The Court, Bench, And Bar Of Delaware County.

Samuel Edwards was born in Chester township March 12, 1785. He was a descendant of William Edwards, who, coming from Wales early in 1682, settled in Middletown. He read law with William Graham, and was admitted to the bar April 30, 1806. He was at that time a Federalist, and as such, with his party, was opposed to the second war with Great Britain. Hence we find him acting as chairman of the meeting of the young men of that political faith held in the court-house at Chester Aug. 22, 1812. But the war actually begun, he threw aside all fealty to party, and when Admiral Cockburn was threatening the borders of Pennsylvania and had applied the torch to all the property he could not steal at the head of the Chesapeake, Samuel Edwards was one of the first to advocate arming the militia and marching against the invaders. In April, 1813, he and Thomas D. Anderson made application to the State for muskets to arm the Chester company of infantry, giving their personal bonds to the commonwealth for the arms, and that body marched to Elkton to resist the British forces at that place. In the fall of the year 1814 he was in active service as a private in the Mifflin Guards, commanded by Capt. Samuel Anderson. This organization was a company of the First Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, under Col. Clement C. Biddle. Mr. Edwards acted as secretary of the company, and the orderly book, the greater part in his writing, is like copper-plate in beauty of chirography. While in the military service he was elected a member of the Legislature, and during the session of 1814-15 he represented Delaware County in that body, and was re-elected to the session of 1815-16. In 1819, Mr. Edwards, then a Democrat, was elected to the Sixteenth, and again in 1825 to the Nineteenth Congress, serving therein as a colleague of James Buchanan, towards whom he was during the remainder of his life a warm personal friend. Although Mr. Edwards served no other term in Congress, yet during Jackson's and Van Buren's administration, it was charged throughout the country that five persons - Samuel Edwards, George G. and Samuel M. Leiper, Levi Reynolds, and James Buchanan - were the powers behind the throne. In 1824, Mr. Edwards was one of the committee appointed by Delaware County to receive Gen. Lafayette. In 1832 he was chief burgess of Chester, and from 1838 to 1842 was inspector of customs at that port. For many years he was a leader of the bar, and he and Benjamin Tilghman were counsel for John H. Craig, convicted of the murder of Squire Hunter, in 1818. Never was a case better tried on the part of the defense than this was. For many years he was a director of the Delaware County Bank and Delaware Mutual Insurance Company. He was also counsel for the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad.

Mr. Edwards died at Chester Nov. 25, 1850, aged sixty-five years. A meeting of the bar was held on the 26th, at which Judge Chapman presided, and J. R. Morris acted as secretary. Associate Judge Leiper announced the death of Mr. Edwards, and an address was made by Judge Thomas S. Bell, then on the Supreme bench, who came to Chester that he might take part in the memorial services of his deceased friend. Speeches were also made by Hon. Edward Darlington and Hon. Joseph J. Lewis.

He was the great-grandson of William Edwards, the Welsh settler at Middletown and was born July 15, 1786, at the Black Horse Tavern, in that township, his father, Nathan Edwards, being then the landlord and owner of the inn. John Edwards studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Delaware County at the date stated. In 1811 he was deputy attorney-general for Delaware County, and in 1824 was one of the counsel for the defense in the trial of Wellington for murder of Bonsall. After that date he seems to have devoted his attention to the iron business at the rolling-mills, near Glen Mills, which he owned, and to politics, a pursuit in which he was unusually successful. In the fall of 1838 he was elected a member of Congress from the Fourth District, then comprising the counties of Delaware, Chester, and Lancaster, serving in the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses, for he was re-elected a second term. He died in October, 1845, aged fifty-nine years, and was buried at Middletown meeting-house.