From Census Names to Real People

       When I started looking into Powelton history, I began with the censuses. They give the name of each resident plus a few words to describe them in terms of marital status, occupation, place of birth, etc. Some of those individuals were quite prominent. However, most Poweltonians didn't head national organizations or large companies, didn't write books, and weren't heroes of the Civil War. Digging deeper using a wider variety of sources, I occasionally find brief insights into the lives of more typical Poweltonians -- some of their history, details about their jobs or social life, or hints about what happened to them in later years.
       Here are three examples from the 3600 block of Hamilton St. around WWI. These families were neighbors who probably saw each other on a regular basis while walking down the street or waiting for a trolley.

3618 Hamilton St.
       The 1910 census lists a widow, Emma Southgate (age 58), her unmarried daughter, Eva (34), and a boarder, Samuel Zacharias (70). Zacharias is listed as a widower who was the superintendent of a trust company. A brief obituary for him provides insights into his varied past.

1915: “Samuel M. Zacharias, 74 years old, who died Sunday night at his home, 3618 Hamilton street, was for 30 years superintendent of vaults of the Guarantee Trust and Safe Deposit Company. Mr. Zacharias was born in Lingletown, Dauphin County, and was graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1863. That year he joined the Union Army, serving in the Sixth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry. Following this he entered the grain business with his father, and later was appointed Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue for Juanita, Mifflin and Snyder Counties.” (Evening Public Ledger, Jan. 26, 1915)

3624 Hamilton St.
       A few doors down the block in 1920, we find Bridget Connor (age 75). She lived with her son, Bernard (38), her married (but separated?) daughter, Genevieve, and two granddaughters. Bernard was single and the manager of a fertilizer company. However, a newspaper story about a simple robbery offers some interesting details.

1921: “FOUR AUTO BANDITS ROB ONE-ARMED MAN OF $4000.
       “Jewelry Taken From Crippled Victim Near His Home.
       “A one-armed man was held up by four men in a motor and robbed of jewelry valued at $4000 within a half block of his home at midnight. The victim is Bernard Connor, 3624 Hamilton street, owner of a fertilizing business at Twenty-sixth and York streets. The hold-up was at Thirty-seventh and Hamilton streets.
       “Connor looked over his shoulder when he heard the motor approaching. He saw it slow down, and three men jumped out. With his only arm, his right, he struck and knocked down the leading man.
       “The others drew revolvers and threatened their victim.
       “One of them snatched a diamond stickpin from Connor's necktie, another took off a diamond ring and the third went through his vest pockets and found a gold watch. They did not bother with his wallet which contained $45.
       “The highwaymen left in their car and Connor ran along Hamilton street until he stopped a motor and persuaded the driver to give chase. The two machines sped out to Fortieth and Baring streets where the bandits' car eluded the pursuing one” (Phila. Inquirer, March 1, 1921)

3629 Hamilton St.
       Across the street, was Augustus Keil (age 39) and his family: wife, Rebecca (31), son Robert (10) and daughters, Henrietta (8) and Anna (2). They also have a nanny, a 35 year-old black woman who was widowed. In 1920, they have another daughter, Rebecca. Robert was then 19 and working as an electrical engineer building organs. However, two small newspaper articles give some idea of what life was like for the Keil family between the censuses.

August, 1918: “Private Keil., Company M, 109th Infantry. Reported missing in action on July 15, 1918. He was eighteen years old, and enlisted in the old First Regiment, N. G. P., in May, 1917. He received his training at Camp Hancock, and sailed for France in May, 1918. The last letter received by his parents was dated June 27, 1918. Prior to enlisting he was a student at West Philadelphia High School. He lived with his father, at 3629 Hamilton street.” (Evening Public Ledger, August 16, 1918)

January, 1919: “The War Department announced today the names of one officer and 264 enlisted men of the American expeditionary force, who have arrived in France after being released from the German prison camp at Rastatt…. Among the enlisted men from this city… Roger H. Kiel, 3629 Hamilton street….” (Phila. Inquirer, Jan. 4, 1919)

       A death, a robbery, and a POW returning home are not everyday occurrences. In each case, they reveal something about these individuals. However, they also give us some feel for the neighborhood. These events were known to all the neighbors and, to some extent, they were shared losses and celebrated victories -- shared experiences that make a neighborhood (or a village) more than a list of names with ages, occupations and places of birth.

The People Behind the Census Listings

       When I started looking into Powelton history, I began with the censuses. They give the name of each resident plus a few words to describe them in terms of their marital status, occupation, place of birth, etc. I have since discovered that some of individuals were quite prominent. However, most Poweltonians didn't head national organizations or large companies, didn't write books, and weren't heroes of the Civil War. Digging deeper using a wider variety of sources, I have occasionally found brief insights into the lives of less prominent, more typical Poweltonians. This might be some of their history, details about their jobs or social life, or hints about what happened to them in later years.
       Here are three examples from the 3600 block of Hamilton St. around WWI. These families were neighbors who probably saw each other on a regular basis while walking down the street or waiting for a trolley.

