The City Of Chester.

lined with illuminated tiles, delineating incidents of Scriptural history. Large buttresses were built against the gables for strength, and smaller ones to guard the brick walls on each side of the main building. These buttresses were subsequently removed.

Jasper Yeates, of Philadelphia, a native of Yorkshire, England, married Catharine, daughter of James Sandelands, the elder, and in 1697 purchased mills and a tract of ground at the mouth of Naaman's Creek. The next year he built a goodly-sized structure between Chester Creek and Edgmont Avenue for a granary or store-house for grain on the second floor, and established a bakery in the lower room. It should be recollected that two hundred years ago Chester Creek, at that point, was considerably to the westward of the present stream. He was a prominent man of his day. He was appointed by Penn, when the proprietary created the borough of Chester, Oct. 13, 1701, one of its four burgesses. In 1703 he was chosen chief burgess of the borough, and is believed to have been the first person holding that office. He was one of the justices of Chester County, afterwards one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the province; a member of the Provincial Council, and a member of the General Assembly. He and his brother-in-law, James Sandelands, the younger, were the principal promoters of the building of St. Paul's Church. He died previously to May 2, 1720, for his will was probated at New Castle, Del., at the date last given. He left six children surviving him, - four sons and two daughters.

John Yeates, the third son of Jasper and Catharine Yeates, was born at Chester, March 1, 1705. He inherited from his father the "dwelling house" at Chester, with the "boulting" wharf, gardens and lots near the same town, "bought of Jonas Sandelands and Edward Henneston." He was a shipping merchant, and resided for a time in the island of Barbadoes, and afterwards in Philadelphia, where he acquired considerable real estate. Later in life he sustained large pecuniary losses in business ventures, and through the influence of friends, in 1764, was appointed comptroller of customs at Pocomoke, Md. He died there the following year. Under date of Sept. 4, 1733, John Yeates and Elizabeth (Sidbotham), his wife, conveyed the mansion-house and lot, of which I am speaking, to Joseph Parker, as well as other lands in Chester.

Joseph Parker was a nephew of the noted and eccentric quaker preacher, John Salkeld. He was a native of Cumberland, England, and in 1714, at the age of twenty-five, came to the province and settled at Chester to be near his uncle. He entered the office of David Lloyd, and after Lloyd's death he succeeded him as register and recorder of Chester County. In 1724 he was prothonotary of the courts, and in 1738 he was commissioned a justice of the peace, a position of much dignity in colonial days. In 1730 he married Mary, daughter of James Ladd, of Gloucester County, N. J. His wife died the following year, leaving one child, a daughter, Mary. Joseph Parker died May 21, 1766.

Mary Parker, born April 21, 1731, at Chester, to whom the Logan house descended, was married to Charles Norris, of Philadelphia, in the old Quaker meeting-house, Sixth month 21, 1759. Her husband died Jan. 15, 1766, and she returned to Chester and resided in the parental mansion until her death, Dec. 4, 1799. She was the mother of three sons and one daughter, Deborah, to whom by will she devised the Logan house.

Deborah Norris was born in Philadelphia, Oct. 19, 1761, and was a small child when her widowed mother returned to Chester. She was married to Dr. George Logan, a grandson of James Logan, Sept. 6, 1781, and removed to the Logan family seat, Stenton, where she resided until her death, Feb. 2, 1839. Deborah Logan was a woman of much literary ability, and a historian of great attainments. Indeed, her remarkable store of antiquarian information justly entitled her to the appellation of "The Female Historian of the Colonial Times." She had mingled freely with the leading spirits of the Revolutionary period, and her cousin, Charles Thomson, the first and long confidential secretary of the Continental Congress, was through life an intimate visitor at her house, and from him she learned much of the inner history of those times. In 1814, Mrs. Logan believing the correspondence of William Penn and James Logan contained much valuable information respecting the early history of the commonwealth, she began the task of collating, deciphering, and copying the manuscripts in her possession, many of the documents being much decayed and difficult to read; but she industriously worked, rising in the winter-time before sunrise and at daylight in the summer, for a period of several years. Her manuscripts made eleven large quarto volumes, and formed two clever-sized octavo volumes when published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. John F. Watson, the annalist, obtained many of the interesting items in his popular work from Mrs. Logan. The old dwelling is now owned by Mrs. Rebecca Ross.

The Old Hoskins (Graham) House (Edgmont Avenue below Third Street). - John Simcock, of Ridley, received a patent from the Duke of York for sixteen yards, fronting upon Chester Creek and running back into the land of Neeles Laerson, bounded on the north by lands of Jöran Keen, and on the south by land of Neeles Laerson. On the 5th day of Sixth month, 1684, Simcock sold to John Hoskins (then spelled Hodgkins) the tract of land, and the latter, in the year 1688, built the house now standing at the southeast corner of Edgmont Avenue and Graham Street.

The house thus erected was used by him as an inn, and was a substantial structure, as is evidenced even in its present declination by an inspection of the building. It is two stories in height, with attics; the steps