1706.] HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 215 



the creeks. A bridge had been built over Chester creek at 

 Chester, and the road had lately been varied at that point. 

 Upon the petition of the inhabitants of the town and county of 

 Chester to the Governor and council,' Jasper Yeates, Caleb 

 Pusey, Jeremiah Collet, Robert Barber and John Hcndrickson, 

 were appointed "to lay out the Queens road on as direct a line 

 as may be from Darby to answer the bridge on Chester creek." 

 At the same time the Council ordered, that "if there shall be 

 occasion for building a bridge over any Navigable Creek or 

 water, for the greater convenience of Travelling the said road, 

 that such bridge shall be so built, that the same may in no wise 

 hinder any boats from passing, either up or down such creek or 

 water." The road was promptly laid out,^ in pursuance of this 

 order of Council, and the Justices of the Court at once directed 

 the Supervisors of Chester, Ridley, and Darby to be notified by 

 the Sheriff, to clear the same. This does not appear to have 

 been done; for, agreeably to a draft submitted to Council in 

 1747, by Joseph Bonsall and John Davis, scarcely any part of 

 the road then travelled corresponded with the road laid out in 

 170(3^ — the travelled road, except for a very short distance, 

 being from twenty to forty perches or more south of that laid 

 out in 1706. 



By agreement between the Philadelphia and Chester Quarterly 

 Meetings, Newtown Meeting was transferred to the latter. 

 There was also a preparative meeting established at Notting- 

 ham this year, by the Concord and Chichester Monthly 

 Meetings. 



Under directions from the quarterly meeting, action was 

 taken in the several monthly meetings of the Society of Friends 

 on the subject of grave-stones. The committees appointed on 

 that subject by Chester Monthly Meeting, found but "six small 

 stones to the graves." It was "the sense of the meeting," 

 that they "be sunk or taken away." At Darby, where grave- 

 stones appear to have been more common, the request for their 

 removal was directed to the relatives of the deceased. The task 

 was, therefore, very reluctantly performed, and in some cases 

 the relatives disregarded a request so much at variance with 

 their feelings. Eventually, the subjject gave rise to considerable, 

 dissatisfaction in this meeting and others. 



It does not appear to have been the practice, in early times, 

 for the Society of Friends to keep a record of the voluntary 

 relinquishment of membership. It is therefore impossible to 



1 Col. Rec. ii. 2:56. 



* A draft of tbis road is on file in the Surveyor-General's Office, and in the Secre- 

 tary of State's Office, Harrisburg. 



' Mr. Samuel Hazard kindly furnished me with a copy of this draft, the original of 

 which is in the Secretary of State's Office, Harrisburg. 



