Birmingham Township.

company the land was sold for thirty thousand dollars, and the deed from Hayburn made to the company. Work was at once begun, under the charge of George Rush, and clay shipped to potteries in Trenton, N. J., and other places. In 1865 the property was sold to William Wharton, of Philadelphia, who worked the pits about a year, and sold to Lewis P. Harvey, of Chad's Ford. The National Woolen Company was then organized, of which Lewis P. Harvey was principal owner and manager. Hansom H. Johns was one of the partners, and together they conducted the works many years, furnishing to potteries in Trenton, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Liverpool, and elsewhere, clay at the rate of one hundred tons per month. Later, Mr. Johns retired from the company; Tilghman Johnson became a partner, and this firm are now operating the works.

Brandywine Summit Kaolin Works. - In 1880, John Griffin, of Phoenixville, bought of Isaac Bullock sixty-three acres, and in that year work was begun. Buildings were erected in 1881. Clay is supplied to whiteware-makers in Liverpool, Ohio, and Trenton. William S. Manley has been in charge of the works from the first.

In 1882, Hamilton Graham began work on property adjoining the above. It was abandoned in 1853, and in September of that year was purchased by the Brandywine Kaolin Works.

The City Of Chester.

In 1644 the present site of Chester, east of the creek of that name, was a tobacco plantation, occupied by farm servants in the employment of the Swedish company. About that time many of the colonists began to seek grants of the broad acres on the main land, and the ground between Ridley and Chester Creeks was selected by Jöran Keen, and to him the Swedish government granted a patent for a tract of land one and a half miles inland, following the right bank of Chester Creek above its mouth, and reaching along the Delaware eastward as far as Ridley Creek. The plot at its northwestern limit, at the present Crozer Theological Seminary, was a half-mile in breadth, and a diagonal line ran thence eastwardly to Ridley Creek. Jöran Keen, or Kyn (as his name was written by the Swedes, and also from his peculiar complexion known as "snohuitt" or "snow white"), was one of the earliest European residents upon the Delaware River within the boundaries of the present State of Pennsylvania, and for more than a quarter of a century was the chief proprietor of lands at Upland, afterwards Chester. He was born in Sweden about 1620, and came to America, in company with Governor Printz, in the ship "Fama," and resided at Tinicum. He was a soldier, whose duty was to attend daily upon the Governor, and travel with that dignitary wherever he might go, as one of his Excellency's body-guard. As before stated, Keen received the grant of a royal tract of ground, and it is believed that when Printz left the colony to return to Sweden, Keen resigned his military position and gave his undivided attention to agriculture.¹

The land on the west bank of Chester Creek, extending along the river as far as Marcus Hook, Queen Christina, of Sweden, granted to Capt. John Ammundson Besk, "his wife and heirs," by patent dated Aug. 20, 1653, in consideration of faithful services he had rendered to the State. Besk, who is believed to have been a man of large means, never entered into possession of this vast tract of ground, and it seems to have been held and claimed by Armgart Pappegoya, the daughter of the first Swedish Governor, Printz. In a letter from the Dutch vice-director, Beekman, under date of Sept. 14, 1662, he writes, "I inquired into the situation of a certain lot of land on the Southwest side of Upland Kill, and was informed by the Swedish Commissaries and other ancient inhabitants of said nation, that the aforesaid is called Printz's village, which has always been in possession during 16 years of the Swedish Governor, John Printz, and his daughter who owns it."

Chester, in 1645, was a place of such insignificance that Andreas Hudde, an agent of the Dutch, who had been sent by Governor Kieft to learn the number, condition, armament, and military force of the Swedes, made no mention of it in his report. It is even doubtful whether at that time Jöran Keen had erected a house on his land, inasmuch as in the "Rulla," dated by Printz at "Kihrstina" (Christiana), June 20, 1644, the statement appears that Upland was a tobacco plantation, as already mentioned. Between the years 1646 and 1648 a considerable settlement must have been made at this point, for in Hudde's interview with the Passyunk Indians, in that year, they spoke of Upland, among other places, in the possession of the Swedes, and charge the latter with having stolen the land from them, while in Campanius' account of New Sweden, "Mecoponacka," or Upland, is mentioned in the year 1648 (the date of the elder Campanius' return to Sweden) "as an unfortified place, but some houses were built there. It was situated between Fort Christina (near Wilmington) and New Gottenburg (Tinicum), but nearer the latter. There was a fort built there some time after its settlement. It is good even land along the river shore."²

The Indian name of the site of the present city of Chester was Mecoponacka; the Swedish, Upland; the Dutch, Oplandt; and the English, Chester and Upland indifferently until the former entirely absorbed