Aston Township.

A fatal accident occurred at Rockdale on Saturday, Dec. 17, 1859. A violent storm rendered the night unusually dark. Maris Waddle, of Middletown, was driving down the steep hill at James Brown's (now Atwood B. Hoskins') store, when his horses took fright, backed the wagon over the side of the road at that point, and the vehicle, in falling a distance of ten feet to the wall below, turned, crushing the driver beneath it. When the wagon was removed Waddle's lifeless body was found lying under the broken vehicle.

The original township of Aston, which at the upper end conformed to the straight east and west line dividing that township, Concord, and Middletown from Thornbury, and Edgmont remained undisturbed until 1842, when, on July 20th of that year, the Assembly enacted a law changing the line of Aston, so that that part of the old township lying above Stony Bank School-house - a direct line drawn thence eastward from Concord township-line to Chester Creek - was annexed to Thornbury township.¹ Again, in 1870, an effort was made by the citizens of the upper end of Aston to divide the present township, the difficulty growing out of the alleged disproportion of the number of schools and the unequal division of the taxes for road purposes. A petition was presented to the court, but at the election held, under order of court, October 18th of that year, the project was defeated at the polls.

Peters' Grist- and Saw-Mills. - On Green Creek, a feeder of the West Branch of Chester Creek, near Concord township-line, the Peters' grist- and saw-mills are located. The date when the tract on which the mills are erected was first taken up does not appear of record, but on June 10, 1703, one hundred acres were resurveyed to Isaac Taylor, to whom a patent for this land was issued Jan. 12, 1704. It subsequently became the property of William Peters, who, in 1750, erected the brick dwelling-house now standing, the date-stone in its walls bearing his initials, " W. P," and the numerals of the year just stated.

Previous to 1790 a stone fulling-mill had been built, and between that date and 1799 a saw-mill had also been erected, for the assessment-roll of Aston township, in the latter year, shows that at that time a fulling-mill and a saw-mill were then on the estate. This saw-mill, in several ancient documents, is called "a slitting-mill," it being employed in slitting logs to be used in building ships. In 1826 the fulling-mill was in disuse and a grist-mill and saw-mill were in operation; in the former from six to ten thousand bushels of grain was ground, and in the latter about fifty thousand feet of lumber sawed per annum. On June 4, 1842, Samuel F. Peter, a grandson of William Peters, purchased the property, retaining title thereto until Feb. 8. 1872, when Samuel F. Peters sold it to Charles J. Johnson, who is now operating the mills as the "Forest Queen Mills."

Tyson (now Llewellyn) Mills. - Previous to the Revolution, Robert Hall and Abraham Sharpless owned and operated a grist-mill on the West Branch of Chester Creek. The traces of the old race which fed those works and the remains of the ancient dam can be discerned to this day. The old race on the other side of the creek from the present mills evidently was in use for a mill, probably that of 1772, of which mention is made in the road-docket of a road as being laid out at that time from Daniel Sharpless' smithshop (Logtown) to Hall & Sharpless' mill. Hall subsequently acquired title to the entire property, and on April 5, 1798, he sold thirty-four acres, on which was then erected a stone house, a grist- and saw-mill, to Thomas Jones, and became a store-keeper in Aston, while Jones operated the mill, certainly unsuccessfully, for he became insolvent, and on July 20, 1800, John Odenheimer, sheriff of the county, conveyed twenty-eight and three-quarter acres of land, with the buildings, to Capt. John Richards. The latter retained title to the estate two years, when on Oct. 23, 1802, he sold the premises to James Tyson. The purchaser, then a young man of thirty-three, continued to operate the mills (having, in connection with the grist-, erected an oil-mill) for more than half a century until his death, March 15, 1858, aged eighty-six years. During the flood of 1843 much property was destroyed at these mills, the race and dam being almost obliterated. On March 25, 1864, Elwood Tyson, executor of his father's estate, sold the premises, excepting three-quarters of an acre, to John B. and Samuel Rhodes, who changed the old mill into a cotton- and woolen-factory, and in 1868 erected the present main building, a structure one hundred and ten by fifty-seven feet, two stories in height. In 1872 an addition of one hundred and thirty-five feet was made to the mill, the whole, including the building put up in 1868, being enlarged by the erection of a third story, and in 1879 another addition of one hundred and twelve feet and three stories was built, making the whole length of the main mill three hundred and fifty-five feet, in which are nearly four hundred looms. The industry, as it developed, necessarily built up a village, which now contains about one hundred tenement houses. For the convenience of the operatives a store was established at Llewellyn in the summer of 1877, and in 1880 it was made a postal station, John B. Rhodes being appointed postmaster. In addition to these mills the firm are now running the Knowlton Mills under a lease, and have purchased the West Branch Mills, which they are also operating.

John B. Rhodes, the senior member of the firm, is the grandson of John Rhodes, who emigrated from Yorkshire, England, in 1827, and settled in Aston township, where his death by drowning - together with that of two daughters - occurred during the great freshet