This Week in Chester History…

In 1955, Lydia Young, Chester’s oldest citizen passed away at the age of 98. According to The Mendham-Chester Tribune, Young only left Chester twice — on her honeymoon for a brief time, and for two years after the Civil War ended when she lived with her in-laws in Ralston. When she was 15 (and known as Lydia Jane Patrey), she eloped with blacksmith William E. Young. She knew Chester when it was a stagecoach stop and a flourishing iron mining town, and started school when Abraham Lincoln was President.