South Chester Borough.- Originally part of Chester township and now part of the city of Chester, South Chester was in its separate form a busy hive of manufacturing industry. As part of Chester it now constitutes an important part of the wealth and prosperity of that city. On April 15, 1869, the legislature created the District of Lamokin and March 12, 1870, passed an act providing "that the district of Lamokin in the county of Delaware, together with two certain tracts of land, each containing about twenty acres, lying adjacent to the said district * * * be and the same is constituted a borough * * * with the name style and title of the Borough of South Chester in the County of Delaware." The first burgess was Thomas J. Clayton, elected in April, 1870, when the first vote cast by a colored man in the state of Pennsylvania was cast at the first borough election held in South Chester, by William Henry Cooper. In 1879 the town hall was erected, and dedicated October 27, of that year. Churches, schools and mills of South Chester are treated in separate chapters. In 1897 the borough gave up its separate corporate existence and became a part of the city of Chester and now constitutes the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Wards. The first fire company in the borough was the Felton Fire Company, organized in 1882, which the same year erected at a cost of $3,000 a brick fire house between Morton and Feifrey streets. The first newspapers were the South Chester News, established by W. Warren Webb, March 23, 1883. The Plain Speaker was established August 1, 1883, by Olin T. Pancoast.

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