On The Banks of The Susquehanna: Camping By The Book

Few men (and even fewer boys) had ever camped out when the Boy Scouts of America and Troop 1 BSA Unadilla, NY were born in 1910. There were no training manuals for Scoutmasters, so new adult leaders like the Rev. Yale Lyon relied on the same manual for campcraft that the boys used--the hastily-drawn official BSA Handbook for Boys, authored by two of BSA's founders, Daniel Carter Beard and Ernest Thompson Seton.

In the new handbook, for example, it was suggested that the best camp shelter was a leanto of poles over which was laid a thatch of freshly cut balsam or hemlock boughs. Boughs were also useful to make a soft, fragrant mattress for sleeping on the ground. H.W. Gibson, the YMCA Boys' Work Secretary who wrote the section on campcraft, included a few lines of poetry to emphasize the serene joy of sleeping on a bed of balsam:

Then the pine boughs
croon me a lullaby,
And trickle the white moonbeams
To my face on the balsam
where I lie.
While the owl hoots at my dreams.
---J. George Frederick

Sleeping bags were available at the time, but Chief Scout Seton frowned on them, saying "They are too difficult to air or to adjust to different temperatures." Instead Scouts were told to lay their waterproof ponchos over the boughs and then make an "envelope" of two woolen blankets pinned together with large blanket pins. On very cold nights, heated rocks placed near the head, back and feet made good "bedwarmers," he said. A relay team of two night watchers could replace the cooled off rocks with hot ones from the fire every two hours. Boys unlucky enough to draw night watcher duty ferrying bed warmers back and forth while shivering in the dark, would have the dubious compensation of having their "imaginations stirred by the resistless attraction of the campfire and the sound of the creatures that creep at night." The unpoetical reality of hypothermia and frostbite apparently escaped Seton's attention.

The "Comfort Sleeping Pocket"

One example of the store-bought sleeping gear Seton objected to was the Comfort Sleeping Pocket, a portable pneumatic bed that appeared in the 1910 New York Sporting Goods Co. catalog. The Sleeping Pocket was touted as made for the camper who feared discomfort in the woods yet still liked to "rough it." The elaborate 22-lb contraption came with a rubberized air mattress fitted with a waterproof canvas cover, a felt liner, pillow and air pump. The Sleeping Pocket was guaranteed, at least with the addition of a couple wool blankets, to keep you warm and dry in the severest weather!

In the Handbook for Boys, Seton also provided directions for making several styles of tents, either of canvas duck or heavy cotton cloth waterproofed with what would be considered today a potentially lethal solution of alum and lead acetate. Another waterproofing method suggested dissolving paraffin into turpentine on a double boiler and saturating the canvas with the hot brew. "You must work outdoors," said Seton, "in a breeze if possible," as the fumes of the turpentine will surely make you sick if you try it indoors."

Scoutmaster Rev. Yale Lyon and the boys of Troop 1 BSA Unadilla, NY
at the first New York State Encampment,Cooperstown, NY, July 12, 1911.
The tentage included two Army-style wall tents and a wigwam made from a large tarpaulin
arranged similar to a plan published in the new Handbook for Boys.
The camp furniture included barrels and tables made of scrap wood.

Teepees were as popular with early Scouts as they are today. Seton included in the Handbook a plan for a small conical or wigwam tent utilizing a single center pole, and Daniel Carter Beard later published plans for making a large Souix-style tepee in his book Shelters, Shacks and Shanties. A four or five-pole tepee was among the tents Rev. Yale Lyon outfitted his troop with at the 1911 New York State Boy Scout Encampment at Cooperstown, NY.

Hearty, not Heart-Friendly, Camp Food.

Camp cooking utensils usually came from home. So did much of the larder because store-bought convenience foods like today's granola bars, instant rice and pancake mixes were far in the future, and most of today's dietary concerns also were unheard of.

