Aston Township.

it intersected with an easterly line drawn at right angles, thence to Chester Creek. The Crozer estate is almost entirely included in this patent In 1695, John Neild was married to the widow of John Dutton, the settler, and the latter, having married a man not in membership with Friends, found that her action occasioned considerable concern to the good people of that sect.

The upper end of the present township of Aston, a tract of one thousand acres, was surveyed to Thomas Brassey in 1684, which subsequently was divided previous to 1710 into smaller farms. A tract of one hundred and nineteen acres bordering on Concord township was surveyed to Thomas Martin, and at this day part of that land is still in the ownership of his descendant, - Thomas Martin. John Pennell also acquired over two hundred acres of the Brassey land, but the farm above the State road, where Mark Pennell now lives, was not a part of the original farm purchased by John Pennell in 1700. Among the original owners of land in Aston, above where the West Branch crosses the township, among the earliest purchasers was Gilbert Woolman, two hundred and fifty acres which property extended northwest from Llewellyn, including J. B. Rhodes, C. W. Mathues, Thomas Swaine, and the Lewis estate to the east of Logtown road; while William McCracken's and Caleb Heyburn's farms are located on the two hundred and fifty acres, which were surveyed to Mary Moore, May 10, 1684. J. W. Thatcher's estate on Chester Creek above Pennellton Station is part of the twenty-one acres surveyed to Caleb Pussy in 1707-8.

The taxables in Aston in 1715 were as follows: Robert Carter, John Pennell, Moses Key, John Dutton, Thomas Dutton, Thomas Woodward, John Neild, James Widdows, William Rattew, Samuel Jones, Thomas Barnard, Abraham Darlington, John Hurford, Jonathan Monroe, Thomas Gale.

Freemen, - Thomas Dunbabin, Isaac Williams, Joseph Darlington, Edward Richards, Samuel Stroud.

At a court held the third day of the first week Tenth month, 1688, the grand jury laid out the highway from Chichester to Aston, as follows:

"Ffrom Delaware by James Browns along y^e old Road Betwixt Jeremy Colletts and James Hulbert soe along y^e same Road to a marked White Oake, thence along on y^e West sid of a marked Poplar tree near y^e Meeting House, from thence by a lyne of marked trees to y^e West Corner of Joseph Richardson's fence, from thence by a lyne of marked trees to a marked Black Oake standing by Astone Road."

On the same day the grand jury laid out the road from Aston to Edgmont:

"Beginning att a Spanish Oake about Edward Carter's and soe along y^e Cutt Road and down y^e Vallie which Joseph Richardson had fenced in, from thence through John Beales Pasture along by William Woodmansees along y^e old Road over Chester Creek's soe along ^e Old Road."

Previous to this date the road from Aston to Chester had been granted by the grand jury, "The Inhabitance of y^e Township of Aston Petioned for one Road way to y^e Town of Chester, and another to y^e town of Chichester." It is, however, unnecessary to further quote the exact line as presented in the report of that body to courts, the foregoing being deemed sufficient to indicate the manner in which such returns were made.

The following is a list of the justices of the peace for Aston township:

The second day following the battle of Brandywine, Lord Cornwallis, "with the 2d Battalion Light Infantry and 2d of Grenadiers, marched at half past six in the morning, to join the body under Major General Grant and to move on towards Chester . . . At 5 o'clock this afternoon the troops with Lord Cornwallis reached Ashtown, within 4 miles of Chester."¹ Here Gen. Cornwallis established his headquarters, the encampment extending from Mount Hope to the lower part of Village Green, where in an old brick house, still standing, that officer made his temporary residence. From here he dispatched parties in every direction to secure supplies for the British army, seizing for that purpose the flour in all the mills within reach of his troops. The soldiers who were sent out on these expeditions frequently despoiled the inhabitants of everything they could carry away, although the orders from Howe and Cornwallis expressly forbade such unlicensed plundering. On the night of Sunday, Sept. 14, 1777, three British soldiers - Dr. Smith says they were Hessians - crossed Chester Creek, above Dutton's mill, to the dwelling of Jonathan Martin, now the property of George Dutton, and plundered the family of many things, among them some articles belonging to Mary Martin, a daughter, then eighteen, who indignantly reproved them for their unmanly conduct. One of the soldiers, in anger at her reprimand, slightly wounded Miss Martin with a bayonet. The men, still on plunder bent, proceeded about three quarters of a mile in a southeasterly direction to the house of Mr. Coxe, in Chester township, near Sneath's Corner, now the property of Robert McCall, where they stole a number of articles, among which was a silver watch. Mr. Coxe had a