While the volumes are not numbered, for cataloguing purposes we have numbered them 1 thru 11. The individual volumes, dates and amount of manuscript pages for each volume are as follows:

Vol.1 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1881, 173 pages.

Vol.2 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1882, 183 pages.

Vol.3 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1883, 184 pages.

Vol.4 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1884, 185 pages.

Vol.5 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1886, 179 pages.

Vol.6 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1887, 132 pages.

Vol.7 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1888, 153 pages.

Vol.8 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1890, 148 pages.

Vol.9 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1891, 148 pages.

Vol.10 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1895-1897, 138 pages.  

Vol.11 Excelsior Daily Journal for 1898-1906, 78 pages.

Thomas Scattergood (1841-1907)

According to E. Digby Baltzell in his classic study of the Philadelphia aristocracy Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class,¹ the Scattergoods had been leaders with the Society of Friends' and in the Philadelphia business community since the eighteenth century. These diaries offer an excellent look at a late 19th Century Quaker Philadelphian and his circle.

Thomas Scattergood was born in Philadelphia on October 11th, 1841, the son of Joseph and Mary (McCollin) Scattergood. He was a trained, successful merchant and a manufacturer of dyewoods, chemicals, etc. He was president of the Sharpless Dyewood Extract Company and he served in many other positions of responsibility: director of the Provident Life and Trust Company, of Philadelphia; director of the Bank of Delaware County (Delaware County National Bank); director of the Glen Iron Furnace Company; President of the American Water Softener Company; a member of the board of trustees of Bryn Mawr College, and the Friends' Asylum for the Insane, of Philadelphia. This collection of diaries covers the last twenty-five years of Scattergood's life.

In 1868, Scattergood married Sarah Garrett. Sarah was born in 1840 at Upper Darby, PA. Together the couple had at least four children: Edward Scattergood (1870-1870), Anna Scattergood (1873-?), Joseph Henry Scattergood (1877-1953), who married at Villanova, Pennsylvania in 1906 to Anna Theodora Morris, and Alfred G. Scattergood (b.1879).

The 1870 Census finds Scattergood living in Philadelphia's 12th Ward, with Sarah and his son Edward. He is listed as a "dyewood dealer." The 1880 Census has the couple living at 502 Marshall Street. Listed with Thomas is his wife Sarah who is keeping house and their three children at this time: Anna, Alfred G., and Joseph H. The family also has the comfort of two servants. Scattergood is listed as a merchant.

When these diaries begin in 1881, Thomas Scattergood had just finished purchasing the lot at 36th Street and Powelton Avenue in Philadelphia and was building his home at 3515 Powelton Avenue, a home that he and his family would live in for many years.

Scattergood's diaries are full of detail concerning his family and domestic life: his wife, his children, his mother, his extended family, his circle of friends and business associates. There is also much on his religious association with the Society of Friends' (Quakers), the various meetings he goes to, the outstanding sermons given by individuals, reports on who speaks up at meetings, plus the details of the various Philadelphia Yearly Meetings that he attends, plus the famous individuals that came from out of town to preach or visit the meetings. This entry from 1882 is only one such of numerous entries concerning the Society of Friends:

"Concluded we would go to the 12th St. Mtg this A.M. to meet with Isaac Sharp of England who has reached this place in his long journey n the service of the Gospel commenced 4 years ago and prosecuted with much industry in So. Africa, Australia, New Zealand &c. He is accompanied by Jod Bean (now of California) in this part of his journey. We took Henry & Alfred with us, but Anna went with Lizzie Garret to W.P. Mtg. when Deborah Rhodes spoke solemnly as if to a young person who might soon be called hence. - S.A. Linton also spoke & her husband Seth Linton addressed the colored boys from the "Shelter" in advices about intemperance, tobacco & c. &c. in such a way as (being unsuited to a mtg of worship) was unacceptable to the Elders who invited him to stop. - I. Sharp preached & prayed very acceptably. He spoke with the friends after Mtg pleasantly. - I. Sharp is a vigorous, vivacious man of abt 75. Chas. Roberts introduced one to Mayor S.G. King - who was (as he often is) present there."

The diaries also contain much commentary upon the leading events and news stories of the day, such as the economy, elections, politics, etc.  In 1881, he devotes several pages to President Garfield's assassination, including this piece of history:

"Public interest in and sympathy for the President continues unabated, and Philadelphians were glad to when they knew that so eminent & safe a surgeon as Dr. D. Hayes Agnew of our city upon being sent for in consultation, fully approved the course of treatment and spoke hopefully....Dr. Agnew's trip to Washington is said to have been made from his home to W [Washington] 149 miles in 150 minutes! in a special train of 1 car via the Penna. R.R. which is probably unprecedented."

Later, in September of 1881, Scattergood describes the news of Garfield's death and the respects and mourning of the President that the city of Philadelphia showed by draping the city in black.

Scattergoods' business interests and the various boards of directors that he sits on, both business and philanthropic, are also documented in the diaries, for instance the following entry describing a construction accident at the Friends' Asylum at Frankford, an institution that he was a board member of:

I was summoned in the A.M. to go to the Frankford Asylum when quite an accident happened last ev abt 8 o'clock. During the course of the introduction of steam heating it was necessary to build an air duct 4 ft square the entire length of the building. It was commenced on the female side of the house and built satisfactorily to the junction of the wing with the Main building and was being constructed under it in the same way, when the trench appears to have been dug to far below the level of the foundations of the front wall - some 40 ft. of which settled down into the trench along with it in the basement which threw the top out and came down with a crash barring one half of the women's side of the Main building exposed from the 3d story (mansard) joists, down!. Providentially no one was hurt in the least, and as most of the patients were out of the wards, scarcely any were frightened and no excitement was occasioned among them."

