CHESTER, - Delaware County PA History

12 CIll':..''1'ER, PENNSYLVANIA.
l\'Iedia. The inhabitants of Chester for nearly a century had
subsisted in a great measure on the county offices, the legal
business consequent upon the location of the courts here, and
the incidental employments thereby occasioned, that many persons
believed the change of county seat would be a fatal blow
to the town, and that it must dwi I:dle in population and business.
But unknown to the masses the dawn of better days was
at han(l.
PIONEER
MANUFACTURERS.
In 1845 John P. Crozer had purchased the site of the ancient
Chester mills-the first mills erected in Pennsylvania under
Penn's government-which he named Upland, and erected
a large cotton factory; and five years prior to that James
Campbell had located at Leipervillc, the present Crum Lynne,
where he had changed an old bark mill into a cotton factory.
Both of these enterprises had proved successful,. and a thoughtful
few saw that if the energies of the people, considering the
peculiar fitness of the place for the business, could be directed
towards the establishment of manufacturing industries, Chester
would shortly become a place of considerable importance.
\\'ith this idea in view, earl)' in 1850 the now venerable
) ohn Larkin, Jr., purchased eighty-three acres of land, comprising
now much of the built up portion of the Second ward,
and Hon. John M. Broomall fifty acres south of Chester creek,
what is now included in Fourth ward. Streets were laid out,
dwellings erected, manufacturing establishments induced to
locate at Chester, and lots sold on easy terms. The movement
thus organized resulted in less than ten years in increasing the
population three-fold; in twenty years six-fold, and in thirty
years nine fold, and to-day it is nearly fourteen-fold \yhat it was
in 1850. It should be remembered that in that period Upland
has grown to a village, containing' over three thousand population,
while South Chester, which is an outgrowth of Chestcl'
proper, from being nearly farm lands in 1864, has grown into a
municipality containing thousands of dwellings, a score or more
of large manufacturing establishments, and a careful estimate
places its inhabitants at seven thousand persons.