Upper Darby Township.

Settled as it was by members of the society of Friends, its early history lacks much in those sterling incidents which other localities, even in Delaware County, present; but the rural population in Upper Darby, by thrifty and careful husbandry, soon made that section of the county very productive and its inhabitants comparatively wealthy. At the southwestern limit of the township was a tract of one hundred and fifty acres, to which the name "Primos" was given on July 12, 1683, and was surveyed to John Blunston, which subsequently, June 6, 1688, became the property of Thomas Hood, who emigrated from Breason, County Derby, England. In 1692 fifty acres of this plantation was conveyed to John Hood, doubtless the son of John Hood, Sr., who settled in Darby in 1683, immediately above the Blunston tract. On July 12, 1683, one hundred and fifty acres of land was surveyed to Joseph Potter, on which estate the present railroad station, at Oak Lane, is located. The property subsequently was conveyed to John Hallowell, who emigrated from Nottinghamshire, England, in 1683, and who had settled, it is believed, on this land, which, as his means permitted, he purchased in fifty-acre lots at various dates. To Thomas Whitbie, on July 12,1683, the estate known as "Lebion" was surveyed. He appears never to have resided thereon, but on July 22, 1687, it was conveyed to John Roads, and on this tract Clifton Station is now located. To the northward of "Lebion" was a tract of one hundred and fifty acres, which, on July 12, 1683, was surveyed to Edward Cartledge. This tract extended from the western line of the township to Darby Creek on the east. He emigrated from Derbyshire, England, in 1683, and before he came he had purchased lands from William Penn. He was a man far advanced in life when he came to the province, for he was eighty-four years old, in 1703, when he died. Immediately above the Cartledge land, on a tract through which at the present time runs the Delaware County turnpike from Darby Creek, at Kellyville, westward almost to the township line, was a plantation of two hundred acres, which Joseph Need purchased in equal parts of one hundred acres from Thomas Brassey and Samuel Levis. There Need, who was a quiet husbandman, lived nearly half a century, dying in 1741. Above the Need tract all the remaining land lying between Darby Creek on the east and the Springfield line on the west, and extending north to the point where the township line unites with Darby Creek, on March 22, 1681, and comprising two hundred acres, was conveyed to Isaac Wheeldon, and he in turn sold it to Samuel Levis, March 13, 1695. Levis seems not to have personally settled on this tract, but part of this land is now owned by Oborn Levis, a descendant of the early settler.

At the southern part of Upper Darby, east of the creek of that name, was a tract of one hundred and fifty acres, extending to Cobb's Creek, which was surveyed to John Blunston Sept. 10,1682. The village of Fernwood is located on the one hundred acres which was purchased by Joseph Fearn, May 28, 1712. Above this tract, at a point a trifle west of Lansdowne Station, a line drawn to the New Jerusalem Church, and thence due west to the old Marker Paper-Mills, on Darby Creek, and then following the creek to the bend above the Lower Darby line, and thence due east to the post a short distance west of Lansdowne Station, was a large tract containing six hundred and fifty-five acres, surveyed to George Wood Nov. 6, 1682. This tract subsequently was divided among his descendants, and two hundred acres of the lower part were conveyed to Richard Bonsall March 1, 1697/8. On the land acquired by Bonsall, Kellyville is located. Richard Bonsall is the progenitor of the family of that name in Pennsylvania. To the east of the Wood tract four hundred and fifty acres were surveyed to William Smith Oct. 31, 1682. Ten years later this estate was sold to Anthony Morgan, who emigrated from Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales, in 1689, first settling on the west side of Cobb's Creek, above the present Blue Bell Inn, but in 1700 he removed to his plantation in Upper Darby, where he died in 1732, a very aged man. Morgan, shortly after he purchased the property, sold one hundred and fifty acres to John Marshall, lying along the creek at the upper end of the tract, Naylor's Run separating the latter plantation almost in halves, and as the highway, known as Marshall's road, ran almost through the entire length of his land, from that fact it took the name it now bears. This John Marshall and Sarah Smith were the first persons married in the old log meeting-house of Friends, at Darby, in 1688, mentioned in the account of that building. Prior to the purchase of this land Marshall had acquired title to sixty-four acres lying north of the Smith tract, while just above Samuel Sellers had patented one hundred acres, and the following year (1691) purchased seventy-five and one-half acres of Charles Lee, who had, in 1685, received a patent for one hundred and eighty acres extending along Cobb's Creek. Sellers must have occupied this tract several years prior to his purchase, for in 1684 he wedded Ann Gibbons, at Darby Meeting, before the meeting-house was built, and the bride rode to her home in Upper Darby on a pillion behind her husband. During the first year of their residence on this land they lived in a cave, the location of which is preserved to this day as "Cave Field," near the site of which he subsequently erected "Sellers Hall," the family homestead. The remainder of the Lee tract, one hundred acres, was conveyed to Thomas Marie, in 1686. Due west of this land, and lying along the south side of the Garrett road, extending to Darby Creek, was a tract of three hundred and three acres, surveyed to Michael Blunston, of Darby. After the latter's death it was conveyed to John Davis, as three hundred and twenty-two acres, March 25-26, 1736/7, and in May of the same year was bought by Samuel Levis. North of the Garrettford road were three