William Penn Charters two villages

It is very hard to imagine that some 120 years ago Marcus Hook was just a small quiet little fishing town on the Delaware River. That changed in the 1920;s when numerous businesses made Marcus Hook their home. The above post card is from 1908.

CHARTERS FROM WILLIAM PENN

         Three hundred and Twenty two years ago, William Penn granted charters to two Delaware County villages, giving them the status of boroughs and confirming their rights as market towns, with the privilege of having weekly market days, and holding annual fairs.  These two villages were Marcus Hook, chartered Sept. 12 and Chester on Oct. 31, 1701.

         The people of Marcus Hook had asked William Penn to make their village a market town.  The charter as drawn up expressed the Proprietor’s will that the borough should be called Chichester, and gave exact boundaries and measurements of the land to be included, listing the names of the streets and fixing the exact location of the market place.  It granted the right to hold a free market in the said market place on the sixth day of every week, to buy and sell all manner of provisions and other necessaries of life, and named Walter Martin to be clerk thereof.  Power was grated to hold a public fair on the 29^th day of September and the two days following in every year, provided that there should be no unlawful sports, etc.  Here follows a list of forbidden practices with provisions for regulation of the fairs.

         The charter of the borough of Chester was granted by William Penn in response to a petition from the inhabitants that he confirm unto them a privilege granted some years earlier by the Lieut. Governor and Council:  namely, the right to hold a weekly market and two fairs each year.  This petition was inspired by the fear that marketing privileges just granted to Marcus Hook might interfere with Chester’s importance as a market town.  In the charter, Penn referred to his first regulation and division of the counties of his Providence, by which “the Townsted or Village then having the name of Upland should be called Chester.”  The charter decreed that the said town be erected into a borough “which shall extend from the River Delaware two miles backwards into the Woods, and shall be bounded Eastward with the west side of Ridley Creek, and westward with the East side of Chester Creek to the said extent of two miles backwards from the River and shall ever hereafter be called Chester.”

         The document is too long to be quoted fully here, as it set forth in detail how the borough was to be governed, but one clause has special interest.  It confirmed the right of the inhabitants of Chester “to hold and keep within the said Town in every week of the Year one Market on the fifth Day of the week of the Year one Market on the fifth Day of the Week called Thursday, and to continue that Day and two Days after; and the other of the said Fairs to begin the fifth Day of October and to continue until the seventh Day of the same Month.”

         The old market house which once stood in the middle of Market Square, at 3^rd and Market Streets in Chester, was built in 1744 and stood until 1857, according to the late Dr. Anna Broomall, once curator for this Society.  In a description of the ancient building, she said:  “The first story, the market, was built of brick with arches on the sides; the frame second story on the northern end was added in 1830 for a council chamber and Public Library with an entrance by an outside stairway on the southeast corner.  The town Pillory and Stocks stood in Market Square.”