74 STREEPER : 



Burying Ground, and the Upper, or Sand}^ Bank Burying 

 Ground. The former, as stated above, lying east of the ter- 

 minus of Front Street, Media, is connected with the old 

 Quaker Meeting House, the original building of which was 

 erected about 1699 or 1700, and is situated on a slight eleva- 

 tion, sloping graduall}^ towards the southeast ; it is well kept 

 and contains the graves of some of the earliest pioneers of 

 Delaware County. The Upper, or Sand}' Bank Burying 

 Ground, lies to the north by west of the I^ower Burying 

 Ground, and sets on a much higher elevation of land. This 

 burying ground has fallen into sad neglect, and many of the 

 graves have been desecrated by vandals and the weather. The 

 early histories of these two properties are referred to in both 

 Smith's and Ashmead's Histories of Delaware Count}' in the 

 following words : — 



Of the Sandy Bank Ground, Smith says : "A deed of feof- 

 ment was delivered in open Court by Thomas Powell unto Peter 

 Taylor and Randall Maylin in the behalf of several others 

 for a parcel of land lying in Upper Providence, for the use 

 of a burying place, bearing date the second day of the seventh 

 month, 1690. This acre now constitutes Sandy Bank grave- 

 yard." Reference is also made to the proposed erection of a 

 meeting house on the land donated " by Friends belonging to 

 Thomas Minchall's meeting " and a committee was appointed 

 to fix the site for a meeting house ; it appears that this com- 

 mittee after viewing the ground "decided that 'the farther 

 end of Thomas Minshall's land by the high road side,' " was 

 the best location, and not the Sandy Bank acre. Thomas 

 Minshall donated an acre for the purpose, and the meeting 

 house was erected and ready for use about 1699-1700. It 

 occupied the present site of the Providence Meeting-house. It 

 is stated that the probable cause for changing the site from 

 the Sandy Bank location to elsewhere was owing to " Thomas 

 Powell had discontinued his membership with Friends, and 

 had become an active Episcopalian." 



Ashmead, in referring to this old meeting house, says : 



