Crimes and Punishments.

Long years ago the residents of Chester would frequently relate the occasional appearance of a spectral white horse and rider which on stormy nights could be seen and heard clattering along Fourth Street at a headlong pace to the prison door, and that reached, the noise ceased and the apparition faded into the darkness. Many of the superstitious people of that day firmly believed that the phantom steed bore the unhappy William Wilson, whose fruitless ride to Philadelphia to obtain a respite for his sister that I have narrated still lingers in the traditions of our county.

Jan. 21, 1786, Robert Wilson, or Elliott (for the "Colonial Record" uses both names in referring to this prisoner), was under sentence of death in the old jail at Chester, but the Executive Council saw fit to defer the execution until February 11th of the same year. Before that date came the Council pardoned him, on condition that "he transport himself beyond the seas, not to return to the United States."

On June 5, 1786, from the proceedings of the Executive Council we learn that at that date John McDonough and Richard Shirtliffe were in jail at Chester, under sentence of death for rape, and that the sheriff of the county was ordered to execute them on Saturday, June 17, 1786. Subsequently, with a refinement of cruelty hardly to be looked for from the men at the head of the State government, Council ordered that Richard Shirtliffe should be reprieved until further orders, directing, however, that the welcome intelligence should not be imparted to him until he had been taken under the gallows. What became of him subsequently I have not learned, but in less than four months there was a general jail delivery from the old jail at Chester, when, under the act of Sept. 25,1786, Sheriff Gibbons removed all the prisoners to the new jail in Goshen township (now West Chester), and the "black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death" was removed, not to be erected again in this locality for the third of a century.

Although no capital conviction was had in Delaware County for twenty-nine years after its creation in 1789, it must not be supposed that no trials for murder occurred during that interval, for such would be a serious error. At the Court of Oyer and Terminer held April 25, 1797; Jacob Rudolph, of Darby township, was tried for killing John Barr by striking him on the head with an iron rake. The defendant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and costs. At a like court held in April, 1801, Samuel Black, Catharine Black, and Sarah Campbell, of Marple, were tried for having beaten a negro girl named Patt with sticks so severely that she died from the injuries sustained. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty as to all the defendants. Patrick Gallahoe, laborer, was tried Oct. 28, 1802, for the murder of Alexander McKettuck by striking him with a stick. The jury found the prisoner guilty of murder in the second degree, and he was sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment, four of which was to be solitary confinement and the remainder of the term at hard labor. On Jan. 30, 1806, Samuel Howard, a laborer, was tried for the murder of Abraham Stevenson. The accused had thrown the deceased into the river, where he was drowned. Howard was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the penitentiary at Philadelphia.

At the October sessions, 1806, Francis Patterson was indicted and convicted of challenging Curtis Lownes, of Ridley, to fight a duel. The accused was sentenced to pay costs of prosecution, a fine of five hundred dollars, and to undergo an imprisonment in the county jail at hard labor for one year. In addition he was deprived of all rights of citizenship within the commonwealth for the term of seven years.

On April 14, 1818, John H. Craig was tried for the murder of Squire Hunter, of Newtown, an account of which crime will be found in the history of that township.

At the January Oyer and Terminer, 1819, Charles Norton was convicted of rape, attended with aggravated circumstances. Judge Ross sentenced him to be confined "in the goal and penitentiary-house of Philadelphia for a period of twenty-one years from this day, and to be confined and kept at hard labour, fed and clothed, as the Act of Assembly directs, and be placed during one-fourth of the said term in the solitary cells, that he pay the costs of prosecution, and be committed till the whole sentence is complied with." Thomas Prevard, who was convicted at the same court of a similar offense, received a like sentence. Henry Duffey, at the January Oyer and Terminer, 1820, was convicted of rape, and sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years.

At the April court, 1820, Benjamin Bevan was tried for the manslaughter of Ebenezer Cook by a blow on the head with a stick, causing death in three days thereafter. The jury by their verdict acquitted the accused.

At the October Court of Oyer and Terminer, 1824, Michael Munroe, alias James Wellington, was convicted of the murder of William Bonsall, and Washington Labbe of murder in the second degree. An account of this case will be found in the history of Upper Darby township.

On Jan. 16, 1827, James Fleming was tried for the