3618 Hamilton St.
       The 1910 census lists a widow, Emma Southgate (age 58), her unmarried daughter, Eva (34), and a boarder, Samuel Zacharias (70). Zacharias is listed as a widower who was the superintendent of a trust co. A brief obituary for him provides insights into his varied past.
       1915: "Samuel M Zacharias, 74 years old, who died Sunday night at his home, 3618 Hamilton street, was for 30 years superintendent of vaults of the Guarantee Trust and Safe Deposit Company. Mr. Zacharias was born in Lingletown, Dauphin County, and was graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1863. That year he joined the Union Army, serving in the Sixth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry. Following this he entered the grain business with his father, and later was appointed Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue for Juanita, Mifflin and Snyder Counties." (Evening Public Ledger, Jan. 26, 1915)

3624 Hamilton St.
       A few doors down the block in 1920, we find Bridget Connor (age 75). She lives with her son, Bernard (38), her married (but separated?) daughter, Genevieve, and two granddaughters. Bernard was single and the manager of a fertilizer company. However, a newspaper story about a robbery offers some interesting details.
       1921: "FOUR AUTO BANDITS ROB ONE-ARMED MAN OF $4000.
       "Jewelry Taken From Crippled Victim Near His Home.
       "A one-armed man was held up by four men in a motor and robbed of jewelry valued at $4000 within a half block of his home at midnight. The victim is Bernard Connor, 3624 Hamilton street, owner of a fertilizing business at Twenty-sixth and York streets. The hold-up was at Thirty-seventh and Hamilton streets.
       "Connor looked over his shoulder when he heard the motor approaching. He saw it slow down, and three men jumped out. With his only arm, his right, he struck and knocked down the lending man.
       "The others drew revolvers and threatened their victim.
       "One of them snatched a diamond stickpin from Connor's necktie, another took off a diamond ring and the third went through his vest pockets and found a gold watch. They did not bother with his wallet which contained $45.
       "The highwaymen left in their car and Connor ran along Hamilton street until he stopped a motor and persuaded the driver to give chase. The two machines sped out to Fortieth and Baring streets where the bandits' car eluded the pursuing one" (Phila. Inquirer, March 1, 1921)
       So here we see Bernard as a feisty company owner, missing one arm, and walking down the street at midnight wearing jewelry worth $4,000.

3629 Hamilton St.
       Across the street, was Augustus Keil (age 39) and his family: wife, Rebecca (31), son Robert (l0) and daughters, Henrietta (8) and Anna (2). They also have a nanny, a 35 year-old black woman who was widowed. In 1920, they have another daughter, Rebecca. Robert was then 19 and working as an electrical engineer building organs. However, two newspaper articles give some idea of what his life was like between the censuses.
       August, 1918: “Private Keil., Company M, 109th Infantry. Reported missing in action on July 15, 1918. He was eighteen years old, and enlisted in the old First Regiment, N. G. P., in May, 1917. He received his training at Camp Hancock, and sailed for France in May, 1918. The last letter received by his parents was dated June 27, 1918. Prior to enlisting he was a student at West Philadelphia High School. He lived with his father, at 3629 Hamilton street.” (Evening Public Ledger, 8/16/1918)
       January, 1919: "The War Department announced today the names of one officer and 264 enlisted men of the American expeditionary force, who have arrived in France after being released from the German prison camp at Rastatt.... Among the enlisted men from this city ... Roger H Keil, 3629 Hamilton street...." (Phila. Inquirer, Jan. 4, 1919)

       A death, a robbery, and a POW returning home are not everyday occurrences. These events reveal something about these individuals. However, they also give us some feel for the neighborhood. These events were known to all the neighbors and, to some extent, they were shared losses and celebrated victories -- shared experiences that make a neighborhood (or a village) more than a list of names with ages, occupations and places of birth.

J. Henry Scattergood's Letter Home from War-Torn France, March 1919

       J. Henry Scattergood (1877-1953) grew up in Powelton.  His family moved to 3515 Powelton Ave. in 1880 when he was a few years old and he lived there for more than 40 years.  The Scattergoods were a prominent Quaker family whose members were associated with numerous Quaker causes.   After several years in business, Henry became treasurer of Haverford College in 1916 and treasurer of Bryn Mawr College in 1927.  He also served as U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs under President Herbert Hoover.

J. Henry Scattergood, c1919

       After WWI, he went to France as a member of the Society of Friends’ Committee of the National Red Cross to coordinate food aid.  When Herbert Hoover invited the American Friends Service Committee to take charge of feeding German child, Henry’s brother, Alfred G. Scattergood, became chief of that unit.

        Henry wrote the following letter to his wife on March 14, 1919 at a pivotal moment in European history.  The letter describes the scene immediately around him, the broader situation in France, Germany and Austria, American politics, the hope for a new “league of nations” and his fears for “another struggle of the future“ if the league was not designed with the proper intent.  It is an amazing, insightful document written by one of Powelton’s finest.  It is copied here in full as it was printed in the Evening Public Ledger in April, 1919.

