South Chester Borough.
liam Brewton, of Charleston, S. C., and granddaughter of Capt. Daniel Brewton, of the merchant service.
He has been identified with the public interests of Chester, and for years a director of the National Bank of Chester. Mr. Thurlow was formerly in politics an Old-Line Whig, and subsequently became a Republican, but has taken no active part in the political campaigns of the day. He was educated in the tenets of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and is a worshiper at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of Chester. Mr. Thurlow is in his ninetieth year, and still enjoys exceptional health and mental vigor.
Six years before public attention was directed to the availability of South Chester as a manufacturing locality, William H. Green saw the opportunities which that section of Chester township presented as a business point. Hence in 1864 he purchased lands on Delaware Avenue and Reaney Street, and erected the Vulcan Works. To him above all other men is to be ascribed the credit of first giving direction to that locality, so far as an industrial centre is concerned. It was not the effort of combined capital, strong by incorporation and association, but the individual energy of one man, who fully comprehended the advantages which South Chester presented for manufacturing. At first the Vulcan Works were conducted in a building forty by one hundred and twenty feet, but so earnestly and understandingly did the proprietor labor, that success came because it was merited, not merely the result of large capital and concentration of other interests to maintain and support the enterprise. The Vulcan Works have been enlarged by a handsome brick structure, one hundred and forty-four by one hundred and twenty feet, with other necessary buildings thirty feet square. The latter are used as a cupola-house and oven, and as a casting-, cleaning-, and boiler-house. The articles manufactured are of steel, iron, and brass. A specialty is made of brass and steel valves and cocks of all kinds, while a large amount of general machine-work is also done. In 1883 several valves were made at these works for the water department of Philadelphia, each of which weighed six tons, and were the largest valves ever made in the world. A practical mechanic, William H. Green has earned his success by dint of hard work, unfaltering energy, and shrewd business judgment. As the pioneer of industrial works in South Chester, he has done much to bring about that marvelous growth which has in a few years developed that borough from a rural suburb to a prosperous, busy town, now numbering its inhabitants by many thousands of active, industrious people.
George Green, the grandfather of William H. Green, resided in Stockport, county of Cheshire, England, where he was a professor of music. Among his twelve children was Moses, a native of Stockport, born in 1805, who married Miss Jane Campbell, daughter of Joseph and Mary Campbell, of the same town, and had children, - William H., Sarah, John, James, Jane, Mary, Sarah, and Moses. Mr. Green emigrated to America in 1847, and engaged in the calling of an engineer until his death, which occurred in October, 1879. His son, William H., was born in Stockport, Aug. 3, 1831, and on completing an ordinary school education was apprenticed to the trade of a machinist and engineer. On attaining his sixteenth year he removed to Manchester, and in 1850 emigrated to America. His first location was Philadelphia, where for three years he pursued his trade, and then removed to Richmond, Va., which city became his residence until September, 1857, while acting as superintendent of the machine and engineer department of the Tredegar Iron-Works. In 1857, Mr. Green married Miss Elizabeth Chalmers McKenzie, of Richmond. Their children are William H., Margaret, Jane, Mary (deceased), Laura (deceased), Alfred Tennyson, Lillie Christina, and George Thomas Reed List. During the year of his marriage Mr. Green's skill was made available by the Bureau of Steam Engineering, at Washington, when he was assigned to the navy-yard in Boston, and acted as superintendent of the construction and repairing of the steam machinery of all vessels fitting out at that port. In 1861 he received from the government a commission as chief engineer, and in 1863 resigned to assume the direction of the Globe Works in Boston, then doing much of the general machine-work for the government. Here he remained until his removal to Chester in 1864, where he established in June of the same year the Vulcan Works, new buildings having been erected for the purpose, and an extensive and successful business in brass and iron instituted. In politics Mr. Green is a conservative Democrat, always seeking men of ability and character for office irrespective of party. He was elected the first burgess of the borough of South Chester, has been a member of the Council, and also member and president of the Board of School Directors. He is active in the Masonic fraternity, having attained the rank of a Knight Templar. He is a member and one of the wardens of St. Luke's Protestant Episcopal Church of Chester.
In 1868, Norris L. Yarnall located in Chester township, at the foot of Flower Street, and erected the Auvergne Mills, the second manufacturing enterprise in the territory which was subsequently made South Chester. An account of this mill will be found hereafter.
In 1863, John M. Broomall and William Ward purchased the farms of James Laws and John Jeffrey, and in 1863, Broomall & Ward, together with Seybert & McManus, of Reading, the farms of George Wilson, John J. Thurlow, and William Johnson. These lands were surveyed and laid out in building-lots and sold on advantageous terms, which resulted in the erection of a number of houses and giving direction to the march of improvement tending westward along the river front.
On April 15, 1869, the Legislature constituted the