On Feb. 5, 1847, a public meeting was held in the courthouse at West Chester and a committee was appointed to solicit subscriptions from the people of the county for the relief of the people of Ireland who were in such distress caused by the failure of the potato crop..

This committee consisted of:

• Townsend Haines
• David Townsend
• Nimrod Strickland
• Wilmer Worthington
• Thomas S. Bell
• Rev. J.B. Clemson
• John Crowell
• James Powell
• William Ingram
• Joseph J. Lewis
• John Hickman
• William Darlington, MD
• William Everhart
• Robert Irwin
• John Rutter
• J.B. Wood

The committee successfully raised many hundreds of dollars, and the funds were used to buy provisions that were shipped to Cork, Ireland...flour, cornmeal, pork, beef and peas...all gratefully received by the people of Cork. In a letter to the people of Chester, it was said "Never did a gift come more opportunely; our own funds are now all spent, and our government has ordered all relief-works to be suspended.  In a few days more our district would have been subjected to the horrors that are now, and have been for months, sweeping away thousands upon thousands of the Irish population......"