S. PANCOAST Topsoil & Mulches: For the Deepest Roots in Marple Newtown!

from Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors magazine, May 2020

Let’s Talk Water Heaters!

Business Profile by Doug Humes

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, 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.

Seth Jr. was running his own dry-cleaning business in Broomall, and then would help out his father with the garden center at night. He later sold the dry-cleaning business, and when the garden center closed, Seth Jr. began his current topsoil and mulch business.

**Seth Pancoast, Jr., Owner of S. Pancoast Topsoil & Mulches**

Seth buys his inventory from a variety of local sources – and uses only top-quality products. Selling top-quality products at fair prices is how you stay in business for 45 years. Seth does not sell artificially dyed products. He uses his own formula to mix his mulches, combining bark and root based on a lifetime experience and a keen eye.

With front-end loaders, he can load up what you need and deliver it to your location in his trucks. Just try to give him some advance notice at busy times during the year. Seth is still essentially a one-man show – with help from his son, Seth E. Pancoast III, for nights and weekends. And for those who can’t wait, you can take advantage of the best deal in town, and come to his yard and buy by the bushel and haul it home with your own buckets, pickup trucks or other containers or vehicles. He will help fill you up and send you off without a delivery charge.

As I sat with Seth on the porch of his daughter's house, enjoying the late afternoon sun, I asked what keeps him going with age 80 in the rearview mirror. “I feel very connected to my Pancoast family members who have operated from this same site,” Seth said. Then he added:

I’ve always loved working outdoors. I’ve always been my own boss, and for most of my career, my business has had just one employee to worry about: Seth Pancoast, Jr., and IT’S BEEN FUN!

For the finest topsoils, mulches and mushroom soil, visit S. Pancoast Topsoil & Mulches, 2635 West Chester Pike, Broomall, PA. Phone 610-356-1090. For hours, location, product descriptions and inquiries, visit www.TopsoilBroomall.com.