The hanging of Elizabeth Wilson at "Gallows Hill".

 

This picture has nothing to do with the hanging of Elizabeth Wilson. I'm sure many of my Chester readers know and recognize this building now part of Widener University. This view is from about 1950.

Note: The hanging of Elizabeth Wilson for killing her twins in January of 1786 in Chester at Gallows Hill created all sorts of problems. Was she really guilty? Did her unknown boyfriend do it? or did she?Wilson did not accuse her unknown lover till after the trial when she was found guilty. Many people have written about her and her hanging and the truth has been blurred. The bare facts are below.

Also "Gallows Hill" in Chester were she was hung along with many other prior to 1850 was the intersection of Edgmont Ave. and Providence Rd.

The Hanging of Elizabeth Wilson

 

The hanging of Elizabeth Wilson in Chester almost 235 years ago is all wrapped up in folklore today. The young mother of two was hung for the murder of her twins. Wilson became pregnant out of wedlock and her twins were found dead in Phila. were Wilson had gone to find the father.  She had no luck finding the father and moved back to Chester County to East Bradford Twp. The unknown father came to Chester Co. took the children from her and stomped them to death. The father threatened to kill. Elizabeth Wilson and told her to say he had taken the children to New Jersey and she told that story. When the children’s bodies were found a few days later and the clothing etc. was linked to her, Elizabeth Wilson was charged with murder. Elizabeth was arrested and her trial began in October 1785. Elizabeth remained silent throughout her trial, never giving her own testimony or refuting the circumstantial evidence. The jury sentenced her to death by hanging.  Then her brother, William Wilson stepped in. He found the father in New Jersey but he denied everything. But Wilson found several witnesses that had seen Elizabeth and the father together. The story varies but it is believed the father killed the twins because he wanted no responsibility for them.  Her brother William traveled to Philadelphia to appeal to Charles Biddle, vice president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council, for a pardon for Elizabeth. Biddle granted William a pardon, but William was delayed in his return to Chester, arriving only a short time after Elizabeth was hung on January 3, 1786. According to legend William Wilson rode from Phila to Chester in a little over an hour and his horse dropped dead just as he galloped up waving the pardon from Biddle. His sister, Elizabeth had been hung just 10 minutes before and was cut down immediately but could not be revived.

A special thanks to Shelley Ashfield, Chester Historian for the article below. 

Gallows Hill

"The graveyard for negroes above mentioned was on Edgemont road, above Twelfth, and was used for the interment of slaves by the sufferance of the then owner of the land.  The latter, Grace Lloyd, in her will, dated 6th of Fourth month, 1760, made the following bequest: 'And

it is my mind and will, and I do hereby order and direct that the piece of burying ground, being forty feet, fronting Edgemont Road, in said borough, thence seventy feet back and forty feet in breadth, shall at all times hereafter, forever, be used for and as a burying place for negroes, that is to say, for such as shall have belonged to my late husband or myself, and such as do or hereafter may belong to Friends of Chester Meeting, and as such as in their life-time desire to be buried there, but not for any that are executed, or lay violent hands upon themselves, and that none be buried there without the consent of the Overseers of the Friends' Meeting at Chester.'

The lot thus set apart was surrounded by a tall, thick-set hedge, but after the execution of several persons at the intersection of Edgemont and Providence roads (the colonial law then requiring the burial of the body of the culprit near the gallows) rendered the locality a place of dread, and [it soon began to be regarded] as a spot to be avoided when living and shunned as a place of interment.  In time even that the lot had ever been used as a graveyard was forgotten until the clause in Lydia Wade's will directed attention to it.  In 1868, John and James C. Shedwick erected the row of houses on the east side of Edgemont Avenue, above Twelfth, and while the excavations for the cellars were being made a number of human bones were exposed.  At that time they were thought to be the remains of Indians, the fact that it was the site of an old graveyard being unknown to the public." (Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, pp.336-337)

Gallows Hill's original function as a dignified burial place was contaminated by those who saw fit to raise the gallows at that crossroads of Providence and Edgemont.  It is a testament to the triumph of Goodness that a place of restoration, where the hungry are fed - Chef Reeky's - has sprung up in its place.  Support this good man.  And before we take that first bite, let us say a prayer for the souls whose bones upon which the foundations of that building rests. (photo credit: Chef Reeky's Widener)