Who Is This Man Named Chads?

By Susan Hauser

John Chads was born in 1697 and died in 1760. Spell his last name "Chads," as he wrote it on his tavern petitions, or double the ds, as it often was written by others. Or spell out the English family's name in full, "Chadsey." However you spell it, the name refers to the farmer, ferryman, tavernkeeper, public figure, and "weighty" Quaker whose house still stands on a hillside above Creek Road (Route 100 North), not far from "Ye Great Road to Nottingham" (U.S. Route 1).

The story of the Chadsey/Chads family is still incomplete, but references from sources at archives and historical societies and Quaker meeting minutes are more than just interesting footnotes. They are beginning to tell us more about the man, what his business ventures were, how he was regarded in the 18th century community in which he moved, who his relatives were.

Sometime prior to February 1683, Francis Chadsey and his wife, the widow Hester Coaleman Davis, arrived on these shores from Wiltshire, England aboard the Bristol Merchant. A blacksmith by trade and an entrepreneur, Francis came with 800 pounds of cheese, butter, and biscuits -- and iron and nails. A daughter Sarah was born to the Chadseys, but we know few details except that by July 1695 Hester had died. It was then that Francis Chadsey lay before Concord Monthly Meeting his intentions to marry Grace Stanfield, daughter of Francis Stanfield, one of the first settlers of Marple Township. Their eldest son, John, was born in 1697.

In 1702, the Chadsey family "removed" to Burmingham (Birmingham) Township where Francis had purchased a 500 acre plantation of good meadow and upland. Within a year's time, he had built a mill, probably a log structure, on the banks of the Brandywine Creek. It was a corn mill which, in the English tradition, means that grains -- wheat, oats, and barley -- were milled there.

Our information fast forwards to 1713. Francis Chadsey died, leaving his plantation and half of his mill to John, "when he comes of age." Grace must have continued to operate the mill after her husband's death. That same year she signed a nine-year agreement for water rights "extending one and forty perches" on the Brandywine for which she was to pay four English silver shillings on the first day of the first month each year.

In 1714, Grace married Gaien Stevenson; by 1717, documents indicate that Mordecai Cloud, husband of John's half-sister Sarah, had been appointed by the Orphans Court as John's "next friend and guardian during the time of his nonage." Mordecai was seeking an account of Grace's administration of her late husband's estate and the remuneration due him as guardian. A year later, turning twenty-one and having come into his inheritance, John appears on Birmingham Township's tax rolls. By the tender age of twenty-five, John is high on the list of taxables, an indication of his financial standing in the community.

When we next hear of John, c. 1725, he has had a house built on a hillside near the Brandywine. He commissioned John Wyeth, Jr., (no relation of the Wyeth family of artists) to build the two-story banked house of local stone, some of it Brandywine bluestone. It is surmised that John may have lived in the spacious springhouse with sleeping loft before the main house was finished.

Grace Chadsey Stevenson died in 1727, and John's sister Betty inherited her mother's half of the mill which she signed over to John. However, no further mention is made of the mill.

On August 2, 1729, John married Elizabeth Richardson at Goshen Monthly Meeting. A well-to-do, educated Quaker, Elizabeth was the daughter of Isaac and Catherine Richardson of Whiteland. Although John and Elizabeth have no children, it is interesting to follow their relationship with their nieces and nephews (then referred to as cousins). There are copies of correspondence between them, their names appear in their wills, they keep an eye on Elizabeth after John dies.

It is uncertain when the "Brandewine at [the) foord called Chads" was first referred to as "Chad's ford", although it was certainly his land along the banks of the creek near "Ye Great Road to Nottingham". As traffic on the road increased, it is logical that travellers and tradesmen would find a place shallow enough to make crossing the creek possible. However, freshets and floods often made the traverse treacherous so John, an entrepreneur like his father, took the next step and built a ferry. In 1736, ferriage rates were established. Based on John's recommendations, they ranged from "every sheep - one penny" to "every coach, waggon, or cart - one shilling & six pence."

As early as 1731, another business had attracted John's attention. He applied for a tavern license. However, there is no record that it was allowed, and his next attempt at petitioning for a license was in 1736. By then, he mentions his ferry service across the Brandywine as a good reason for him to run a "publick inn for the conveniency of travellers."

There have always been questions about where the inn or tavern was located. Later licenses for the business refer to its being "where John Chads dwelt." However, it is difficult to imagine that what we know today as the John Chads House was a public inn. The tavern licenses are regularly renewed until 1742 when the petition is not allowed. But not for long. John re-petitions and threatens to suspend his ferry service if his tavern license is not renewed. His friends in neighboring communities petition in support of his application. Two and a half months later, his tavern is licensed.

It is about this period in Chads' life, from 1735 to 1758, that we find mention of John Chads in Quaker meeting minutes. As a weighty Quaker, a respected member of meeting, a literate man, he is called upon to participate in several Quakerly tasks on behalf of Concord Monthly Meeting. These included providing oversight of Quaker marriages as well as reviewing and drawing up "certificates" acknowledging and approving the transfer of memberships to other meetings as local Quaker families grew and migrated.

John is also a public figure of some importance in Chester County. Orphans Court records show that the court was held at his home periodically. He was named as an executor in the wills of a number of his relatives and neighbors. He served as an auditor for the estate of William Barns, owner of the Chadds Ford Historical society's other 18th century restoration, now the Barns-Brinton House.

With significant land holdings in the County, we know that Chads had property in Marlborough Township as well as Birmingham. He was also a landowner "in the Jerseys," having inherited property from his mother. Elizabeth had land, too, property in Whiteland Township which she and her sisters (and husbands) inherited from their father. A 1741/42 document transfers the jointly held property to John Hunter.

In 1746, John leased the tavern and ferry to James House, Elizabeth's older sister's second husband, and the tavern license continue to be renewed until the time of the Revolution. John, however, must have continued his interest in the ferry because even in the year of his death, 1760, he is submitting bills to the County related to the ferry.

John Chads died in 1760, leaving his wife Elizabeth, among other things1 forty acres of land, "firewood...to be cut of such a length as she pleases and hauled to her door," the best of his livestock, and use of the house -- where she lived for another thirty years.

Chadds Ford has been a place name since John "put his ford on the map," probably sometime in the 1730s. On December 11, 1996, Birmingham Township where John Chads lived for fifty-eight years in the 18th century, took his name as its own. (It was Birmingham Township, Chester County, during John's days. It became Delaware County in 1789 when the line was drawn on the land, literally around farmsteads. The new county was carved out and the two Birmingham Townships were created.)