Business Profile
S. PANCOAST Topsoil & Mulches
For the Deepest Roots in Marple! Photos courtesy of Doug Humes and Seth Pancoast, Jr.
Seth Pancoast, Jr., has been selling topsoil, mulch and mushroom soil to generations of local residents from his yard at 2635 West Chester Pike since 1975. But his family has been operating various businesses at that site since 1894! And if you think that is a long time, that tradition goes back to the first Seth Pancoast who arrived in Marple Township in the early 1700s, and made fine furnishings for local residents, including a highboy that has found a permanent home at Winterthur! Their story is also the story of Marple Township. In 1894, our Seth’s grandfather, Samuel Levis Pancoast, bought the property where the business now operates, between the new firehouse and Broomall Avenue. Samuel was a blacksmith, and in the era before cars and hardware stores, he kept busy making horseshoes, shoeing horses, and making tools and hardware for businesses and households. He was also a wheelwright, and made and repaired the metal reinforcement that was used for wagon wheels and carriages. And he was able to change with the times. When the Bergdoll brothers needed repairs to their various race cars, they brought them to Samuel – a metal craftsman who could re-create the parts they needed to keep their cars racing on local roads and annoying local residents and the police. Samuel died in 1935, and his oldest son, Samuel Franklin Pancoast, took over the property, but did not continue the business of blacksmithing, by then a dying trade in a modern community. However,
Seth Pancoast, Jr., Owner of S. Pancoast Topsoil & Mulches
he kept the connection to local horses, as he opened up the Samuel Pancoast Riding Academy on that property along West Chester Pike. He offered instruction in riding, and his students came not just from local residents but as far away as Philadelphia – because they could commute out on the West Chester trolley line, which dropped them off just steps away from the property. A show ring was built to accommodate horse shows, and for several years Samuel hosted the annual Broomall Horse Show, with more than 100 horses and riders competing. The property changed hands again in 1953, when it was subdivided into four separate parcels. Samuel’s brother, Seth Ellsworth Pancoast, Sr. (our Seth’s father), bought the parcel with an existing house and the old blacksmith shop. He opened up a garden center, Pancoast Gardens, which operated from 1959 through 1975. The center sold flowers and gardening supplies, as well as seasonal specialties like Christmas trees, pumpkins and Easter flowers.
S. PANCOAST Topsoil & Mulches Serving Homeowners & Commercial Businesses In Broomall and Newtown Square Since 1959
We Only Sell The Highest Quality Screened Topsoil/Mushroom Soil Bark & Root Mulches
“Spectacular products and an extremely knowledgeable man running the business!” www.TopsoilBroomall.com 610-356-1090 /610-356-1818
Samuel Levis Pancoast Seth Ellsworth Pancoast, Sr.
2635 West Chester Pike (Rear), Broomall, PA
SHOP LOCAL - PICKUP OR DELIVERY 16
Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors
May 2020