The Handbook recommended menus heavy in fat and high in cholesterol. Scouts would start the day with a breakfast of fried bacon, fried eggs, fried potatoes, griddle-cakes with butter, and boiled coffee. Lunch (called Dinner in the handbook) called for creamed salmon on toast, baked potatoes buried directly in a bed of hot coals, bread, pickles and some fruit. Supper included fried eggs, creamed or chipped beef, cheeze, bread and cocoa. Foil dinners (including the foil itself), freeze-dried entrees, flavored oatmeals and noodle packets, instant coffee were not yet invented.

Tried and Tested Recipes from the Handbook.

The Handbook offered a number of tried and tested cooking recipes for long hikes or overnight camps, larded with plenty of sage advice. Biscuits and breadmaking in camp was discouraged; "amateur" biscuits, the handbook said, are not conducive to good digestion or happiness. Frog's legs should be soaked in water and vinegar before frying; watercress, presumably collected at the same time as the frogs, made a good relish to serve with them. Small fish should be fried whole with the backbone severed to prevent them from curling up. Roast potatoes should be poked with a sharpened sliver of wood to let the steam escape and used immediately. A roast potato soon becomes soggy and bitter, the book said.

Summer Camp on the Susquehanna.

Throughout BSA's first decade, most summer camps were run by individual troops; Unadilla's Troop 1 was no exception. Each summer until the start of WW1 Scoutmaster Yale Lyon conducted a "fine camp on the Susquehanna River--a full scout camp program."

The Susquehanna Camp was the highlight of the summer for Lyon's boys. In 1915, in spite of almost continual rains during the week's outing, their butter and milk larder floating down river with the morning tide and soggy tents, they did not desert camp. The Unadilla Times reported they would remain until the tents were dried out if it took until Christmas! But in 1916, Lyon reported to National Headquarters in New York that "...our Scout Camp [has been] given up as all the boys were at work." After the war was concluded in 1918, Scoutmaster Lyon quickly reestablished the summer camp tradition on the banks of the river for his troop, sometimes including boys from Unadilla's Protestant Troop 2 and nearby Sidney, NY troop with his own. "We have had a camp there since 1911, and we will again next year," he reported in 1919, "and we also go for 2 day trips to some interesting place where boys see museums, meet interesting people, camp overnight on water, etc." He also reported in 1919 that his summer camp was outfitted with its own tents, cots, and a canoe.

Local councils, however, soon began to establish their own camps. Yale Lyon himself served on the executive board of the fledgling Otsego-Schoharie Council in 1924 that operated a short-lived Camp Awenaga on Gilbert Lake near Laurens, NY. When the council expanded to include Delaware County two years later, he helped establish a new Camp Deerslayer on Otsego Lake at Cooperstown, NY. Thereafter, Lyon discontinued his Camp Susquehanna operations.

The Handbook advised that no group of boys should go camping by themselves--they should insist the Scoutmaster accompany them to prevent accidental drownings, settle disputes, or provide a man's help where needed to stave off the hundred and one things that will "surely break up your camp and drive you home to town or city."

Button, Button--Who's Got the Original Button?

Original 1910 B.S. OF A. buttons
made by the Waterbury Button Company, Cheshire, CT

In our research to outfit our Centennial Celebration Team with authentic 1910 uniforms and equipment, the question about buttons came up recently. The first Army-type uniform coats and shirts offered to the fledgling Boy Scouts of America came equipped with military style brass buttons with the letters "B. S. OF A." surrounding a British-style fleur de lis above a banner labeled "Be Prepared." Most buttons of the 1911-1920 period were stamped on the back with the Sigmund Eisner Company name, the same company in Red Bank, NJ that supplied the U.S. Army with its military uniforms. A few months later a more Americanized First Class Emblem design was substituted for the British version; by 1914, the letters B.S. OF A. were removed leaving just the Boy Scouts of America symbol every Scout is familiar with today.

Thus, button types are a handy indicator of age and authenticity of early Scout uniforms in collections of Scouting memorbilia and offered on eBay. But buying up enough antique buttons to outfit our Centennial Celebration Team's reproduction uniforms--each coat requires 5 3/4" buttons and 4 5/8" pocket buttons--could call for an economic stimulus package all on its own!

