at the head of tide on Darby creek, the country between that and the river being low, formerly chiefly covered with water at high tide, and kept habitable now by artificial banks.
Dr. Smith tells us that before the close of 1683 Penn's followers "had gained a very permanent footing at Chester, Marcus Hook, Darby and Haverford." But up to 1860 the population of Darby had only reached seven hundred and eighty. Since then however, manufacturing enterprises have started there and in 1870 the inhabitants numbered twelve hundred and five. Probably now they would reach fifteen hundred.
The Borough of Darby was erected in 1853 out of the town and part of the township of Darby.
The Borough of Media, the present seat of Justice of the county, was chartered in 1850. It is located very nearly in the middle of the county, on the high land between Ridley and Crum creeks, about five miles from the river and is from two to four hundred feet above the ocean level. The eastern
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
portion of the town is comparatively level, but the western, sloping towards Ridley creek, is quite hilly, making it difficult to locate streets and roads in that direction. The vicinity presents mountain scenery on a small scale, and is very much admired. The high and healthy location, the pure air and the wild roads along the wooded streams, suggestive of pleasure driving, fill the town with summer visitors, from the neighbor- ing city, from which it is distant only thirteen miles.
Like the county, the county town owes its existence to a contest about the seat of Justice. For many years the popu- larity of Chester had been upon the wane. Its people had given offence by endeavoring to rule the county, and only partially succeeding. Jurors, parties and witnesses believed themselves to be imposed upon by high charges, and they knew themselves to be sneered at and ridiculed by the tavern idlers who constituted most of the elite of the town. Besides this, the water was bad and the place was charged with being unhealthy, especially to people from the higher lands, a charge with little or no foundation, for Chester has its full proportion of old men and women in a population congregated from a wide range of climate.
In 1820 an ineffectual attempt was made to remove the seat of Justice to a more central point. In 1845 the effort was renewed, and in 1847 an act Assembly was passed submitting the question to the votes of the people at the next succeeding election. Not knowing or not properly considering how migratory a seat of Justice would become if its location were voted upon at every election, the people of Chester consented to this act. The result was just what might have been anticipated, a majority of seven hundred and fifty-two in a vote of about three thousand. The location not having been since changed, it is hardly necessary to say that the experiment of submitting it to the votes of the people has never been tried in Delaware county since.
In the census returns of 1870 the population of Media is given as 1045. It is probably now about 1400. At the time of the removal, a store, a tavern and two or three farm houses constituted the entire town.
By a provision in the Charter the sale of intoxicating drinks is forever prohibited within the Borough limits. The consequence is that Media is one of the most peaceable and orderly places in the country.
There are five schools supported by the public and three by private subscriptions. The latter are a large and well
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
patronized school for girls and young women, a large boarding school for boys and a select school for both sexes. All these, public and private, are in a flourishing condition.
The Court House is a large and substantial structure, built of stone and brick, the first story being fireproof. It is eighty-two feet by fifty, with two wings, each thirty-eight feet square. The Court room, about sixty feet by forty-six, is in the second story. It is approached by two iron stairways in front and a wooden one in the rear, all leading from the interior of the first story. This story contains the offices of the Prothonotary and Clerk of the Criminal Court, the Re:ister and Clerk of the Orphans' Court, the Recorder of Deeds, the Sheriff, the County Treasurer, the Commissioners and Superintendent of Common Schools. The building is erected in the middle of a rectangle 500 feet by 240, surrounded by streets. It is enclosed by an iron fence and is beautifully ornamented with shade and forest trees, many of them of rare varieties. The Court House square contains no other build- ings. The prison is situated across the street from it, and is a substantial building adapted to the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement, a system of very doubtful expediency.
Media is plentifully supplied with places of religious worship. One Episcopal, one Methodist, one African Method- ist, one Presbyterian, one Roman Catholic, one Baptist and two Friends' Meeting Houses. Besides these buildings there are others of a quasi public character the buildings owned and occupied by the First National Bank of Media, the Delaware County Institute of Science, the Delaware County Mutual Insurance Company and the Charter House Association-all substantial structures adapted to use rather than ornament.
The Borough owns a dam and water power on Ridley creek from which water is forced into a basin located on the highest point within the chartered limits, sufficient for any imaginable increase of population for another century ; and the Media Gas Company lights the town with coal gas at a moderate cost.
