USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Chester > Historical sketch of Chester, on Delaware > Part 7
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Mr. Campbell at that time became financially embarrassed, and in 1858 the " Pioneer Mills " passed into the ownership of the late General Robert E. Patterson. The latter sold a lot on Market street to Amos Holt, who erected a brick building, now occupied by Rorer & Mingin, as well as the adjoining lot to the present own- er, John Gregg, who built a store for the book and stationery business. Holt's building was subsequently sold to William Pow- ell, and in succession it became the property of Wiss Willey, Charles Roberts, and at present is owned by Mr. Cook. The mill, after Campbell's failure, was occupied by James Stephens until about 1863, when Messrs. Roberts, Wilson & Willey carried on the manufacturing business therein. In 1865, Gen. Patterson sold the Market street front to James Chadwick, who in 1866 tore down the old building and erected Lincoln Hall. While taking down the tall flag pole which stood on the sidewalk at Fourth and Market streets, the halyards had been drawn through the block, and Charles Martine clambered up to make a rope fast so that the pole, lower
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Historical Sketch of Chester ..
and topmast, might be pulled over into the street. After he had! climbed a goodly distance, the pole which had rotted where it en- tered the ground, broke off level with the sidewalk and fell, fa- tally crushing Martine beneath it. The rear part of the old prison passed into the ownership of John Cochran, and on part of the lot the Market House now stands. Chadwick sold the property to Messrs. Gartside & Sons, and they in turn conveyed it to Chester Lodge, No. 236, F. A. M., who now own it.
After the Borough authorities acquired the old Court House they made many changes, provided a commodious hall in the second story for the use of the Council, which is to-day used by their suc- cessors, the Council of the City of Chester ; they also removed the old belfry and built a steeple in which was placed a four-dialed clock and a new bell. The old one, which had called together judges, lawyers, jurors and suitors for nearly a century and a quar- ter was removed to the ancient school house at Fifth and Welsh streets.
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HISTORIC BUILDINGS IN CHESTER.
BRIEF NOTICES OF THEIR OWNERS AND OCCUPANTS.
The Boar's Head Inn.
T THIS ancient hostelry stood in the line of the present Penn street, on an eminence, the footway approaching it having a slight ascent to the building. It was one story and a half high; with peaked roof, the gable end standing toward Third street, and from it, just below the eaves, projected the crane from which the old sign of a boar's head was suspended. The house was construct- ed of heavy frame timber, filled in with brick, and outside as well as inside the laths which were interlaced in a kind of basket pat- tern, were covered with plaster made of oyster shell lime and mud; while in place of hair, swamp grass was employed to hold the com- position together. The doors were peculiar in the manner in which they were hung, a peg or projection from the door above and below fitted into holes made in the frames, and on these they swung in- stead of hinges. The windows, with the exception of the one in the kitchen were small ; the glasses, 4 by 3 in size, were set in lead. The sashes were not hung with weights, a comparatively modern improvement, and when it was desired that the lower sashes should be raised, they were supported by pieces of wood which fitted into
. the grooves in the frames, or a turn buckle placed half way up sus- tained the weight. The large window in the kitchen was made to slide one sash past the other. The roof was of split shingles, and
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
the kitchen floor was laid in flagging some of which were as large as 6 by 8 feet, and under these was a body of eighteen inches of sand on which they rested. In the kitchen on the side opening to the west was a large double door through which a cart load of wood could be drawn if desired. The chimney was an enormous affair, nearly sixteen feet in width, and the wide-mouthed old fireplace was spacious enough to hold entire cord wood sticks on great iron dogs, while on either side in the fireplace were benches, where, on excessively cold days the chilled inmates of the house could rest themselves, while enjoying the blazing fire on the hearth. The cel- lar, which was under the front part of the building, was a model, and its like would be difficult to find among even the most impo- sing structures of this day. It was of dressed stone, the joints were true, every stone set square and as carefully laid as the ma- sonry of the City Hall. The workmen might well have been proud of this exhibition of their skill. The front room, which was used as a sleeping room, was spacious, as was also the sitting room back of it, but both these apartments, as well as the ones above, were without means of warmth in the winter. The well was noted for its clear, pure water, and often in the evening the residents of Chester, in the first half of the present century, who were com- pelled to use the mineral waters of the town, would walk over to the ancient well to enjoy a cheering draught from its refreshing depths. The old house was shaded by many varieties of fruit trees, such as cherries, apricots, pears and plums, and apples, of the ap- proved varieties of our early days, were abundant in the garden, where many flowers perfumed the air with their delightful odors.
