Springfield Township.

eighteen years, since it was first projected. At present it has a number of handsome houses, a hotel, public hall, stores, and newspaper. Among the conspicuous residences is that of J. H. Irwin, the inventor of the tubular lantern, and the system of controlling air-currents for lamps, stoves, and furnaces, which latter discovery was evolved from his prior invention of the tubular lantern. Mr. Irwin is a native of Trenton, N. J., and came to Morton in 1871, where he purchased a tract of twenty acres of John Jenkins, and erected thereon an experimental laboratory, in which is an engine of seventy horse-power. Eight men are employed in the laboratory. Mr. Irwin invented, in 1877, the telephone transmitter, which is a valuable patent, now in constant use.

Kedron Methodist Episcopal Church. - This religious body was organized in 1859, with about forty-five members. Meetings were first held in the drawing-room of John S. Morton's mansion, later were held in a wind-mill beyond the mansion, and for a time in a building used as a chapel on the church lot, until the church building was finished. The lot for the church was donated by Thomas T. Tasker. The corner-stone of the present edifice was laid Sept. 6, 1860. It was completed in the summer of 1862, and dedicated June 19th in that year. The services were conducted by Bishop Levi Scott. The pastors who have had charge of the church are as follows: Revs. William Dalrymple, A. Howard, William W. McMichael, John Shields, William Frees, J. C. Wood, A. C. Hood, Garbert Reed, James A. Blacklidge, William W. McMichael, Robert McKay, and the present pastor, Rev. C. Edgar Adamson. The church has a membership of fifty, and a Sunday-school of eighty pupils, of which George Smith is superintendent.

Church of the Atonement. - A few persons of the Protestant Episcopal communion, about 1876, held services in the house of Miss Sue Pearce, and later in a cottage of J. H. Irwin. In 1880 the present chapel was erected (at a cost of four thousand dollars) on a lot donated by J. H. Irwin. The mission is under the care of Christ Church, Media.

The Morton Chronicle. - The first number of this newspaper was issued on June 17, 1880. Its publication was begun in a one-story building, ten by twelye feet, which had formerly been used by the late Sketchley Morton as a coal-office. In these limited quarters the publisher labored for two years, often disheartened at the difficulties that encountered the new enterprise, but working patiently until the little journal was established upon a paying basis. On Friday, Oct. 6, 1882, more commodious quarters were obtained in the new drug-store building of W. E. Dickeson, near Morton Station, four rooms being rented for the office, composition-room, etc. The Chronicle has now a circulation of nearly eight hundred copies, and connected with the paper is a well-fitted job-office. The Morton Chronicle is owned and edited by E. W. Smith, a practical printer.

The Birthplace of Benjamin West. - A short distance north of the railroad station, and about the same distance from Swarthmore College, is the house in which Benjamin West was born. Years ago a decayed building was standing near the present house, which some of the wiseacres in the neighborhood and elsewhere maintained was the dwelling (if ever it was a dwelling) wherein West was born, Oct. 10, 1738. The fact that this old ruin has now gone in a large degree has caused the assertion to be less frequently made, indeed it is rarely now heard, but inasmuch as it has within recent years been mentioned in a historical sketch of Benjamin West, it is proper that it should not pass unnoticed in a history of Delaware County. Certain it is that West would know where he was born, when it was from this farm in Springfield, a well-grown lad, that he went to seek and obtain fortune and renown. Thomas Sully, the eminent artist, frequently related that in 1810, when he, in London, took final leave of his celebrated preceptor, West, then an aged man, made a special request of his young countryman that on his return to America he, Sully, should visit¹ the old homestead in Spring-

"For the pencil's trophies bright,
    Proofs of Art's creative power,
Only freshen to my heart
    Images of childhood's hour."