rayezell_2000

I've seen both of these references, but they do not include a citation for where the Elizabeth City dates comes from.

Hello All,

Can someone provide a more specific date in 1911 when the reported first black troop was established in the US?

Additionally, can you provide a reliable/confirmable source for this date. A quick scour of the usual internet sites use the 1911 date, but I cannot find a reliable citation for a primary source which I can examine for myself. As most of you are probably aware, much of the information surrounding this topic for the early years of the Movement (1910-1930) is anecdotal and overly generalized.

thanks for any help.

guess I should have done my homework first. 

Vol. 2, Number 6 (July 15, 1914) edition of Scouting magazine clearly indicates that the neckerchief was Item No. 542 and an official part of the uniform at this time.

so it clearly predates the 1920s by many years...apparently the statement on The Troop 97 website is in error..

What is the date of the introduction of the neckerchief as a part of the uniform?

Where was this camp located?

Has anyone out there gathered any documentation on black camp cooks for troops and/or councils during the first few decades of Scouting (1910-1930). I am beginning to pull together sources for this material in Central Virginia. I'm finding that these are more common than you might have thought.

Thanks for any insights you can provide.

In November 1922, the St. Louis Council rejected a KKK donation pledge of $15,000. A statement provided by the Klan with the offer indicated that the Klan applauded the "development of a high standard of citizenship" by the Boy Scouts. The St. Louis American Legion came out in strong opposition to the Klan donation as well.

$15,000 was a huge sum of money to pass up in 1922....

@deafeaglescout

It's great to know that you share a special Scouting heritage with the Scouts that I described in my essay. I am waiting to visit the Scouting museum at VSDB when CoVid restrictions are eased to view some of these artifacts that are on display there. I am trying to track down the birdhouse what was used at the governor's mansion in Richmond as well.

I did not realize that you were also a Vigil Honor OA member of Shenandoah Lodge. Indeed, there is a great heritage in deaf Scouting that most Scouters do not recognize.

What was the name of your scoutmaster from when you were awarded Eagle in 1984?

Thank you very much for adding your story to the story that I wrote about...

As citizenship development and civic responsibility were vital and honorable tenants of the Scouting movement, it was only natural that quite a few Boy Scouts and scout leaders were also drawn into America’s armed services, as well as civilian service under military direction at home and in the theatre of war in Europe. check it out here

In the late 1920s, the Stonewall Jackson Council chartered two Boy Scout troops (Nos. 2 and 10) at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton, Virginia. Containing scouts exclusively that suffered from hearing and sight handicaps, these units soon became top performing troops in the council. Read more of the history of Scouting at the VSDB here.

many early troops across the USA had nicknames (but weren't meant to replace unit numbers). In my research, I've determined that this was mostly associated with a function of these early troops fielding organized football, basketball, and baseball teams. Then there were also patrol names that were simply used as sports teams names when they were made up of individual patrols, rather than drawn from the entire troop...

As early as April 17, 1917, The Knoxville Journal and Tribune reported that the Knoxville Boy Scout Council received an offer from the Union National bank and John F. and James T. Shea, owners of the McDonald farm, to assist the Boy Scouts and provide a tract to help supplement food supplies for the war effort. read here

On 9/14/2012 at 1:59 PM, LeCastor said:

 

...So do your councils have history committees or anything in place to write, produce and publish history books?

Virginia Headwaters Council (Waynesboro) (formerly Stonewall Jackson Area Council) has just tapped a council historian. No history committee yet, but it's coming...

@PACAN   that is great stuff....I need one of those scouts at my house now to get rid of a rat I've been after for about 4 months...

This year (2020) marks the 99th year since a group of 32 Eagle Scouts from Knoxville, Tennessee made a two-week long excursion to the nation's capital in the District of Columbia. The trip was not only for fun and recreation, but promoted the young Scouting movement to the public and emphasized the good character and moral living that Scouting made a central part of its message. The Eagle Scout caravan left Knoxville on July 1st and read more here...

Scouting amongst the black community in the years immediately after the incorporation of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1910 has been an under-explored topic. In many instances there has been a general assumption that black youth did not or were not allowed to participate in the movement (until many, many years later) that billed itself as the premier youth development organization in the world. While Scouting certainly helped to promote character development and citizenship in the lives of millions of mostly white youth in the decades before World War II, its impact in the black community is much less understood and poorly documented. This essay, while certainly not comprehensive, attempts to shed more light on how Scouting was implemented among black communities in its early decades across central Virginia. READ THE ESSAY HERE....

He was a very interesting young inventor. check him out  here

DuctTape,

....certainly was an ultimately comprehensive training back in the day.

Anyone would have come out of it very well equipped to lead boys...

glad you enjoyed it..!!

As recently as the early-mid 1980s (when I did my Scouting as a youth), my patrol (located in a small rural town in East Tennessee) would regularly take hikes in the Smoky Mtns, canoe down the Hiwassee River (with lots of whitewater), and camp at our troop shelter by ourselves---no adults in sight. Of course, we were all in high school and some could drive and we had the GOOD SENSE to know what to do and what NOT to do (most of the time)....Probably the biggest point of difference in the methods of Scouting today vs. the past (pre-1980 or so) is the shift in emphasis from the patrol to the troop. Before..., scouts were members of a patrol foremost....now it's member of a troop (almost exclusively)...

SSScout,

I'm glad you enjoyed the essay. You made several reasonable and correct points (in my opinion), especially the BSA "living off of past glory", but who's fault is that? My personal opinion is that the past and continual disconnection of former scouts (and especially eagle scouts) from the Movement as adults has contributed mightily to many of the ills you mention. As adults, in the place of eagle scouts, the lion's share of parents that have come into the program were not scouts as youth and were not influenced (in a formative way) by the Movement and the ideals that it was designed to teach...

....and I probably would sign of on scouts who did a 5 mile hike by themselves (but would also let them know that they had operated outside the current rulebook)....

The month of March marked the 84th anniversary of the Orange Boy Scout hike to a prominent Orange and Culpeper Counties’ landmark and prominent natural geologic formation just north of the community of Rapidan, Virginia. The following essay includes an account of this hiking trip found in the archives of the Orange County Historical Society. It is reproduced here in its entirety, and it describes the outing, in 1936, by members of Orange Boy Scout Troop No. 1 (now Troop 14). Read it here

Before coming to occupy Camp Townsend at Wonderland Park, several Knox County Boy Scout council troops held one of their first summer camps at “the sinks” along Little River at “Camp Helpful”, approximately three miles upstream from Elkmont in 1915. The Knox County council would return to the vicinity four years later and conduct their official summer resident camp with much greater effect. Read about the Knox County Boy Scout council's use of the summer camp at a popular resort now located in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park... read here

The city of Staunton, Virginia holds the noteworthy distinction of producing the first two Eagle Scouts in the state of Virginia three years after the incorporation of the Boy Scouting movement in 1910. The March 1913 edition of Boys’ Life, the national magazine of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), reported that ...read it

could you imagine being in a troop that met and served at the American Museum of Natural History.....talk about an opportunity that no other boys would ever get...!!

I wonder how many future scholars came from that unit...?