It was in this house that William Penn passed the winter of 1682-'83, and, doubtless, as he sat in the kitchen, watching the flaming wood in the fireplace, he could not but contrast the dreari- ness of his then surroundings with the brilliant courts of the Grand Monarch of France and that of his unscrupulous and subservient tool, Charles II. of England, in which he had often been received. Notwithstanding, nowhere in his spoken or written words do we find that he gave utterance to his regrets at the change in his mode of living, from the elegant refinement of that day, (which in ours would have been rude and boisterous,) to the frequent want of even the very necessaries of life he was then undergoing.
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Historic Buildings in Chester.
We do not know who it was who had the honor, as the then land- lord, to receive under his roof the founder of a great Common- wealth, but doubtless it was Jonathan Ogden, who in his will, da- ted August 17, 1727, and probated thirteen days thereafter, styles himself inn keeper. In the early deeds from Wade, his land is mentioned, and I presume that he acquired it previous to Penn's coming, although I have been unable to establish this fact from the record. He devised this property to his sons David and Joseph Odgen and Katharine, his daughter, share and share alike. The executors named, George Ashbridge and Jacob Howell, failed to carry out the testator's intention, inasmch as he directed them to sell his real estate as soon as possible and divide the proceeds among his children mentioned. How Katharine's share became absorbed in those of her brothers I do not know, but the title remained in equal share in the two sons and their descendants until purchased by Isaac E. Engle, December 26, 1826, from the children and grandchildren of David and Joseph Ogden. The descendants of the latter had all removed from this neighborhood, but the children of David Ogden, excepting his son David, who resided in Wilmington : his daughters, Sarah Pyle, Ann Siddons, Mary Cotter, all lived in Chester, and during the greater part of her widowhood Polly Cotter, as she was familiarly called, resided in the old house She vacated it because of increasing age, and the house was rented to William Baggs, who lived there until he died. Mr. Baggs was at one time offered the whole property for several hundred dollars, but declined to purchase it, as he was not sure the investment would have been a good one, and, so far as he was concerned, it would not have been, for Chester did not awaken from its lethargy until several years after his death. James Baggs, the only son, removed to Philadelphia, and Katharine married Samuel Ulrich in 1828.
The Squire, for such Samuel Ulrich afterwards became, and is remembered more particularly by that title, was a genial, jovial gen- tleman, who loved a pleasing joke but never played a practical one to the injury or inconvenience of his neighbors, a pattern of a ma- gistrate in that he never fanned the flame of dispute between suit- ors, but ever sought to settle the difficulty in such a way as to re- move all rancor from the minds of the parties. He abounded in recollections of the olden times of Chester, and related his remi-
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
niscences of the past with all intonation and emphasis necessary to give point and expression to his narrative. He died December 5, 1871.
Jane Baggs married Jeremiah Stevenson, but died many years ago. "Jerry" Stevenson is one of our best known citizens. When Hon. John Larkin, Jr., was Sheriff, he was one of his depu- ties during the execution of Thomas Cropper, in the jail yard, and after the trip had been sprung and the prisoner's struggles unfast- ened the ropes that bound his arms, he it was who pinioned his arms again. A merciful act, for the half-hanged man clutched wildly with his hands at the rope by which he was suspended, and his suffering was rendered more intense because of that effort. " Jerry " was a noted shot in his younger days.
Mary Baggs became the wife of Hon. John Larkin, Jr., whose active, energetic life, memorable for its public usefulness, I have mentioned fully elsewhere
After the family of Mr. Baggs moved away from the old dwel- ling it had several tenants, and at last a colored family, Warner Pryor's occupied it. On the morning of March 20, 1848, the Pryor family vacated it, and the same evening the old building was found in flames. The fire was supposed to be an incendiary one. "Jerry" Stevenson who was employed to remove the ruins of the old dwel- ling, when he came to take up the flagging in the kitchen, found deeply embedded in the sand on which they rested, an old hatchet, peculiar in its shape, but of good steel, which had been dropped there by one of the workmen when the building was erected-cer- tainly before the arrival of Penn.
