1789.] nrsT(»i!Y <•? Delaware county. 343 



scribed as '' that elegant an<l notorious place vulgarly called the 

 Turk's Htad, (by some calle<l West-Chester) a })lace as unfit 

 for the general convenience, and much more so, than any one 

 spot that might be pointed out within 10 miles square of the above 

 described place — (except towards the New Castle line)."' 



The removalists became jubilant over their long delayed vic- 

 tory, and gave vent to their feelings in sundry songs and ditties, 

 couched in language not the most tender towards the vanquished 

 party. One of these, entitled "-^ChcHters JIatlicr," has been 

 preserved in the Directory of West Chester for 18o7. 



On the 25th of September, 1786, an act was passed "to em- 

 power the Sheriff of the County of Chester to remove the pri- 

 soners from the old gaol, in the town of Chester, to the new 

 gaol in Goshen township, in said county, and to indemnify him 

 for the same." 



The first removal act authorized the sale of the old Court- 

 house and jail at Chester upon the completion of the new build- 

 ings at the Turk's Head, but this sale was not consummated till 

 the 18th of March, 1788, when William Kerlin became the pur- 

 chaser of the property. 



The first Court held in the new Court-house commenced on the 

 28th of Noveml)er, 1786, before William Clingan, William Has- 

 let, John BartholomcAv, Philip Scot, Isaac Taylor John Ralston, 

 Joseph Luckey, Thomas Cheyney, Thomas Levis, and Richard 

 Hill Morris as Justices. 



In 1783 an agreement was entered into between Pennsylvania 

 and New Jersey, in respect to the jurisdiction of the river De- 

 laware and its islands. In 1786 an act was passed distributing 

 the islands assigned to Pennsylvania among the several counties 

 bordering on the river. Up to this time the jurisdiction over 

 Hog Island was doubtful, but it had been exercised by Philadel- 

 phia County. By this act, that Island was permanently annex- 

 ed to Chester County, and attached to Tinicura township. 



The people of the borough of Chester and vicinity, who had 

 been deaf to the complaints of the inhabitants of the remote 

 parts of the County, on account of their distance from the seat 

 of justice, and who had for years strenuously opposed granting 

 them any relief, were not slow to learn from experience that 

 those complaints had not been wholly groundless, though their 

 distance from the new seat of justice did not compare with the 

 distance of most of the removalists from the old one. The peo- 

 ple of the southeastern section of the County had been favored 

 in fixing upon the Turk's Head as the site of the new seat of 

 justice, for several other parts of the County were still much 

 more remote from that place. '" The inhabitants of the borough 



1 MS. in possession of the Del. Co. InsUtute, in the handwriting of Diivis Bevan. 



