“Fowl” Play: An Altercation Over Chickens Turns Deadly

Posted On September 22, 2021

By Sam Pickard

In September 1868—153 years ago today—a fight about trespassing chickens left a Marple man dead. This incident would likely have faded into the mists of time were it for not for its inclusion by Henry Graham Ashmead in his 1884 History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The slightly humorous description which called it “an altercation respecting some chickens,” made me curious, and over the past several months I’ve pieced together the story of what I’ve been calling “the Chicken Murder” to my wife and friends.[1]

The Background

William Stinson was an Irish immigrant who settled in Pennsylvania at some point before 1850. In that year, the roughly 22-year-old Stinson was living in Edgemont Township, Delaware County according to the census. Stinson was employed as a farm laborer and was living in the household of farmer Everett G. Passmore along with the Passmore family and several other laborers or servants. It seems likely, however, that Stinson was employed by but not living with the Passmores, as his 21-year-old wife, Margaret Stinson was living on her own three houses away with their infant daughter, Mary Elizabeth Stinson. Little is known about the Stinsons at the beginning of the 1850s, though they appear to have had connections to West Chester, where they baptized Mary Elizabeth and her little brother Thomas (born 1852) at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity.[2]

Over the next decade, William and Margaret had three more children—Sarah, Hester, and Martha— and by 1860 had moved to northwestern Marple Township, where William was renting a 40-acre farm where he grew wheat, corn, oats, and potatoes.[3] The Stinsons had at least two more children in the 1860s. The family lived in Marple through at least 1863, though they moved to Easttown, Chester County in early 1864, where Stinson purchased a seven-acre farm. In March 1866, Stinson sold the Easttown farm and purchased a 30-acre farm in northwestern Marple township.[4] The Marple farm was located along Media Line Road on land now occupied by the Delaware County Community College. The farm included a two-and-one-half-story frame farmhouse with two rooms on the first and second floors, a frame kitchen building with a water pump, a frame barn with a stone foundation, a spring house, and a stone wagon house. Also on the farm was also a small apple orchard.[5]

A shoemaker named Thomas Bryson (also spelled Brison) was, like Stinson, an Irish immigrant to Pennsylvania. In 1860, Bryson, then about 30, was living in South Philadelphia near the 100-block of Manton Street with his 28-year-old wife Catharine and a 60-year-old Irish laborer named Thomas Ruon—perhaps Catherine’s father or another relative.[6] Throughout the first half of the 1860s, Bryson moved between rented houses in South Philadelphia, though in the 1864, 1865, and 1866 city directories, he was listed at 507 Marriot Street (now called Montrose Street).[7] Bryson wasn’t listed in the 1867 or 1868 directories, though we have a decent idea of where he was: Marple Township.

In September 1868 Thomas and Catharine Bryson were living in Marple with Catherine’s sister Maria Sylvester and Maria’s husband, Joseph Sylvester. While it is not known where exactly the Bryson/Sylvester family’s rented property was, it appears that it was adjacent to the Stinson’s farm.

The Crime

The following facts appear to be agreed upon in all accounts of the incident. On September 22, 1868, as William Stinson and his eldest son Thomas were plowing their fields, preparing to plant wheat, chickens owned by Bryson came under the fence and started scratching up the newly sown wheat seeds on the Stinsons’ fields. Stinson told Bryson to pen up his chickens or he’d shoot them. While Bryson collected his chickens, he told Stinson that if the chickens were shot, it would be a “dear shoot to him,” implying that the farmer would pay for that decision. Later, the chickens came back into the field and William Stinson had his son shoot one of them dead. A scuffle between the three men ensued before it was interrupted by Catharine Bryson, who took her husband home. As he was leaving, he threw a stone at William Stinson, striking him in the head. Stinson was seemingly unphased initially and continued to sow his wheat. Suddenly, he cried out and told his son to get their neighbor Samuel Jackson. Jackson and Thomas Stinson brought William into the house and a doctor was called. The left side of his skull had been fractured and Stinson was suffering from partial paralysis and convulsions. He lingered through the night and died at about daybreak on September 23^rd. Bryson had been arrested on the night of September 22^nd and was subsequently indicted for Murder in the First and Second Degree, as well as Manslaughter, and held in the county jail in Media.[8]

The Trial

In late November, the trial was held in the Media courthouse, with William Ward and C. D. M. Broomall prosecuting the case and Charles D. Manley serving as the defense attorney. Before the trial began, the prosecution dropped all charges except for manslaughter.[9]

Aside from Dr. Heisham, who attended Stinson as he died, and Samuel Jackson, who helped Stinson to his house, the prosecution’s main witness was 16-year-old Thomas Stinson.