The old historic structure having disappeared, when Crozer and Broomall began the improvement of Chester, south of the bridge, in 1850, the present Penn street was laid out by order of Court, August 29, 1850, and the well, so noted for its water, was in the course of the street. I am told that the old well, walled over, al- most in the middle of Penn street, exists to this day. Part of the site of the Boar's Head Inn having been taken by the public for a highway, the remaining premises belonging to the estate of Capt. Isaac E. Engle, who had died in 1844, while on a voyage to China, was conveyed December 21, 1863, by John C. Davis, trustee to sell the real estate, to Samuel Ulrich, for $1,363. On the lot thus pur-
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Historic Buildings in Chester.
chased the latter erected the Delaware House. anl the property is still in the ownership of his heirs ..
The Old Hoskins (Graham) House.
John Simcock, of Ridley, received a patent from the Duke of York for sixteen yards, fronting upon Chester creek and running back into the land of Neeles Laerson, bounded on the north by lands of Jurian Keen, and on the south by land of Neeles Laerson. On the 5th day of 6th month, 1684, Simcock sold to John Hoskins, then spelled Hodgkins, the tract of land, and the latter in the year 1688, built the house now standing at the south-east corner of Edg- mont avenue and Graham street.
The house thus erected was used by him as an inn, and was a substantial structure, as is evidenced even in its present declina- tion by an inspection of the building. It is two stories in height, with attics; the steps and porch which were located before the street line was definitely fixed, extend a goodly distance into the sidewalk. A hallway runs through the centre of the building ; a wide, easily ascended staircase rises from the rear of the entry at the south side to the apartments above. The balustrade is fash- ioned of hard wood and is very massive, while the steps of ash, in many places, show marks of worms who have eaten deep grooves in the solid planking. The windows in the lower rooms are deeply re- cessed within the apartments and old-time seats constructed there- in. The heavy beams supporting the upper floors stand promi- nently out from the ceiling. In the rooms on the first and second floors on the north side of the house, the high old-fashioned wooden mantels over the large fireplaces are flanked by enormous closets, which are lighted by small windows in the outer walls-those in the southern end have been walled up-and in a closet in the room over the dining room to the north, when a friend and myself visited
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
the old house in September last, a bed was spread, just as nearly as two hundred years ago similar beds were made for the children of the early settlers of the Province, who stopped at the old hotel in 1688-the year of the Great Revolution in England. The floors are laid in hard wood, and the flooring boards are wide, almost the entire width of the trees from which they were cut. The ceilings are lofty for the time when the building was erected, and the house is divided into numerous sleeping apartments intended to accom- modate many guests. The steep roof externally would indicate that the attics were so low that they would be uncomfortable to the inmates, whereas the contrary is the fact. The kitchen, which is built in an L on the north-eastern enl of the house, is large, the fireplace comprising almost the entire eastern end-now enclosed as a closet-is of that ample size usual among our ancestors, that the benumbed wayfarers could seat themselves at either side of the chimney, on benches provided for that purpose, and enjoy the warmth of the roaring fire of huge logs, formerly the only way em- ployed to heat that part of the building. In the days of its an- cient grandeur there was a portico or veranda in the rear of the main building extending ten or twelve feet outward, which was en- closed with lattice work, where, in the summer time the hospitable table was spread. An old oven, long since torn down, was attached to the house on the north side of the kitchen, and a well of good water, now abandoned, was located in the rear and at some distance from the portico.
John Hoskins and Mary, his wife, were natives of Cheshire, Eng- land, and came to this country in the year 1682. In August, 1684, he purchased from John Simcock, the property whereon he after- wards built the house ; and he had purchased 9th month, 21, 1681, from Penn, before leaving England, two hundred and fifty acres of land, which was laid out to him in Middletown township, between the lands of Richard Crosby and David Ogden, 4th month, 27, 1684. He was a member of the General Assembly which sat March 12, 1683. His will dated 11th month, 2, 1694-5, and probated Au- gust 15, 1698, in Philadelphia, is signed John Hodgskins, but the renunciation of the Executors named therein, dated 12th of 6 mo. -'98, speak of him as John Hoskins. He left two children, John and Hannah, and his widow, who although aged, married in 1700,
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Historic Buildings in Chester.
George Woodier, of Chester. His daughter Hannah married in 1698, Charles Whitaker. His estate was a large one for those times, the appraisement amounting to £450 12s. 2d., and the dif- ferent articles set forth therein, as contained in the various rooms- of the house wherein he died, answer to the number in the present Graham House.
