232 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. [1722. 



Uwchlan were constituted a separate monthly meeting, to be 

 called G-oshen Monthly Meeting. In these meetings the Welsh 

 Friends were largely in the ascendancy, and on that account 

 there was a peculiar propriety in thus uniting them in one eccle- 

 siastical community. 



The first instance of a disownment of a member by the Society 

 of Friends, within the limits of this County, for a failure to pay 

 his honest debts, occurs in the early part of 1722. It must be 

 observed, however, that it was the constant practice of the 

 Society to extend relief to members who were brought into 

 pecuniary difficulty through misfortune. 



The unsettled line between Pennsylvania and Maryland was 

 the source of considerable difficulty. The officers of Cecil 

 County insisted upon collecting taxes in Nottingham and other 

 border townships, and they even went so far as to make 

 prisoners of Isaac Taylor and Elisha Gatchel, for surveying 

 lands in that vicinity. These gentlemen were both magistrates 

 of Chester County, the former being also a Representative in the 

 Assembly.^ 



The public pound at Chester had been located west of the 

 creek, but from the following minute extracted from the proceed- 

 ings of the Court, it will appear that the most public situation 

 in the borough was now secured for it : 



"Upon application of some of the inhabitants of Chester for 

 a. poimd in the said town of Chester, whereupon the court or- 

 ders, that there be a Pound erected in the 3Iarket place in the 

 borough of Chester, forty foot square, well fenced with posts and 

 railings, and a good rack in the middle of s*^ pound, and that 

 Rich'^ Marsden be Keeper of the pound, To act, do, and perform 

 according as the act makes mention &c." 



A pound was also ordered for Aston at the same Court — John 

 Carter to be the keeper. 



There were no less than three persons under sentence of death 

 at this time in Chester gaol. Petitions were presented to the 

 Governor and Council, asking that the execution of the sentence 

 might be respited, until such time as the pleasure of the king 

 could be known therein. This application was successful in re- 

 spect to two of the prisoners, one of whom was a woman ; but 

 the third, William Battin, -who had been convicted " of divers 

 horrid complicated crimes," was ordered to be executed "and 

 hung in Irons in the most public place, at such time as the Go- 

 vernor shall appoint." 



The earliest list of taxables of the County of Chester, that 

 has come to the notice of the author, is contained in the regular 

 assessment of the county, made in 1722, which is still on file in 



1 Col. Rec iii. 212-214. 