Googleing 'military button suppliers' produced several thousand hits which eventually led us to the Waterbury Button Company, a division of OGS Technologies Inc. in Chesire, CT. The Waterbury Button Company has been a major supplier of metal buttons for military, fire and police uniforms since before the Civil War, and if anyone had the brass to make our 1910-style Boy Scout buttons, they surely could do it. A timid call to their Customer Service Department revealed they could make stamping dies for any design we cared to submit but first they would check their die archives to see if they had made a similar Boy Scout item some time in the past.

A few days later, the Customer Service Department called again and said they had found the dies, in two sizes, that were used to make the original 1910 buttons! All they needed from us was quantities and sizes and finishes desired and, after 99 years, they could begin production again!

As Paul Harvey was fond of saying at the end of his newscasts, "And that is the rest of the [button] story!

Hiking Staff, Stave or Broomstick?

In the early days of Scouting, it was called a staff or stave. To those on the outside of Scouting, it was only a broomstick. To Baden-Powell's many followers, it was an essential piece of Scouting gear. Early pictures of Scouts showed that every boy had to have one; even if he did not have a uniform, he had his stave.

Overzealous Scoutmasters of the time used them to field drill their young charges. This led to some of Scouting's detractors to view them as make-believe rifles. They looked upon the 'broomsticks' as militaristic tools of the Mafeking war hero whom they believed was preparing their boys for war. Baden-Powell himself actually recommended that drill not be a part of Scouting, but in America, the increasing loom of European warfare made the stave-and-marching drill practice more acceptable. The 1914 edition of the Handbook for Scoutmasters*, with a photo of a Scout holding a stave on the cover, even included 4 pages of military drill, plus a page-and-a-half of "order of the staff"--exactly corresponding to the Army's drill with rifles. It wasn't until 1947 that the section titled "Scout Drill" was replaced by a smaller section on formations and silent hand signals to arrange them.)

Baden-Powell was insistent though that the staff was a part of the Scout's uniform and not just a broomstick. His first drawings of Scouts showed the trusty tool in the hands of the Scout. According to John Hargrave in the September 1917 issue of The Scout, "I was talking to the Chief only the other day and he is very keen that the picturesque part of Scouting should not be neglected. He added, "Put your sign on it--brand your Mark on it, and make it a record of your Scout life, and if you lose it, if you break it, if you don't carry it, you're a-you're a-a- MUMBLEBUMP!"

Troop 1 in Camp, c. 1912, note the hiking staves!

For those early eager Scouts, the staff was a vital wilderness tool. It was an aid for everything from making tents to cooking soup--it made an ideal trammel to hang the soup pot over the fire. And when things slowed down in camp, there were several games that could be played with them.

Today, this wooden shaft is more descriptively known as a hiking stave or staff. For the aerobically inclined, it can also be called a walking stick. Stave, staff, or stick are all inter-changeable and correct. No matter what you call it, this shaft of wood brings back some of the youthful adventure from the birth of Scouting to the Scouts of the next century.

When Sir Robert Baden Powell designed his bronze "Scout with Staff" he gave the staff the loftiest and most prominent place in the statue. Rev. Yale Lyon gave similar prominence to the staff and carried his Lion Patrol flag on the end of his hiking stave. Today, as a tribute to their first Scoutmaster, the Troop 1 BSA Centennial Celebration Team carry Lyon Patrol flags on their sturdy serviceable staffs whenever they are in camp or making a public appearance!

With our staffs or staves, we salute the next hundred years of Scouting, continuing the adventure and celebrating the rich heritage of the past!

____________________________________________________________________
* The first edition of The Scoutmasters Handbook (1914-1920) was published under the supervision of an Editorial Board which included William D. Murry, another early "forgotten" YMCA official-turned-Scout Executive. William Murry later wrote the BSA's first history, in 1937.

WW1 Boy Scout Watch Fob Discovered!