Thomas testified that after he shot one of Bryson’s chickens, Bryson leapt over the fence onto the Stinson property and grabbed the dead chicken. William Stinson demanded he leave the chicken on the ground and when Bryson refused, their sharp words were replaced by blows. Thomas Stinson was not sure who struck first, but claimed that Bryson soon knocked his father down and struck him on the ground. Thomas then pulled Bryson off of his father, with the elder Stinson getting on top of Bryson and hitting him while the shoemaker screamed for him to stop and let him up. Thomas asked his father to let Bryson up, which he did. Once he stood up, Bryson apparently moved toward Stinson, who struck him three times. At this point, Catharine Bryson intervened and stopped the fight, but not before Thomas Bryson picked up a rock and threw it at William Stinson, hitting him in the head.

According to Thomas Stinson, his father continued his farm work after being struck by the rock, while Thomas Stinson taunted Bryson, calling him a coward. Bryson retorted that he would stone the teenager, but Thomas Stinson said to Bryson that if he came back, he’d shoot him. Bryson apparently got a gun from his house and was walking back down the road to the Stinsons when Catharine Bryson came out, crying “murder,” and called him back to the house. Meanwhile, William Stinson had gone around his field once or twice before he screamed and fell, telling his son to fetch Samuel Jackson.

The defense’s primary witness was Maria Sylvester—Catharine Bryson’s sister and Thomas Bryson’s sister-in-law. According to Sylvester, Thomas Bryson did not cross onto the Stinson’s property immediately after the shooting, simply asking that they throw the dead chicken over the fence. Thomas Stinson was apparently going to hand the chicken over, but his father told him to “let [Bryson] come over after it.” When Bryson leapt over the fence and went to grab the chicken, William Stinson advanced on him and struck him and pulled him to the ground. Stinson then allegedly got on Bryson and was kicking him while he was on the ground. Thomas Stinson allegedly was joining in when Catharine Bryson came running over crying “murder” and saying that the two Stinsons would kill her husband. When Catharine pulled her husband off the ground, Thomas Stinson allegedly grabbed the gun, called her an obscenity, and said that if she touched him, he would shoot her. After Bryson got up, William Stinson struck him and Bryson hit back before Thomas Stinson threatened to shoot him. Stinson then threw two stones at Bryson missing. Bryson then picked up one and threw it at Stinson, but didn’t know he hit him. As Catharine Bryson took her husband home, William Stinson allegedly called after them that he would kill Thomas Bryson or any other shoemaker.

Maria Sylvester claimed that she was standing not 30 yards away the whole time and could see and hear all that happened, but had not told anyone except for two men who had visited the next morning.

Five separate character witnesses were called by the defense, testifying to Thomas Bryson’s good reputation and character.

The trial ended with the testimonies of a “Mr. Green” and Eber Lewis, who were called by the prosecution to rebut Maria Sylvester’s testimony. These two men were the ones who had visited Sylvester on the morning of September 23^rd. They claimed that she had apparently been unaware of the fight and had exclaimed “Oh, no; not our Thomas,” when they informed her. Additionally, both Green and Lewis claimed that Sylvester told them that Bryson and Stinson had recently quarreled at a tavern and Bryson had promised to “fix” the other man.

The jury deliberated for several hours before finding Thomas Bryson guilty of manslaughter. They accompanied their verdict with the recommendation that Bryson be shown mercy in sentencing. To that end, he was sentenced to two years of solitary confinement and labor in the county jail in Media, and had to pay a fine of $5 for court costs.[10]

Afterward

The Stinson family seems to have coped as best as they could. Margaret Stinson was pregnant when her husband was slain, and just about three weeks later, she gave birth to his posthumous son, Edward Stinson.[11] William Stinson was buried in Media Cemetery and in March 1869, the Stinson’s Marple farm was sold at auction to Patrick J. Murphy for $120.[12]

By 1870, they were living in a rented house in Willistown Township, Chester County, where Thomas Stinson was working as an apprentice blacksmith.[13] In 1880, Margaret, her younger daughters, and her youngest son, Edward Stinson were living in Edgemont Township where she “tended dairy.”[14] By 1892, Margaret Stinson had moved to Aston Township, where she died in 1896. She was interred next to her husband in Media Cemetery.[15]

The 1870 census found Thomas Bryson as an inmate in the county jail in Media.[16] Catharine Bryson was still living in Marple with Joseph and Maria Sylvester. Thomas was presumably released at the end of his sentence in November 1870 and the family moved back to South Philadelphia.[17]

Tragically the departure from Delaware County would not start a happy chapter in the Brysons’ lives. Catharine Bryson became ill on Christmas Day 1871 and died in their house at 703 Plover Street on New Year’s Day, 1872.[18] Thomas Bryson remarried in March 1872, and with his new wife, Catharine Mullin, he had at least three children before he was widowed again on December 28, 1878.[19] Byrson continued to work as a shoemaker—joined for a time by his son, Thomas Bryson Jr.—until his own death on February 28, 1901.[20]

When William Stinson died, any hopes and dreams the Stinson family held of agrarian stability and the respectability they would gain as landowning farmers died with him. Likewise, a rash move by Thomas Bryson left him in jail for two years and then back in South Philadelphia for the remainder of his life. Considering how each reacted and the testimony of Green and Lewis about preexisting disagreements between Stinson and Bryson, the chicken being shot was likely just the straw that broke the camel’s back. This incident is of no real significance in Marple or Delaware County’s history; rather it is a vignette of how some birdshot and a rock ended two Irish immigrant families’ hopes for the American dream in Marple.

