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Chapter XLVI
The Borough Of Media.
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that the vote was in favor of the removal, and that the delegates elected assembled at the Black Horse Hotel, on the 6th of December, and a majority being in favor of a new county-seat the county poor-house property was selected as the most desirable site for the county buildings, and the town which must of course come into existence by reason of their location. As the attendance had been comparatively small, owing to the almost impassable condition of the roads, the anti-removalists claimed that the decision had not reflected the real will of the people. There then ensued an energetic and even violent political contest upon this local issue, which was carried on in the county and in the Legislature almost unceasingly for two years, with success now for one side and again for the other. The election of Oct. 12, 1847, however, sustained the verdict of two years before by a majority of seven hundred and fifty-two votes. Here, when the question seemed decided, however, it became complicated, and the opposition, adopting new tactics, fought, if not more fiercely, at least more determinately than ever before. Because of some similarity between the removal act and an act previously passed giving the citizens of each township a right to decide by ballot whether liquor should be sold therein, and because this act had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the opponents of the removal resolved to place the obnoxious measure before the same tribunal. Without attempting to follow the prolonged secondary struggle we simply note the fact that the will of the people, twice expressed by the ballot, was finally confirmed in the House of Representatives by an act passed by unanimous vote, Jan. 19, 1848, authorizing removal. It received the approval of the Senate, March 30th, and the signature of Governor Shunk, April 7th, and thus became a law.
In the following fall, Sept. 10, 1848, the county commissioners, Edmund Pennell, Mark Bartleson, and Caleb J. Hoopes, purchased from Mrs. Sarah Briggs a tract of forty-eight acres adjoining the poor-house farm, in Upper Providence. For this property, now worth fifty times as much, the sum of seven thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars was paid, or a little more than one hundred and sixty dollars per acre. Time proved the wisdom of the commissioners' decision, for the locality was a very suitable one for the beautiful town which has been developed upon and around it. Just here we will digress from the current of our narrative to give an idea of the aspect of this spot at the time it was chosen for the site of the county town. There were then on the ground now included within the limits of Media no less than twelve buildings. These were the old Almshouse, the Briggs, the Way, and the Hill mansions, all built of stone, and located immediately upon the State road; the old log house west of the Almshouse, the house of Peter Worrall, which was a tavern, and six others, conspicuous among them being the Pierce and Haldeman residences. The mansion occupied by Mrs. Briggs was subsequently sold by the commissioners, at their second sale of lots, to John Esrey, who afterwards transferred it to Dr. Joseph Rowland, one of Media's most successful medical practitioners. About five hundred yards distant from the house just mentioned was another of the old residences of the place (occupied in late years by John Wilkinson). This building was erected by the grandfather of the Richard Briggs who occupied what was latterly the Rowland home for his son, Richard Briggs. About the time of the removal of the county-seat this property was sold at sheriff's sale to Elizabeth Way, and subsequently passed into the possession of a relative. The properties of the Briggs, father and son, were bounded on the south by the State road, on the east and north by the poor-house farm, and on the west by land of Isaac Cochran, which included the ground on which Hon. John M. Broomall built a handsome residence a number of years since. The property of William Briggs adjoined the Richard Briggs farm, on the west. This, with the house upon it, was purchased several years prior to the county-seat location by T. Chalkley Palmer, who sold, in the summer of 1847, to Andrew T. Walker. The large tract of land south of the State road was owned by John Hill, Sr. This, with the exception of a few lots on State Street, was subsequently sold to H. Jones Brooke. We now resume the narrative of events in the early history of Media. The first of note, subsequent to those which have already been related, was the fixing of the exact site for the public buildings, of which announcement was made by the commissioners on May 15, 1849. The site chosen was that upon which the court-house and jail (presently to be dwelt on at length) now stand. The work of building them was soon commenced. The first sale of building lots in Providence, - i.e., Media, - of which Joseph Fox had completed the survey and platting July 26th, was held by the county commissioners on Monday, Sept. 17, 1849, and was as successful and remunerative as the most sanguine of those officials could have hoped it to be. Seventy lots were sold at prices varying from $1.80 to six dollars per square foot. The sum of seven thousand five hundred and eighty dollars was realized by the sale. This was only one hundred and eighty dollars less than had been paid for the entire Briggs tract of forty-eight acres. Among the purchasers of the seventy lots sold on that day were Dr. George Smith, who bought the first lots offered, Nos. 1 and 2, at three dollars per foot, and also one near the close of the sale. Then follow, in rotation, Gideon Miles 1, Jacob Smedley 3, William Jones 2, J. Morgan Hunter 2, Minshall Painter 8, Joseph Hood 1, Capt. William Apple 2, Isaac Taylor 1, Isaac Haldeman 3, George Smedley 2, John Miller 3, James Edwards 2, J. T. Hawkins 1, and John C. Beatty 1. The remaining names of lot-buyers, so far | |||