Events such as the burning of Swarthmore College are also documented by Scattergood on Monday September 26th, 1881:

"I went to Media to Monthly Meeting. - There we learned that Swarthmore College was burned lat night, happily without loss of life altho it was a very serious time & narrow escape for the 208 pupils & 15 teachers &c who were asleep in the building - the fire occurring about midnight. After Mtg we drove to the place & examined the ruins - which were indeed a sad sight - the building being completely burned out. The stone walls are standing, apparently in a good condition but they are about all that remains of what 24 hours ago was a noble structure."

Occasionally Scattergood describes various business or vacation trips such as a ten day trip he took in November 1881, to the south to visit an exposition at Georgia and visiting a number of textile mills. While travelling there was a need for the train to change the "trucks" of the cars at one point, shifting from a smaller gauge to a larger gauge. This railroad work was performed all by "Blacks." Scattergood also describes an 11 day trip in 1881 to Canada taken in company with his cousin.

On October 11th, 1881, Scattergood turns forty years old and offers this introspective comment of his life up to this point:

"This day I complete my 40th year - and was glad to attend meeting as usual at 6th St....In passing one by one the birthdays, they seem like mile posts on our way thro' life, and as each decade is passed and a new one entered it seems a fitting time for more than ordinary reflection. No doubt considerably more than one half of my allotted time on Earth is past - probably half of the time in which I have been & shall be entirely a responsible person responsible toward God for my deeds, words & thoughts. I often fear I am not fully occupying the talents bestowed upon me so that I shall be deemed worthy of the verdict "Well done," when the summons comes to render up my accounts. I remember when the age of 40 seemed to me to be well on toward the close of life - but I feel now in the full enjoyment of vigor and health & am not looking for the Summons to come soon; nevertheless I feel the necessity to "Watch" for it may come when least expected."

Scattergood shows himself in his diaries to be very much a family man. Despite his heavy workload and schedule both in business and charitable work he still finds time to hand make toys for his children. At the end of the yearly diaries, he devotes a page to sum up the year. This entry, taken from the end of his 1881 diary, sums up his year:

"The year closes with my wife in improved health, myself very well and thankful for the numberless blessings which have been showered upon us this year, as well as for the deliverances and preservations from dangers seen and unseen. Business has not been very prosperous nor remunerative this year; I have been getting rather more into public work - some of it business - most of it philanthropic. I trust I will be willing to use my talents to their increase for the praise & cause of the heavenly father."

Sarah Garrett Scattergood died in 1889, only 49 years of age. About the year 1892, Thomas remarried to Maria Chase. The 1900 U.S. Census, the last census that Thomas Scattergood appears on, shows him listed as a "Merchant - Dye Stuffs." Listed along with Thomas in the household is his second wife Maria Chase and two of his sons from his first wife, Joseph Henry Scattergood and Alfred G. Scattergood. There are also listed two children that Thomas fathered with his second wife Maria Chase; his only daughter Margaret and another son named Arnold Chase Scattergood. In 1900, the Scattergoods employed four servants, one of whom was a nurse.

In 1868, Thomas Scattergood became a partner in the firm of John M. Sharpless & Company and was regularly listed as a "dye goods merchant."  The company had been founded in 1835 at Waterville, near Chester, Pennsylvania. John M. Sharpless died in 1875. The company continued under his name until 1882, at which time the name was changed to the Sharpless Dyewood Extract Company.

Besides the extensive manufacturing works and shipping facilities at Chester, the company had offices in the Philadelphia Bourse building and warehouses in downtown Philadelphia on north Front Street. In 1895 the company was incorporated with Thomas Scattergood as president, John W. Pepper as vice-president and George S. Hutton as secretary & treasurer. The company manufactured dyewoods and dyewood extracts for use by cotton, woolen, silk and morocco manufacturers. Besides selling to the trade throughout the United States, their products were largely exported. It was the largest manufactory of its kind in the United States.

Joseph Henry Scattergood, Thomas' son, started in business in Philadelphia with the American Pulley Company, and remained there until 1900, when he became a member of the Sharpless Dyewood Extract Company. Upon the consolidation, in 1904, of this company into the New York and Boston Dyewood Company to form the American Dyewood Company, he became secretary and a director of this new company and held this office until the concentration of its executive offices in New York, in 1906, a year before Thomas Scattergood died.

Alfred Garret Scattergood, Thomas's other son, was vice-president of the Provident Trust Company, and director of the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven Railroad Company, the Saving Fund Society of Germantown, Friends' Hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital, etc.

Thomas Scattergood died while at Naples, Italy, on April 18th, 1907. He was on an extensive tour of Northern Africa, Asia Minor, Europe and England, when he was suddenly taken with pneumonia, his death resulted almost immediately after. He was 66 years old.

After her husband's death, Maria Chase continued living at 3515 Powelton Avenue home until she too died in 1946. The Powelton Avenue house, a well known home in Philadelphia, finally succumbed to the wrecking ball in 1960, giving way to the Samuel Powel School.

1. Baltzell, E. Digby, Philadelphia Gentlemen The Making of a National Upper Class, (Glencoe: 1958) pp., 268-269