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[1] Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1884), 177, 583.

[2] 1850 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Edgemont Township, sheet 219A, lines 15, 32-33; “Mary Elizabeth Stinson,” baptism, at Church of the Holy Trinity, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 19 May 1850 in “Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Church and Town Records, 1669-2013,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania); “Thomas Stinson,” baptism, at Church of the Holy Trinity, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 20 June 1852 in “Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Church and Town Records, 1669-2013,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania).

[3] 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 104, lines 23-29; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 4.—Productions of Agriculture, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 11, line 3.

[4] 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Chester County, Willistown Township, page 22, lines 38-40, page 23, lines 1-7; Chester County Deed Book W6, 328-330; Chester County Deed Book F7, 164-165; Delaware County Deed Book R2, 303 (Deed not found, but recited in Delaware County Deed Book X2, 451-453).

[5] “Administrator’s Sale of Real Estate,” advertisement, Delaware County Republican [Chester, Pennsylvania], 26 March 1869.

[6] A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1860 (Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle Co.,1860), 112; A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1861 (Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle & Co.,1861), 113; 1860 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Free Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 104, lines 23-29.

[7] A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1862 (Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle & Co.,1862), 71; A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1863 (Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle & Co.,1863), 112; A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1864 (Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle & Co.,1864), 77; A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1865 (Philadelphia: A. McElroy.,1865), 99; A. McElroy, compiler, McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1866 (Philadelphia: A. McElroy,1866), 102.

[8] This account is assembled from newspaper reports of the actual event and of the trial. “Fatal Affray,” Delaware County Republican [Chester, Pennsylvania], 25 September 1868, p. 3; “A Fatal Affray in Marple,” Delaware County American [Media, Pennsylvania], 30 September 1868, 3; “Court Proceedings,” Delaware County American, 2 December 1868, p. 3.

[9] Due to the lack of transcripts of the trial, the Delaware County American provided the most complete account of the testimony given in the trail. Most of the following is based on the account of the proceedings printed in the December 2, 1868 issue of the paper. “Court Proceedings,” Delaware County Republican, 27 November 1868, 3; “Court Proceedings,” Chester Advocate [Chester, Pennsylvania], 28 November 1868, p. 3; Court Proceedings,” Delaware County American, 2 December 1868, p. 3.

[10] “Court Proceedings,” Delaware County American, 2 December 1868, 3; Quarter Sessions Docket Vol. 4, Feb. 1858-Nov. 1869, p. 372, Delaware County Archives, Media, Pennsylvania.

[11] Entry for “Edward F Stinson,” died 9 January 1926, in “Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1967,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Pennsylvania (State), Death Certificates, 1906–1963, Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons), Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).

[12] Find a Grave, online database, page for William Stinson, Find a Grave Memorial no. 180029356, https://www.findagrave.com; “Administrator’s Sale of Real Estate,” advertisement, Delaware County Republican [Chester, Pennsylvania], 26 March 1869; Delaware County Deed Book X2, 451-453.

[13] 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Chester County, Willistown Township, page 22, lines 38-40, page 23, lines 1-7.

[14] 1880 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Edgemont Township, Enumeration District 028, page 8, lines 27-31.

[15] “Martha M. Stinson,” death notice, Times [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], 19 April 1892, 5; “Margaret Stinson,” death notice, Times, 26 July 1896, 11.

[16] 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Media Borough, page 18, line 5.

[17] 1870 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Marple Township, page 4, lines 8-10.

[18] “Natural Causes,” Philadelphia Inquirer [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], 4 January 1872, 3.

[19] “Thomas Bryson” and “Catharine Mullin,” marriage, at Third Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 March 1872 in “U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Church Registers, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JK92-72P : 18 February 2021), Mary Bryson, 25 July 1877, citing , Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, FHL microfilm 2,028,060; “Catharine McMullin Bryson,” death notice, Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 December 1878, 5; 1880 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.—Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Ward 2, Enumeration District 0033, page 3, lines 28-30; Isaac Costa, compiler, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1874 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill, 1874), 226; Isaac Costa, compiler, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1879 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill, 1879), 254; Isaac Costa, compiler, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1880 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill, 1880), 266.

[20] James Gopsill, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1882 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill, 1882), 248; James Gopsill’s Sons, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1885 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill’s Sons, 1885), 271; James Gopsill’s Sons, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1890 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill’s Sons, 1890), 279; James Gopsill’s Sons, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1896 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill’s Sons, 1896), 263; James Gopsill’s Sons, Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1901 (Philadelphia: James Gopsill’s Sons, 1901), 339; “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JK7H-FQH : 18 February 2021), Thomas Bryson, 28 February 1901, citing item 1 cn 18513, Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, FHL microfilm 1,845,288.