Unadilla Scouter James Beers discovered an unique item while gardening behind his home on Watson Street, Unadilla, NY--a Boy Scout watch fob, the little "adornment or medallion" that hangs from a watch chain (or strap) and provides a ready tab to remove the watch from your watch pocket to check the time. The fob Jim discovered is similar in design to those illustrated in a 1918 Scouting catalog in our Unadilla Boy Scout Museum. It is amusing to speculate that this particular fob might have been lost by a Unadilla Scout while tilling his garden of vegetables during WW1 to heed the call, "Every Scout to Feed a Soldier".

Originally sold for $1-2 each, Boy Scout watch fobs are valued at upwards of $125 today. Wrist watches are the watch of today but this was not the case when Yale Lyon founded his Unadilla Troop 1 in 1910. The standard then was the pocket watch. It only seemed fitting that the new Boy Scouts of America help identify its members with distinctive watch fobs. The fob is a medallion that hangs from a leather strap to which your watch was attached. The fob could hang out of your pocket and make a 'statement' about the organization you belonged to while making it easier when the time came to reach for your watch!

All watch fobs that are Scout related are quite scarce. The ones made by the BSA were considered fine jewelry, typically gold filled or plated, of sterling silver or enameled. Although regularly listed in Scout equipment catalogs up to WW II, adding to their scarcity today, they were only sold to registered Scouts and Leaders; orders for them had to be properly signed.

Pictured is Jim's Boy Scout Watch Fob,with crossed flags, rifle and fire horn; c. 1910s. Neat!

"Camping Outs": Encampments, Rallies and Circuses

Camping as a vehicle to deliver the tenets of Scouting had its beginnings when Lord S.S. Baden-Powell ran his experimental camp on Brownsea Island in 1907 for the 21 original Scouts. The "camping out" was a success and a movement was born that quickly spread to America and around the world. In America, Boy Scouting was quickly embraced by Sunday school and public school teachers, young ministers like the Rev. Yale Lyon in Unadilla, NY, and by leaders in the Young Men's Christian Association who began planning outings called "camping outs," or "encampments."

YMCA Camping.

Actually, YMCAs had been in the camping "game" since the late 1860s. YMCA records include an early reference to a Vermont Y's boys'-work missionary taking a group of boys to Lake Champlain for a "summer encampment." In 1881, the Brooklyn YMCA reported taking 30 boys on a "camping out" and by a year later, many other YMCAs began recording camping programs in their annual reports under "outings and excursions."

By 1908 and 1909, Y officials began hearing about the new Boy Scout movement gaining popularity in England. A few Ys actually set up Boy Scout troops within their own organizations, and some Y camps began using elements of the Scoutcraft skills Powell wrote about in his 1907 handbook, Scouting for Boys.

Scoutmaster Training at Y Camp at Silver Bay.

As organized a year earlier, the camp wasn't intended to be a Scouting experience. Now largely-forgotten veteran YMCA boys'-work executive Edgar M. Robinson, well aware he lacked the charisma to enthrall boys with the lore of nature and the exploits of Cooper's Deerslayer and Chingatchcook, had arranged for Ernest Thompson Seton to demonstrate Woodcraft Indians campcraft at a special late August session for YMCA boys.

As a result, the encampment became an experimental Scout camp, with an Indian flavor. Scouts lived in homemade tepees made from plans in Seton's Two Little Savages book, and Seton himself directed the program. William D. Murray, another YMCA official who later became a Scouting professional, was the overall camp director.

Subsequent encampments for the training of Scoutmasters of the Boy Scouts of America were held as part of the Silver Bay Summer Institute in 1911 and 1912. In the picture above, Daniel Carter Beard, National Commissioner, here wearing BSA's first army-style uniform, demonstrates the "throwing of the hatchet" in 1912. (Photo courtesy of the Silver Bay Association.)

A woodcraft camp organized by Ernest Thompson Seton was held at Silver Bay in 1910. Numerous boys' organizations were represented among the 125 attendees at the experimental encampment. Ideas formulated at the woodcraft camp led to the organization of the Boy Scouts of America later that year. Silver Bay is recognized as BSA's first training site. Seton, then known as Black Wolf, is the white-shirted figure standing to the right in this photo. (Photo courtesy of the Silver Bay Association.)

Boy Scout Encampment, Cooperstown, NY 1911.

