1687.] HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 161 



" Att a Court of Equity liold att Chester the 5"^ day in the 

 1" week of the 10'" month 1686. 



" Co/nmisfdoncrs {H'eseiit : — Jolin Blunstone, Jolin Simcocke, 

 George Maris, Bartholomew Coppoek, Samuel Levis, Robert 

 Wade, Robert Pile.— Robert Eyre Clerk." 



Only two causes were tried. 



The municipal divisions of the settled parts of the County had 

 not as yet been definitely fixed, and some appear to have been 

 recognized by the Court that never had any established boun- 

 dary, and only a very temporary existence. Up to the close of 

 1686, officers "had been appointed for the following places: Ches- 

 ter, Chichester, Providence, Amoshmd, Darby, Bethel, Concord, 

 Springfield, ^larple, Newtown, Birmingham, Northby, and Gilead. 



Chichester included both townships of that name, and so of 

 Providence and Darby — Calcon Hook having been added to the 

 latter township this 3'ear. Northbi/ included the whole or part 

 of Aston, and Gilead was probably in Edgmont. During the 

 following year, 1687, Ridley, Middletown, Aston, Thornbury,^ 

 and Edgmont are recognized by the Court as townships, and 

 supplied by appointment with one or more officers. 



Grand Juries, which, for two or three years after the establish- 

 ment of Penn's government, were hardly regarded as a necessity 

 in the administration of justice, had now assumed an importance 

 scarcely equaled by the Court itself. Both public wants and 

 the neglect of official duties were promptly brought to the notice 

 of the Court, while evil doers could scarcely hope to escape their 

 scrutinizing vigilance. But holding office during the whole year, 

 this vigilance, after a time, degenerated, in each Grand Juror, 

 into a kind of Quaker Puritanical surveillance, and subjected to 

 the exposure of judicial investigation every slight departure from 

 strict moral rectitude. Many matters were presented that had 

 better been rectified by the kind offices of the friends of the 

 party; or from the evils that resulted from their exposure, been 

 allowed to pass into oblivion unnoticed. If there was anything 

 to make the practice tolerable, it was the impartiality with which 

 it was exercised ; the Justices of the Court and even Grand 

 Jurors themselves were sometimes the subjects of these present- 

 ments. 



At the first Court in this year the township of Chester was 

 presented '' for not finding and making a foot Bridge over the 

 mill creek (Chester Creek), in the Kings Highway hard by 

 William Woodmancies." 



At the same Court, Caleb Pusey " Petitioned against Thomas 

 Coborne for setting a water mill above him upon Upland Creek." 



' The whole of the townships of Thornbury and Birmingham, as at first laid out, 

 will be included in our narrative up to the division of the County in 1789. 

 11 



