The Land: Cartertown and Carterville

How to read the labels. DOCUMENTED an original or contemporary record · SUPPORTED a credible published source or sourced tree; original not yet seen · FAMILY TRADITION a handed-down story, not yet proven · HYPOTHESIS a reasoned idea still to be tested · DISPROVEN-CORRECTED shown to be wrong, with the correction. “Potts” means Thomas Maxwell Potts, Bi-Centenary Memorial of Jeremiah Carter (1883); “Court Record” means Record of the Courts of Chester County (1910).

Carter land in Chester Township, 1687–1931
Date	Event	Acres	Label	Source
by Dec 1687	A road is laid across “Jeremy Carters land”	—	DOCUMENTED	Court Record p.117
9 10mo 1690	Bought from William Woodmansee for £6 6s	20	DOCUMENTED	Court Record p.227; Potts p.27
11 Sep 1694	Robert and Lydia Wade give land to Jeremiah’s daughter Lydia	50	DOCUMENTED	Court Record p.331
1702–03	Bought from Henry and Mary Worley (180 acres), resurveyed as 215	215	SUPPORTED	Potts p.28
1703	Resurvey: total holding in Chester Township	285	SUPPORTED	Potts pp.28–29
1715–22	250 acres in Sadsbury Township, given to son Edward, then sold	250	SUPPORTED	Potts pp.30–31
Nov 1731	Conveyed to son Nineveh	−88	SUPPORTED	Potts p.31
1735/7	Will: home plantation to Mary, then Abraham	—	SUPPORTED	Potts pp.31–32
1777	Edward (d. 1777) leaves his Chester Creek land to Abraham	—	SUPPORTED	Potts p.48
1789–93	Abraham’s land divided: Joseph and Daniel about 165½, Edward 92, meadow about 8	≈265	SUPPORTED	Potts pp.48, 60–64
1819–21	Edward’s plantation, “fifty acres more or less”, to his daughter Ann Roberts	≈50	SUPPORTED	Potts pp.62–63
1872–79	Edward Carter the potter’s will and his son Paul B. Carter’s lawsuits	—	DOCUMENTED	Delaware County Daily Times, 13 Jun 1877; 15 Apr 1879
1931	Carter heirs still on record for a lot beside the burial ground	0.57	DOCUMENTED	Chester Times, 12 Feb 1931

285 or 440 acres?

The records show 285 acres in Chester Township SUPPORTED. The family figure of 440 acres is a rounded memory FAMILY TRADITION with no source yet. One possible origin is the “Lawrence Routh 436 acres” tract printed beside the Carter land on the 1703 plat HYPOTHESIS.

Maps and views

Photograph to come1703 resurvey plat (Potts p.29)From the Timothy family collection

Photograph to come1870 or 1875 Delaware County atlas: CartervilleFrom the Timothy family collection

Photograph to comeModern parcel map of the old Carter tractFrom the Timothy family collection

Photograph to comeChester Creek and the Carterville area todayFrom the Timothy family collection

Bronze plaque at the Carter Graveyard naming Jeremiah Carter, linen weaver, and his 285 acres on Chester Creek — The plaque at the Carter Graveyard. Photo: Kevin Timothy family collection.

An overlay of the old tracts on a modern parcel map is in preparation.

From the Archive

1687–1694 · Record of the Courts of Chester County 1681–1697 (pub. 1910) DOCUMENTED

Jeremy Carter in the first county court records

By 1687 a road is laid out "crosse Jeremy Carters land". Jeremy Carter serves on juries, including a petty jury in a criminal trial, and is chosen constable. On 11 Sep 1694 Robert and Lydia Wade deed 50 acres in Chester Township to Jeremiah Carter for his daughter Lydia.

More in the Carterville timeline

Wed 25 Aug 1880, p.3 · Delaware County Daily Times (Chester) DOCUMENTED

“Carterville, Chester Township” No. 1: Concord Avenue fifty years ago

P. B. Carter's reminiscence of the road between Carterville and Chester around 1830. No house stood between Carterville and Birchell's Corner (Third St & Concord Ave). The forty-acre common was "too poor" for crowfoot. Wellington was hanged there for the murder of Bonsall, the last public execution in the county. The Upland farm had saw and flour mills before John P. Crozer bought it. A towering thorn hedge ran from Pennell's gate, and the road was haunted: no dairy maid went to the Chester market without a lantern and the black family dog. In 1880 the village had two active mechanics, Caleb T. Pierce (iron) and George McCartney (wood), "eighteen curbstone lawyers" and several wealthy bachelors. It claims Jeremiah arrived two years before Penn and that the Carter purchase ran from Chester's South Ward to Baldwin's Run.

More in the Carterville timeline

Fri 3 Sep 1880, p.4 · Delaware County Daily Times FAMILY TRADITION

“Carterville” No. 2: ghosts, witches and Bluebeard's gold

Penn's Chester Township once ran from Lower Chichester to Aston and Ridley Creek. Spectres walked Concord Avenue: a great black or white dog, a calf walking upright on two legs, a three- or five-legged calf, a headless man in grave clothes. Legend held that "Bluebeard" buried money along the Delaware and Chester Creek and killed a man to guard each hoard, and that diggers lost the pot if they spoke. There were two township schools: the log "mud wasp" on Chichester Road west of Carterville, and one at Sneath's Corner on the Middletown Road. Carterville children in summer walked to Dutton's crossroads or to Chester. Carter predicts Carterville will join the city by 1900. Signed "P. B. C."

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Wed 13 Jun 1877, p.4 · Delaware County Daily Times DOCUMENTED

“The Carter Will Case”: P. B. Carter answers the papers

Paul B. Carter sued his sisters and the heirs of his brother Edward Carter Jr. over their father Edward Carter's estate, and he writes in to say the press reports were false. "Drowning men catch at straws."

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Tue 15 Apr 1879, p.3 · Delaware County Daily Times DOCUMENTED

Special Court at Media: Carter v. Carrigan and Carter v. Ramsey

Judge J. R. Ludlow of Philadelphia hears P. B. Carter's ejectment suits for land near Cartertown. Edward Carter's will of August 1872 is attacked on the ground that he had suffered "congestion of the brain" for years. Witnesses Joseph Taylor and Charles Flower swear he was of sound mind.

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Tue 22 Apr 1879, p.3 · Delaware County Daily Times DOCUMENTED

“Takes Exceptions”: one-tenth of Carterville

A correspondent "learned in the law" (almost certainly P. B. Carter) says the suits concerned only the plaintiff's one-tenth share, as an heir-at-law, of lands at Carterville on the south side of Concord Avenue. His June 1877 jury verdict did not establish the will. The full page also carries a circus at Sneath Street and Concord Avenue.

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