In 1911, the following year after the Silver Bay experimental encampment, a similar encampment was planned at Cooperstown, NY during the week of July 12-18, with a planned attendance of 2,000 to 5,000 Scouts, all fully equipped to spend the week in the open on the shores of Otsego Lake, attending rallies on the Clark estate and going on hiking expeditions over the Leatherstocking territory made famous by J. Fenimore Cooper. It was hoped that Daniel Carter Beard would be the honored guest, and speakers under consideration at the time included ex-President Theodore Roosevelt and Governor Dix. (Teddy Roosevelt did manage to briefly visit the encampment on the Thursday of that week in the company of the YMCA official William D. Murray.) The committee organizing the event hoped they could also entice the Vitagraph Company to come and make a motion picture of the event to be shown in theaters around the country.

The event, though grandly conceived in the excitement of the new Boy Scout movement, went largely unattended--less than 200 Scouts made to Nathaniel Bumpo's literary birthplace that summer.

Boy Scout Rallies and Circuses.

Boy Scout rallies were held frequently during the 1910s and 1920s. At rallies, Boy Scouts would compete against one another for prizes in athletic contests like foot races, or in contests relating to Scout skills, such as signaling or fire making. Rallies that involved a large number of troops eventually came to be called Boy Scout circuses, and were often the troop's biggest event of the year.

While rallies were usually held outdoors, the Boy Scout Circus was an indoor exposition-with-added-midway attractions that featured community parades, presentation of ranks and awards, demonstrations of Scout skills, and often professional circus acts that attracted a more general audience.

One such event staged in the State Armory in Oneonta in 1937 featured a grand entry march of more than 1,000 Scouts and Scouters, a band concert, demonstrations of Scouting skills such as figure marching, flashlight drills using Semiphore and Morse signaling codes, wild animal acts, a rope lasso act by the 'larieteers' of Troop 41 of Roxbury, and a greased pig catching contest conducted by a mob of 'real' trained clowns! Now that was your Father's camporee!

Scout Circus 1938, Walton, NY

Troop 1 Celebrates the Ninth Anniversary of BSA...in 1919!

On our way to the 100th Anniversary of BSA and our Troop 1 in 2010, this genteel news note from Unadilla Times in 1919 brings on a smile:

"The ninth anniversary celebration of the Boy Scouts of the United States [America] was observed by St. Matthew's Boy Scouts and friends last Friday evening from 7 to 10 in the H.Y. Canfield hose house parlors which had been prettily decorated for the occasion. Cotillion with patriotic Scouting favorites and figures entertained the young boys and girls. A full orchestra furnished the music. Hot chocolate, cake and sandwiches were served by Mrs. J.S. Seacord and assistants."

---Yale Lyon Scrapbooks, Vol. 3 (Sept 1916 to March 1919, pg 188).

Troop 1 BSA and WW1

In 1914, much of Europe, long an uneasy armed camp, erupted in open conflict, pitting Germany, Turkey and Austria-Hungary against France, Great Britain, Russia, Belgium and later, Italy. The United States was confident that it could remain aloof from the rapidly escalating war and Woodrow Wilson was reelected President in 1918 with the slogan, "He kept us out of the war."

Not for long, though. Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare and sank several U.S. merchant ships; on April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.

The declaration was the signal for a burst of patriotic fervor that swept over America into cities and small towns alike., and through the Boy Scout movement. A day after the United States declared war on Germany, the BSA Executive Board committed Scouts to the war effort. Scoutmasters were warned: "Your town or city may face an emergency at any moment. Perfect [your] Mobilization Plans! Practice! Practice! Practice! Make sure your Scouts can keep cool, think quickly, act as a unit. Offer the troop NOW (if you have not) to help the Red Cross in your town."

The BSA's most significant service was in the sale of Liberty Loan bonds issued by the Treasury to finance the war effort. Five Liberty Loan drives were held, and in each case the Boy Scouts were called upon to follow the regular canvas by adult volunteer salesmen. Despite the handicap of being gleaners after the reapers, Scouts sold a total of 2,238,308 bonds worth $335 million.