        "I started a letter two days ago from Paris, but was interrupted by interviews, and then suddenly found I had to leave that evening for Neufchateau, in the east of France, to see some United States army officers about materials which we need in the Verdun area. So yesterday was spent on trains and at Neufchateau and today again on trains on my way to Charmont (our new headquarters in the Verdun area). I have an hour before the connecting train leaves for Bar le Duc. Hundreds of ‘Yanks’ are all around us – typical scene. There is a constant string in one door to the canteen and out another, each fellow getting his can full of hot coffee and a sandwich. He pays a trifle if he has the money, otherwise it is given.

        "Besides cold corned beef and hard bread it is all they often get on a journey from one place to another.

        "Last evening at Neufchateau, while I was getting supper at the A. R. C. [American Red Cross] station canteen, I watched a girl I felt sure I knew hand out coffee and sandwiches. She proved to be Ruth Gibbons, of Haverford Meeting, and she had just fed 1700 boys in forty-five minutes – two trainloads. One feels for these fellows, and all of them sick and tired of the army and all anxious to get home and back to their usual work.

        "Many towns like this one, and most of those in northeast France, are full of Americans. This applies to the sectors taken over by the United States from the French. In every little village they are stationed; with too little to do now, and tired of the French and the French of them.

        "Today I have seen Russians, who were prisoners in Germany, brought by the French and Americans to work here for their keep, I suppose. A French soldier told me they are still really the same as prisoners. I can't just place their legal status, but as some one is feeding them they probably are willing to stay rather than go to Russia or Germany with all the uncertainties in those countries.

        "What strange situations the war has made. The individual work habit has been lost by hundreds of thousands of men. They have been fed for so long now in many cases one, two or three years of compulsory service before the war and then four and a half years of war itself – that they have come to depend upon state employment, and have lost the habit of individual work.

        "This is especially true of Germany and Austria. In the former, the present government has had to make a general appeal to the citizens to work, saying that on work depends the whole welfare of the state. Think of what it means to have the work-loving German nation of the past reduced to this. Those unemployed, I understand, are being paid for the moment by the state eight marks a day. They would rather take this and not hunt work than find work and get more.

        "In Austria, reports from Switzerland say, the conditions are even worse, and chaos and the break-up of the state and civilization are threatened. Soldiers form committees and get food themselves because of quasi-governmental powers and don't care if others suffer. It is a case of every one for himself, and a scramble with no real general coherence or state authority.

        "This god that the central empires have worshiped – the state – has crumbled to pieces and they feel lost.

        "The desperate straits of starvation and unemployment and demoralization have, of course, hastened the process of proletariat unrest which breeds Bolshevist philosophy, and those returning from the Berne conference state that the Moderates from Germany, whom they saw there expressed the view that the revolution in Germany and Austria is just beginning, not ending.

        "The Allied powers have been late in realizing the facts to which they have been blind because of feelings arising from the war. England awoke first through its members of the inter-Allied food commission and gave the warning three weeks ago. Its leading member even resigned because of lack of support for his view at the time. Now even the French appear to see the danger of delay. Mr. Lansing, two nights ago in a speech in Paris, repeated the warning of the instant need of feeding Germany, or there would be no Germany to feed.

        "But none of the United States $100,000,000 for the Hoover Food Commission can be used because of restrictions passed by our ‘enlightened’ Congress, prohibiting help being given to the central powers. And yet they wonder at the growth of Bolshevism. But not so with those who see on this side the strain and stress of conditions caused by the war.

        "The more one watches the frenzied struggle with the present problems of national interests, of internal finances and budgets, of demobilization and the re-starting of industry, etc., the more one realizes that the war has made more problems than it settled. I am having an eye to the national budgets now in the making, and I look for interesting realizations to dawn therefrom upon the consciousness of some of the nations that have withstood thus far any new developments in the international and social orders.

        "How lamentable it seems at this juncture for Senator Lodge and others to be ‘throwing monkey wrenches into the gears.’ It is taken in Europe as meaning that America is much divided. But it is encouraging to find that the league-of-nations idea has made such headway in France that Senator Lodge's views are generally given very little space in the French newspapers now, and that enlightened European opinion sees the new opportunity more and more.

        "The great struggle is still ahead, however, to make the league of nations a real league and not merely a camouflage alliance of one group assuming counter-interests against another group. This last conception would, of course, have in it the seeds of another struggle of the future.

        "Yet people ‘taking counsel of their fears,’ both in the United States and in Europe seem prone to seek immediate safety in the latter kind of a league, or rather alliance, and have difficulty in seeing through into a greater conception of trust in the deeper moral forces underlying all humanity in which rests the real security for all."

(Reprinted from the Evening Public Ledger, April 4, 1919.  P. 20)