Upper Darby Township.

sumed nearly four days - the jury rendered a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. The prosecution of Washington Labee had preceded that of Wellington, the jury, on Saturday, October 20th, returning a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree. John Thompson and Abraham Boyce, who were tried on Thursday, the 25th, were both acquitted on the indictments of murder, they being the two men who had gone out at the front door when Bonsall was killed, and, as no other charge was made against them, they were discharged. The court sentenced Labee to eight years' hard labor in the Penitentiary at Philadelphia, and on Wednesday, October 30th, pronounced the sentence of death as to Wellington. Governor Shulze, November 10th, promptly signed the warrant, designating the execution of the sentence to be enforced on Dec. 17, 1824.

The Upland Union, published at Chester, on December 21st, contains the following account of the execution of Wellington: "On Friday morning, Dec. 17, 1824, Michael Monroe, alias James Wellington, was executed. At an early hour the borough of Chester was crowded with strangers. At eleven o'clock he was conducted from the jail to the place of execution, a distance of one and a half miles" (on the tract now known as the Forty Acres), "accompanied by the sheriff and all the police-officers of the county. He was attended by Rev. John Woolson, William Palmer, R. W. Morgan, and John Smith. At half-past eleven o'clock, when the procession reached the gallows, the Rev. William Palmer delivered a solemn and appropriate prayer, after which he was followed by Rev. John Woolson. The prisoner ascended the scaffold about half-past twelve o'clock, and there addressed the spectators in the following words, which were spoken with a firmness that astonished all who were present:

" 'I have heard it said that no innocent man was ever executed in this county, but it will lose that honor to-day.'

"After he had concluded the above sentence, he sang a hymn with the greatest ease and composure of mind. He then told the sheriff that he had no more to say. It wanted seventeen minutes of one when the drop fell, and the prisoner was no more."

An autopsy of Wellington's body was made that evening by Drs. William Gray, Ellis Harlan, and other physicians in the house still standing on the north side of Third Street, below Franklin, Chester, which was at that time known as the poll-well house. When the ancient borough began its long-delayed improvement, the then owner of the house modernized it.

Washington Labee, as before stated, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary. It is said that five years after Wellington's execution a convict, dying in Sing Sing prison, stated under oath that he and three other men were the real murderers of Bonsall. The sworn confession being presented to the State authorities, Labee, who had undergone more than half of his term of imprisonment, was pardoned, but his long incarceration had so undermined his health that he died shortly after his release.

The Clay Murder. - On May 21, 1870, near the factory of Oborn Levis, George Clay, an Englishman, was murdered by his daughter, Sarah Ann Seaburn. The latter, a woman of thirty-five, was the widow of a soldier who had died in the war, and after her husband's death she had become addicted to drink. On many occasions she had exhibited symptoms of insanity, which caused her several times to be discharged from employment. In 1869 the father and daughter were both in the Delaware County House of Employment, and in the spring of 1870, when the father was discharged, he obtained the release of his daughter, alleging that she was not insane or had recovered from whatever derangement of mind she had labored under. Sarah Seaburn was a pensioner, and with the money received from the government the father and daughter purchased liquor in Philadelphia and became intoxicated. On Saturday, May 21, 1870, the woman, then in Upper Darby, borrowed a hatchet from a resident near the factory of Oborn Levis, stating that she wanted it to split some wood for kindling. Two hours after midnight, on May 21st, the woman came to the watchman at the mill and inquired the road to Media. At five o'clock the same morning Sarah Seaburn reached the almshouse, stating that she had murdered her father, who had abused her, and she wanted to be hanged for the crime. The body of Clay was found about nine o'clock, in a field near the house of Oborn Levis, and beside it was the hatchet with which the deed had been done. The head of the corpse had five large wounds, one of which, cutting through the left ear and crushing the skull, must have caused instant death. The woman was indicted and tried for the murder on Aug. 22. 1870. The prisoner seeming not to comprehend the serious nature of the charge, Judge Butler ordered the plea of not guilty to be entered, and assigned William Ward to conduct her defense. A clear case of mental derangement was established, the jury acquitted the prisoner because of insanity, and the court directed her detention in the insane department of the House of Employment.

Mills on Darby Creek. - In presenting the history of the manufacturing industries in Upper Darby, it is the purpose to follow the mode adopted in the account of Birmingham township: to trace the creeks, - Darby and Cobb's, - and moving northward, to narrate the story of those streams, the waters of which have furnished and are furnishing power to many of the busy factories and works which have been located along their banks.

Upper Darby Paper-Mills. - Just above the township-line dividing Upper from Lower Darby, on the west side of Darby Creek, these works are located. In 1747, Joseph Bonsall sold the Darby Mills (the