South Chester and North Chester Boroughs are mere extensions of the City of Chester beyond the incorporated limits, the former on the southwest and the latter on the north. The same paved streets and brick sidewalks continue with nothing to designate the line where one jurisdiction ends and the other begins. South Chester was incorporated in 1866, and in 1870 the number of inhabitants was 1242, the number of voters in 1875 was 299, and judging from this the present
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
population exceeds 1500. North Chester was incorporated in 1873. The voters in 1875 numbered 199, so that the present population exceeds 1000.
The Borough of Upland adjoins Chester City and North Chester Borough. It was founded by the late John P. Crozer about the year 1845 and the entire Borough is still owned mainly by his children. It was incorporated in 1869 and in 1870 the population was 1341. It is probably now 1600. Extensive Cotton Mills make up the great business of the place, and the neat rows of comfortable brick houses, the Church, Sunday School and Library testify to the regard the enterprising owners have for the population in their employ- ment.
The City of Chester and the surrounding Boroughs of North and South Chester and Upland as well as parts of the adjoining townships of Chester, Lower Chichester and Ridley constitute really but a single large manufacturing town with a population of more than twenty thousand, rapidly approaching Marcus Hook to absorb it, and destined in a very few years to connect with Philadelphia along the highlands occupied by the new route of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and the old King's Highway. The river shore between Chester and Marcus Hook, must become the port of Philadelphia, unless that city is content to give up its foreign commerce altogether ; and it is not unsafe to predict that the child is living who will see the southern limits of what will be substantially the City of Philadelphia at the Delaware State line.
It is impossible within the limits allowed to enumerate the factories, mills, machine shops, and other business establish- ments of Chester and its surroundings, or to name the enterprising men who have made the place what it is; and to designate a few of either out of the many would be an invidious task.
Besides these municipalities there are many towns mainly devoted to manufactures not yet arisen to the dignity of corporations. Those containing one hundred inhabitants and over are Village Green, Rockdale and Crozerville in Aston township; Chelsea in Bethel township; Concordville in Concord ; Leiperville, Ridley Park, Eddystone and Nor- wood in Ridley ; Sharon Hill in Darby : Howellville in Edg- mont ; Coopertown in Haverford; Lima, Lenni, Glen Riddle and Knowlton in Middletown ; Newtown Square in Newtown ; Waterville and South Media in Nether Providence; Morton
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
in Springfield ; Morgan's corner in Radnor ; Glen Mills in Thornbury ; Linwood in Lower Chichester ; and Clifton, Garrettford, Kellyville and Fernwood in Upper Darby.
All these towns including the City of Chester, are mainly the work of the last thirty-five years, and during the same period the rate of increase in the county, has been such as, if continued, will give us a quarter of a million inhabi- tants before the lapse of another century.
One hundred years ago the great business of the county was agriculture, and all other kinds of business were subser- vient to it; the land was devoted almost entirely to the raising of grain and the raising and fattening of cattle. The growth of Philadelphia and the filling up of the country around it have changed all this. Agriculture is still a leading inter- est, but its products are different now. Instead of sending out of the county for sale wheat, corn and beef, we send milk, butter, hay, garden vegetables and small fruits, articles form- erly supplied to Philadelphia from a nearer source. For half a century, the corn, wheat and oats raised in the county have not been sufficient for its own use.
Besides this change, the cultivation of the soil has become second in importance to manufactures and mechanical produc- tions. For some years the great productive business of the county has been the manufacturing of woolen goods and of iron, the last embracing the making of edge tools, steam engines and other machinery.
Chester, Ridley, Crum and Darby creeks with several smaller streams cross the county emptying into the Delaware. The fall on each of these streams is from one to two hundred feet, affording many water powers of moderate size. In 1827 the number of these occupied was 158, and the number unoccupied 42. Of those occupied 38 were used for flour mills, 53 for saw mills, 27 for cotton and woolen mills, II for paper mills and 5 for manufactures of iron.
In 1850 a great change had taken place in these mill seats ; the saw mills had mainly disappeared with the surplus timber of the county ; the lumber for building and even for fencing had come to be mainly supplied from the banks of the Susquehanna and elsewhere. The increase of population in the county, and its contiguity to Philadelphia had turned the farms over to the dairy and horticulture and the flour mills mainly vanished with the wheat and corn fields leaving place to manufactures of cotton and wool. In 1827 the products of these were made by hand looms except in a single instance.
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