Thornbury Township.

partition being made among the heirs. On March 13, 1775, a partition deed was made, in which one hundred and sixty-nine acres and thirty-four perches, "on which are erected an Iron Forge, Slitting-mill, grist-mill, and saw-mill, with other valuable improvements," were divided between Joseph Potts and Ann, his wife, of the first part, James Thomson and Sarah, his wife, Persifor Frazer and Mary, his wife, of the second part, and Thomas Bull, of East Nantmeal, Chester Co., of the third part. Joseph Potts received a tract of eight acres, situate where the Upper Glen Paper-Mill now stands, on Chester Creek, "with the grist-mill and saw-mill thereon erected, and the seat for a slitting-mill, also the priviledge of building a bridge across the Forge Race at such place as shall be convenient to pass from the said meadow to the road, with liberty to erect a dam on the place where the old slitting-mill dam formerly erected, or lower down the creek if more convenient." Potts also received a tract of four and three-fourths acres lower down the creek and above the forge lot. By the same deed Persifor Frazer and Mary, his wife, James Thomson and Sarah, his wife, received thirty-one acres and eighteen perches of land, it being the lower part of the tract, together "with the Forge thereon erected." On this land, on the survey, are marked several houses, the forge, race, and the mansion-house still lower down, probably on the site of the present Wilcox mansion. The forge stood where the lower Glen Mill Paper-Factory now stands. On the same date to Thomas Bull, ironmaster, of East Nantmeal, Chester Co., and Ann, his wife, were granted one hundred and twenty-five acres of land, it being the upper part of the tract and partly on both sides of the creek, the other tracts all being located on the west side of the creek.

At the time of the survey that portion of the tract on which was the slitting-mill, grist-mill, saw-mill, and forge, was in Aston, and continued so to be until the act of July 30, 1842, annexed all the upper part of the latter township at a line dividing Stony Bank meeting-house and the Stony Bank school to Thornbury.

In the deed to Joseph Potts, March 13, 1775, it appears the slitting-mill was then out of repair, but from his precaution in having a clause inserted giving to him the right to rebuild the "old slitting-mill dam," it is evident that he intended to repair the works, which be did. Persifor Frazer, born near Newtown Square in 1736, married Mary, the daughter of John Taylor (the younger), and some time after settled in Thornbury, on his wife's estate, and was interested in the iron-works there, but it is not probable that he was active in the conduct of the forge until after 1770, for in that year John Thomson had the works. At the close of 1774 he was prominent in Chester County in resisting the encroachments of the crown, and in January of the following year was a delegate from that county to the Provincial Convention. At this time he is believed to have had full control of the works. In the early part of 1776 he was elected captain of a company in the Fourth Battalion of Pennsylvania troops, under Col. Wayne, and was present on duty with his command until the fourth day after the battle of Brandywine; when while reconnoitering, he and Maj. Harper were captured by the enemy. While a prisoner of war he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth Pennsylvania. Col. Frazer made his escape, joined his regiment, and took part in the battle of Monmouth. In the fall of 1778 he resigned. In 1781, 1782, and 1784 he was a member of the Assembly. In May, 1782, he was appointed brigadier-general of the militia of Pennsylvania, and in 1786 was appointed register and recorder for Chester County, which office he continued to hold - after the division of the old county and the erection of Delaware County - until April 2, 1792, when he died. Gen. Frazer was buried in the old graveyard at Middletown Presbyterian Church. Gen. Persifor F. Smith, of the United States army, is his grandson.

In 1779 the old slitting-mill was rebuilt, and was operated by Norris Jones. Norris Jones and Abraham Sharpless were occupying it in 1781, and in 1784, Sharpless & Lloyd had control of the slitting-mill, grist-mill, and saw-mill, as well as the forge. The latter copartnership must have been formed in the spring of that year, for in the early part of 1784 Jones & Sharpless were still operating the works, for Mrs. Sarah Thomson, who appears to have married a spendthrift, presented her petition to the Court of Quarter Sessions which sat at Chester, Feb. 24, 1784, in which she set forth that she was the wife of James Thomson, of the township of "Ashtown," and that before her marriage she was possessed of real estate consisting of eighty-four acres of land in West Bradford, about one hundred and seventy-four acres in Thornbury and "Ashtown;" also three-eighths of a forge and about thirty acres in "Ashtown;" that after her marriage she joined with her husband in the sale of the real estate in West Bradford; that through "inattention and other proceedings" her husband ran in debt; that all his personal estate was sold to satisfy his creditors, leaving large sums still due, which she thought to liquidate would cover the plantation in Thornbury and Aston. Believing that he would continue to contract personal debts, so as to consume all the estates, his life-interest being seized and sold therein, in which event she, "who is in a very infirm state of Health, and also her young children, one of whom it is likely will become a Cripple, will be left destitute of any support; that she cannot therefore but with terror look forward to the period when herself and helpless children must depend upon the precarious and ineffectual supplies of her own industry, her husband having deserted her and the children, and left them utterly destitute, having removed to some distant part of the frontiers." In