The City Of Chester.

Fifty-two years ago, when David D. Porter and his younger brother, Theodoric, were living at the old mansion, the winter was very severe and the river Delaware was frozen over. The two venturesome men announced their determination to sleigh to Philadelphia. Many of the residents of Chester tried to dissuade them from the attempt, but at nine o'clock in the morning they started from the foot of Welsh Street, David driving. The mouths of the creeks were piled with ice several feet in height, and they were compelled to take the inside channel. A goodly part of their journey was performed on enormous cakes of ice which were entirely loose from the shore. At noon they reached the navy-yard, and, returning, left that place at three o'clock. The cold had become so intense that the two men were compelled to stop and build a fire on the ice to warm themselves. Resuming their journey, they reached Chester at nine o'clock at night. They had traveled thirty miles on the frozen surface of the river, a feat never attempted before, or, if it had been, no record thereof has been made.

Henry Ogden Porter (or "Budd," as he was familiarly called), the fourth son, named for his uncle, Capt. Henry Ogden, was in the navy, and afterwards in the revenue service. During the Rebellion he was an acting lieutenant in the navy, and fought his vessel - the gunboat "Hatteras" - off Mobile, in an engagement with the "Alabama," until she sunk, her flag still flying proudly as she disappeared beneath the water. He died, about seventeen years ago, near Washington.

Hamilton Porter, the next brother, was a lieutenant in the navy (on the "Flirt"), and while in the service died of yellow fever, Aug. 10, 1844.

The old house, after Commodore Porter's family ceased to use it as a residence, was leased to a number of tenants, until at last the location of the gas-works in that neighborhood rendered it no longer a desirable dwelling, and it was leased, in 1862, to Professor Jackson, of Philadelphia, for a pyrotechnic manufactory. On Friday morning, Feb. 17, 1882, shortly after seven o'clock, fire was discovered in the kitchen of the old structure, and the alarm was responded to promptly by the fire department, although the entire force had been out late the preceding night battling with the flames which had laid the Pennsylvania Military Academy in ruins. The crowd which had gathered about the Porter house kept back because of the report which had been spread among them that gunpowder was stored in the establishment, but when they saw the chief of the fire department and the members of the various fire companies approaching near to the structure, they drew closer to the scene. Flames at this time were observed coming out of the windows on the west side, and in half an hour after the firemen had arrived and had gone into service a slight explosion occurred, which occasioned no injury. The men who had fled in alarm when this explosion took place, being assured that all danger was past, returned to the work of saving the building from absolute destruction. Hardly had the firemen again mounted the ladders and resumed their labors, when a second explosion took place, which leveled the walls of the old kitchen to the ground and tore huge gaps in the northern and southern walls of the main building. The air was filled with stones, which were hurled to great distances, killing in all eighteen persons and wounding fifty-seven, many of the latter still bearing upon their persons the disfiguring marks of their narrow escape from death. The houses in the neighborhood were in many instances damaged, and window-glasses were shattered at considerable distances from the scene of the explosion. Never before in our city's history was there such wide-spread horror and dismay as on that fatal morning.

Business was entirely suspended, and each person sought to learn if any of their family, friends, or acquaintances were among those who had been killed or injured. Every effort was immediately made to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded, and for the relief of those families wherein death from explosion had occurred. To that end a fund amounting to about ten thousand dollars was subscribed within a few weeks and distributed by a committee appointed for that purpose. The occurrence of this frightful calamity is too recent to require more than this brief mention now, but it will pass into our history as one of the most appalling events which has ever happened in Chester, and for many years to come will be narrated by those who witnessed it to succeeding generations in all the vivid details that memory always lends to such an incident.

The Huertine House. - The brick building on the south side of Third Street, more than midway in the block toward Edgmont Avenue, which is now occupied by Browning & Co. as a clothing-bouse, was built by William Huertine subsequent to 1712; for August 12th of that year John Musgrove and Mary, his wife, sold to William Huertine the ground on which the house was afterwards erected, subject to a yearly quit-rent of two shillings to the heirs of James Sandelands, the younger, and the same day Jonas Sandelands and Mary, his wife, confirmed the grant, reserving to the heirs of the grantor a yearly quit-rent of two silver shillings. William Huertine, who was a silversmith, erected the house, but subsequently removed to New York, where he died. His widow, Elizabeth, and his children and heirs, March 2, 1724, conveyed the house and grounds - a larger tract of land - to Ruth Hoskins, who in her will, dated July 3, 1739, devised the house and lots to her son-in-law, John Mather, he paying fifty pounds to John, Ruth, and Mary Hoskins, the grandchildren of the testators, and children of her son, Stephen Hoskins.

It was generally believed by our local historian that John Mather was the landlord of the present City