His son, John Hoskins, married in 1698, Ruth Atkinson, and in 1700, when only 23 years of age, was elected Sheriff of the county, an office the duties of which he discharged so successfully that for fifteen years in succession, excepting during the year 170s, he was continued in that office. To him the old homestead descended, and here he lived until his death, October 26, 1716. He was the father of four sons and one daughter, Mary, who married John Mather. One of the sons I suppose died before their mother, for in the will of Ruth Hoskins, dated July 3, 1739, she mentions only her sons Stephen and Joseph Hoskins-although John was still living, and I presume had taken the estate of 250 acres patented to his grand- father, in Middletown township-and devised to her son-in-law, Mather, a house and lot. Stephen Hoskins was born in Chester, 12 mo. 18, 1701-2, and Joseph was born in the same place, 4 mo., 30, 1705.
Stephen Hoskins married in 1727, Sarah Warner, of Maryland, and moved into that Province, but returned to Chester, 1730, and was elected Coroner of Chester county. About 1743, he re- moved to Philadelphia, and it was to his son John, of Burlington, that Joseph Hoskins, of the Porter House, devised the real estate, of which he died seized. To Joseph Hoskins, respecting whom I have more fully alluded in the notice of the Porter House, the old homestead descended, and he, June 4, 1762, sold the property to Henry Hale Graham.
Henry Hale Graham, the son of William Graham, and grandson of Richard Graham, of the manor of Blackhouse, in the county of Cumberland, England, and nephew of George Graham, the maker of the noted clock at Greenwich which regulates the time of the world, and the discoverer of the mercurial pendulum, by which the differences in the temperature of the seasons is overcome, was born in London, July 1, 1731, and came to the Colony when an infant. His father first settled at Darby, but before the year 1740 removed
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
to Chester, where he died August 6, 1758. His mother, Eleanor, a daughter of Zedemiah Wyatt, of London, who it is said by Mrs. Deborah Logan, in her manuscript notes to John F. Watson's "Visit to Chester, in 1824," " was a woman of excellent sense, a gentlewoman born, and had received the best education herself in England. She was like a parent to my mother (Mary Parker) and the other young persons of that time, at Chester, who enjoyed greater advantages than could be found in most other places." We know very little of the early life of Henry Hale Graham except that he was a hard student and one of the best penmen in the county, whose peculiar but clear and beautiful chirography the re- cords of Delaware and Chester counties even now attest.
In 1761, he was appointed one of the Justices of the county of Chester. Again in 1775 to the same office and to the like position in 1789. He was appointed Register, Recorder, Prothonotary, and Clerk of the several Courts of Chester county, in 1766, on the oc- casion of the death of Joseph Parker, in whose office previous to that time he is believed to have been employed. In the report made to Governor Richard Penn on the condition of the Province, in 1775, the compensation of the offices of Register, Recorder, &c., then held by Mr. Graham, is given as £120 per annum. Henry Hale Graham married Abigail, daughter of Thomas and Mary Pen- nell, July 1, 1760. In March, 1777, Thomas Taylor was appointed to succeed Mr. Graham in office, but he never assumed its duties, and in April of the same year, Benjamin Jacob was appointed to the same position, but he refusing to accept it, Caleb Davis was therefore appointed, and on the 11th of June following was quali- fied for the place. On July 28, the records were still in the pos- session of Mr. Graham, for at that time Caleb Davis was instructed to " enter the dwelling and outhouses of H. H. Graham, take pos- session of the books and papers of the county and remove them to a place of safety." In 1777, when the British frigate " Augusta " opened fire on the town, the family in the Graham House sought safety in the cellar, and it is traditionally reported that one of the shots struck the building, doing considerable damage. When the English army marched through Chester, in 1777, they destroyed much property, and Mr. Graham's loss from that cause amounted
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Historic Buildings in Chester.
to over £25. He seems to have taken no active part during the Revolutionary war.
In 1789, he was named, with others, one of the trustees to pur- chase the old public buildings at Chester, and was appointed Presi- dent Judge of the newly created county of Delaware ; was a mem- ber of the second State Constitutional Convention, that of 1790, and died while attending the deliberations of that body. In the Pennsylvania Packet, January 26, 1790, is the following item :
"On Saturday, the 23d inst., departed this life at Philadelphia, after a short illness, Henry Hale Graham, Esq., in the 59th year of his age, President of the Courts of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions for Delaware county, and one of the Delegates in Conven- tion for altering and amending the Constitution of the State. And on Tuesday morning his remains were interred in Friends' burial ground at Chester, attended by his family and a very large collec- tion of relatives and acquaintances and a committee of the Conven -. tion."
