The City Of Chester.

tion in trust setting forth that they held the land as trustees and for the use of the members of Chester Meeting. As the society waxed stronger they required more land, the meeting-house having been located toward the northern line of the lot, hence, April 29, 1762, they purchased from Jesse Maris, who had acquired the property by descent from his father, George Maris, subject to a yearly rent of six pounds to the heirs of James Sandelands. The trustees, Jonas Preston, John Fairlamb, Caleb Hanison, and James Barton, to whom it was conveyed by Jesse Maris, May 1, 1762, executed a declaration of trust to Chester Meeting.

The discussion which had prevailed in the society of Friends during the early part of this century respecting certain doctrinal points, culminated in an open rupture in 1827, when a division of Friends took place, those members who sustained Elias Hicks in his opinions retaining their connection with Chester Meeting being in the majority, the structure on Market Street became the house of worship of the Hicksite branch of the society. In 1883 the building was thoroughly repaired and modernized internally.

The Friends' graveyard on the west side of Edgmont Avenue, I had thought, was the first burial-place of the society in Chester, but recent examination has caused me to change that opinion. The first reference to a Friends' graveyard at that town was at a meeting on 1st of Fourth month, 1682, when it was agreed that "Thomas Cobourn, Randal Vernon, & William Clayton do view or see that pece of Ground w^ch is ordered for a Buriall place also to see about the fencing of itt w^th a Lasting fence and if there bee stones neare and convenient." The site selected seems not to have met the approval of the whole meeting. Indeed the location of the lot was not then definitely fixed upon, for on the 5th of Twelfth month, 1682/3, John Hastings, Robert Wade, Richard Few, and Thomas Cobourn were instructed to "view the Buriall place to Consider what Quantity may be meet also what Way or how it may be Best fenced about." A report from this committee appears never to have been made. Therefore on the 11th of Fourth month, 1683, the same persons, excepting that Thomas Brasey was substituted for Richard Few, were directed to "View and Look out a piece of Land for a Buriall place and bring in their Accompt thereof to the next monthly meeting." A burial-place was accepted, for on the 5th of Ninth month, 1683, John Hastings and Thomas Vernon were directed to "fence the burial grounds as soon as may bee." Where this graveyard was is not absolutely known, but I believe that it was on the east side of Edgmont Avenue, south of Seventh Street, the present steam grist-mill of L. L. Luken & Co. being located partly thereon. In April, 1880, when excavations were made for the foundations of the mill, a number of human bones were unearthed, which had been deposited in a row. At that time no person seemed to be aware that Friends had ever but two graveyards, one at the present location, and the other on Edgmont Avenue above Twelfth Street, a burial-place for the negroes, owned by members of Chester Meeting; but the evidence is now conclusive that there was a graveyard previous to the one now walled in with heavy masonry adjoining the Beal house-lot on the north. On the 31st of the Sixth month, 1702, at a meeting held at Chichester, it appears that "Chester meeting proposeth theer intentions of purchasing a burying place in the town, which this meeting approves of, provided they preserve and keep in Good order the Old Burying Place." The graveyard purchased about this date was not inclosed with a stone wall as we now see it many years previous to the Revolution. Grace Lloyd, by her will, 6th of Fourth month, 1760, directed her executors to "pay £10 towards walling in the front part of the graveyard belonging to the people called Quakers in Chester with brick or stone." And nearly ten years later, 31st of Twelfth month, 1769, Joseph Hoskins, by will, bequeathed £10 "for the use of enclosing or fencing the burying ground belonging to the Friends of Chester meetings in such manner as their Preparative Meeting of Chester shall direct and appoint." The extracts from these wills clearly prove that as late as the first of the year 1770 no wall had been erected around the grounds wherein the bodies of many of the noted personages of the ancient borough lie. David Lloyd and Grace, his wife, Caleb and David Coupland, Henry Hale Graham, Davis Bevan, John Salkeld, John Mather, and others of the early settlers and leading men of the last century in the province are interred in that God's acre, now in the heart of a busy city, while the remains of a number of persons who fled to this province to escape persecution in Europe lie there forgotten because the prohibition by the society of stones to mark the graves of those who slumber within the burial-grounds belonging to their meetings.

The graveyard for negroes above mentioned was on Edgmont road, above Twelfth, and was used for the interment of slaves by the sufferance of the then owner of the land. The latter, Grace Lloyd, in her will, dated 6th of Fourth month, 1760, made the following bequest:

"And it is my mind and will, and I do hereby order and direct that the piece of burying ground, being forty feet, fronting Edgmont Road, in said borough, thence seventy feet back and forty feet in breadth, shall at all times hereafter, forever, be used for and as a burying place for negroes, that is to say, for such as shall have belonged to my late husband or myself, and such as do or hereafter may belong to Friends of Chester Meeting, and such as in their life-time desire to be buried there, but not for any that are executed, or lay violent hands upon themselves, and that none be buried there without the consent of the Overseers of Friends' Meeting at Chester."

The lot thus set apart was surrounded by a tall, thick-set hedge, but after the execution of several persons at the intersection of Edgmont and Providence roads (the colonial law then requiring the burial of the body of the culprit near the gallows)