Patriotic rallies connected with the Red Cross were held throughout Unadilla, and as a member of the United War Work Committee, Yale Lyon saw to it that his Scouts played a major part in pushing the quota over the top in its drive for funds. The rallies brought together business men and farmers to discuss home defense; older boys in the troop joined the new Government Rifle Club that practiced military style drills with wooden rifles, physical conditioning, and the proper use of arms--skills that would come in handy if the German Kaiser decided to attack Unadilla.

Unadilla's Red Cross in 1917 boasted over 200 members. Its Surgical Dressings Committee made bandages and dressings by the hundreds--659 in one week--for use in Allied hospitals. When attention was called by the Red Cross to the plight of French and Belgian children facing freezing winter conditions and starvation, Unadilla scouts immediately helped raise $236.17 to buy food and blankets. Red Cross Military First Aid courses taught by troop committeeman Dr. B. W. Stearns stressed the best use of a Scout neckerchief as a bandage, arm sling or tourniquet.

Yale Lyon's boys assisted in the sale of War Savings Stamps, collected money for the Red Cross, clothing for the French and Belgians, participated in Unadilla's patriotic meetings and parades, but at selling Liberty Loan bonds, they ran into a snag. On his 1918 annual Report and Application for Re-registration, Yale Lyon apologized, "At the request of the Liberty Loan Committee, they did not sell bonds, but many did, not as Scouts however. I am sorry, but the local conditions prevented." The next year, Yale Lyon reported that his troop again "...responded to every call of Government except the sale of Liberty and Victory Bonds, which was vetoed by the Town Council."

The earliest of BSA's war efforts--gardening--was the least successful, perhaps because the activity was limited to the summer growing season, and it took so much time to cultivate, harvest and preserve the resulting crops. The 1918 issue of Scouting catalog, a special gardening and equipment issue, proclaimed: "A food shortage in war means a nation in peril, and every Scout who has a bit of ground should grow vegetables in dead earnest!" The catalog thoughtfully included a page of BSA-approved cultivators, rakes and hoes to do the job, even "farm clothing to save Scout uniforms," as the overalls, khaki neckerchiefs and farmer's straw hats were billed! The catalog was also full of articles on how boys could apply for W.S.S. Awards, on the history of the potato and its value in times of extreme necessity, and wartime backyard chicken raising. The Chief Grub Scout Hal B. Fullerton opined: "Crowing roosters are a nuisance in the city and should be culled from the flock. More eggs will be produced without the rooster and the eggs so produced will keep longer than those produced in the usual way."

Rev. Yale Lyon's Scouts helped distribute "Wasteless Meals" Food Conservation pledge cards which encouraged meatless or wheatless meals on certain days of the week but from the pulpit and in the newspaper he reminded the community to remember the welfare of the local market and grocery stores "The ruin of local tradesmen is poor patriotism," he said.

My Tuesdays are meatless,
My Wednesdays are wheatless,
I am getting more eatless every day;
My coffee is sweetless,
My stockings are feetless,
Each day I get poorer and wiser;
Good Lord, how I hate the Kaiser!"

---Timely Verse, the Every Evening Magazine, 1918

All five of the troop's original charter members put their Scouting experience to the test in the U.S. Army. Thomas McKay, Cecil Sterns and Howard Morse served--and survived--the "war to end all wars." They returned to Unadilla to participate with the troop in a spectacular 1919 Fourth of July memorial parade down Main Street to the Unadilla House, where a large service flag (forty-eight stars, one gold star) was dedicated to "Out brave boys who fought for those at home that liberty may continue to be ours." Corporal Charles Hildreth, a graduate of Colgate University, later died in Montana in 1932 of heart trouble. Neil Stearns, brother of Cecil, died in a fatal car crash on the Sidney-Unadilla Road on February 13, 1934.

Yale Lyon Scrapbooks, Vol. 3 (Sept. 1916 to March 1919), pg. 145, 'Service Flag Dedicated July Forth,' Rev. Yale Lyon Deliversed Eloquent Address, Unadilla Times, 1919.