The estate thereupon descended to William Graham, the only son of Henry Hale Graham, who was born in Chester in the old house, in 1766. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1788, in which year he was married to Jane Robinson, a sister of Captain Thomas Robinson, who subsequently married William Graham's sis- ter Catharine. During the Whisky Insurrection in Western Penn- sylvania, in 1794, he commanded a troop of cavalry from Delaware county, and while in that command his exposure brought on a dis- ease of the throat which affected his voice, at times, so that he could not speak above a whisper. This vocal difficulty became per- manent several years after, owing to the fact that in company with several gentlemen, he went gunning to Chester Island, and became separated from his companions. When dark came he could not be found, and his friends returned to Chester, determining at early dawn to resume their search for him. All that night he remained on the bar, and as he was short in stature, the water rose until his head and shoulders were alone out of the water. When rescued next morning his voice was entirely gone, and he never again re- covered it so as to be able to speak in public, and even in conver- sation he was often almost inaudible. He died December 19, 1821, and in his will, dated March 4, 1820, he devised to his wife " the house and lot where I now dwell, with all the outhouses and appur- tenances for and during the term of her natural life, this devise to
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Historical Sketch of Chester.
include all the land in the square on which the house now stands as I now occupy the same," with remainder to his four sisters.
Jane Graham, the widow, lived in the old dwelling for a year or so after the death of her husband, when she removed to Philadel- phia, and the house was leased to Dr. William Gray, who, then re- cently married, resided there for several years. He was followed by Samuel Smith, and in time by Mrs. Sarah P. Combe, one of the heirs of the estate of William Graham, until the death of Jane Graham, the widow, December 10, 1855, after which the estate was sold by order of Court, and the old house and lot was conveyed April 9, 1857, to John G. Dyer, whose heirs still own it. After the premises passed into the ownership of Mr. Dyer, the house was occupied by Mrs. Darlington, and subsequently by Col. W. C. Gray until within the last ten years, since which time the old dwelling has had numerous tenants, and is now occupied by W. T. Jenkins as a restaurant.
There is an indistinct tradition that early in the last century when John Hoskins, the younger, was Sheriff, and resided in this house, he arrested a person of some prominence, and took him to his own dwelling for safe keeping, rather than place him in the common jail. It is stated that in the night-time, when it was very dark, the prisoner came out from his room, opened the back win- dow at the stair landing, in the second story, and jumped from the window on the inclosed portico beneath. The distance was not very great, but he slipped on the roof and fell to the ground be- low, sustaining such injuries that he died in a few minutes there- after. This is the vague story of a century and a half ago which has descended to us, and it is impossible at this late day to furnish fuller particulars of the event, or in fact to declare with absolute certainty whether there is any truth in the narrative whatever.
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HOSKINS (GRAHAM) HOUSE, BUILT 1688.
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Historic Buildings in Chester.
The Logan House.
This dwelling was built by Jasper Yeates, in the year 1700, on ground purchased from David Lloyd, December 11, 1699, and for- merly a stone on which was cut the initials " J. & C. Y." with the date 1700 underneath, similar in appearance to the date stone of the old Porter House, was set in one of the gables. These initials stood for the names Jasper and Catharine Yeates. The ancient structure was massively built of brick, which material is frequently said to have been brought from Europe, a statement which is not worthy of much consideration, since we know that at the time the house was erected, several brickyards were in operation on the Delaware, in Philadelphia, and at Burlington, New Jersey, and freights were active to the Colonies, so that it is not to be supposed that the owners of vessels would ship such heavy and bulky mate- rials to the exclusion of lighter and better paying freights, particu- larly when the latter was seeking transportation. It was two sto- ries in height, with a tent-like roof forming an attic within, with steep sides. Over the first-story windows was a pent roof, similar to that remaining on the old City Hall, and a porch at the front door, with seats at each side of the door, at right angles to the building. A wide doorway gave access to the spacious hall, many small diamond-shaped panes of glass set in lead, in the large win- dow sashes, gave light to the several apartments, and casements at the head of the stair landing furnished the same to the wainscoted hallway. All the rooms were wainscoted also, and the panels were painted or stained in imitation of mahogany. Large closets were on each side of the wide chimney places, lighted by windows in the outer walls. Under the high wooden mantel pieces in the parlor and the room opposite, across the hall, the fireplaces were lined with illuminated tiles, delineating incidents of Scriptural history. Large buttresses were built against the gables for stength, and smaller ones to guard the brick walls on each side of the main building. These buttresses were subsequently removed.
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