Historic Pelham

Presenting the rich history of Pelham, NY in Westchester County: current historical research, descriptions of how to research Pelham history online and genealogy discussions of Pelham families.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Beginning of the Boy Scout Program in Pelham in 1910, Still Going Strong 104 Years Later


American newspaperman and entrepreneur W.D. Boyce, together with Edward S. Stewart and Stanley D. Willis, incorporated the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910.  The legend behind the founding of the national Scouting organization is quite charming. 

The original “Boy Scout Association” was established by Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell in Britain in 1908.  According to legend, a short time later while W.D. Boyce was visiting London, he became lost in the fog on a London street.  An unknown scout approached Boyce, asked if he needed assistance, and guided him back to his destination.  When Boyce attempted to tip the young Scout for his trouble, the now famous “Unknown Scout” refused the tip and told Boyce that he was only doing his duty as a Boy Scout.  Boyce was so impressed that he reportedly returned to the United States and founded the Boy Scouts of America four months later.



Cover of The Saturday Evening Post, Sep. 2, 1911
at the Dawn of the Boy Scouts of America.

Pelham embraced the notion of Scouting immediately.  Within months community members began work and organized the first Troop of Boy Scouts in our Town.  Today’s Historic Pelham Blog posting details these efforts, describes the underlying story of the beginning of the Boy Scout program in our town, and transcribes a series of newspaper articles published in 1910 describing the establishment of the Boy Scout program in Pelham.

I have written of the origins of Pelham Scouting before, but have now added to that knowledge base with the materials transcribed below.  To read more about the history of the Boy Scout program in Pelham, see the list of links at the end of today’s posting. 

Excitement Over Scouting Builds and an Organizational Meeting is Held

Only months after the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated in February, 1910, excitement about the new program began to grow throughout the nation.  The National Council of the Boy Scouts of America opened in the Fall of 1910.  During that same Fall season, parents, school officials, and church officials in Pelham began to organize Pelham’s own Boy Scout program and local council. 

Although the precise date is unknown, on about October 15, 1910 (the date is described as “two weeks ago” in a story published on October 29, 1910), a group of Pelham citizens met at the home of Mrs. Eugene G. Kremer, a lovely home located at 305 Pelhamdale Avenue that still stands.  A member of the School Board, Robert A. Holmes, presided over the meeting.   


305 Pelhamdale Avenue, the Birthplace of the Boy Scout Program in Pelham.
Was the Residence of Mrs. Eugene G. Kremer in October, 1910
When an Organizational Meeting was Held and a Committee Appointed
The Create the Boy Scout Program in Pelham.
Photo by the Author, 2007.

The purpose of the meeting was to formalize efforts to organize and official Boy Scout program in the Town of Pelham.  Informal efforts had already been underway for weeks.  It seems that most of the initial organizational effort came from residents of Pelham Heights (then known as the Village of North Pelham).  That neighborhood had collected expressions of interest from local boys and had even collected raised enough money from local residents and parents to get the organization started.  As one report put it, by the time of the organizational meeting:  “[a] number of boys have joined the movement and several representative citizens of the Heights have furnished a guaranty which assures the establishment of the Scouts and enables the committee to invite members from all Pelhams.” 

At this organizational meeting, those present decided to appoint a committee described as the “Managing Committee of the Pelham Boy Scouts” to organize the Pelham Boy Scout program formally.  The committee chose Mrs. James F. Secor, the wife of another School Board member and a woman active in the local Manor Club as well as a wide variety of Pelham community affairs, to chair the new committee.  John Butler of Pelham Heights agreed to serve as treasurer of the program. 

The local School Board was closely involved in the organizational efforts.  In addition to the presence of two of its members on the organizational committee, the School Board created its own committee to work with the Managing Committee of the Pelham Boy Scouts.  The School Board also agreed to allow the Boy Scout program to use the elementary school on Highbrook Avenue as a meeting place and to install “modern gymnastic apparatus” in that school. 

The mission statement of the new program was brief, but forceful:

“The leading objects of the Boy Scouts are:  Recreation, camp fire camp life, self-government, woodcraft pursuits, honors by standards, personal decorations for personal achievements and a heroic ideal.  It gives physical health and development; it teaches energy, resourcefulness and handicrafts, it puts into the lad discipline, pluck, chivalry and patriotism; in a word, it develops 'character,' which is more essential than anything else to a lad making his way in life, and which is yet practically untaught in our schools.”

The newly-created Managing Committee of the Pelham Boy Scouts solicited “the assistance of all citizens of our beautiful villages in this movement to make the boys of the Pelhams capable men, good citizens and kind friends and brothers.”  It further designated Mrs. John Byers of 246 Corona Avenue and Mrs. Eugene G. Kremer of 305 Pelhamdale Avenue to receive applicants for membership.

A Permanent Organization is Created

Only two weeks after the organizational meeting, the plan to formalize a Boy Scout program had been fully implemented.  By November 11, 1910, a local Boy Scout Council had been created.  Captain Daniel Delehanty, U.S.N retired, was elected President of the Council.  Captain Delehanty was a longtime resident of Pelham who was married to Nannie M. Washington Delehanty.  The couple were members of St. Catharine’s.  Captain Delehanty worked with the Council for the next few years, but died on February 2, 1918.  See DIED . . . DELEHANTY, N.Y. Times, Feb. 3, 1918. 

By the time the Council was formed, Pelham clergy were closely involved in the organization as well.  According to a headline in the local newspaper that appeared on November 11, 1910, “much interest” had been “aroused” in the Town.  Indeed, the same report noted that the “modern gymnastic apparatus” that the Scout organization had promised had already been ordered and would be installed soon in the  Highbrook Avenue School where the Scouts would hold their meetings.

The Council announced that on the evening of Monday, November 14, 1910, it planned to hold a meeting at the Highbrook Avenue School at which all interested Pelham residents would be welcome.  At that meeting, John L. Alexander, General Secretary of the Boy Scouts of America, would address the gathering and answer questions about the Boy Scout program.  John L. Alexander was a lifelong worker with boys who later served as the Superintendent of the Teen Age Division of the National Sunday School Association.  He was the author of several works on teen age boys and the problems they face.  He came to the United States from Scotland and was considered a visionary.  In addition to being the first General Secretary of the Boy Scouts of America, he directed boys’ work at the Philadelphia YMCA, and was a founder and the first Executive Director of the American Youth Foundation.  He served as the Executive Director of AYF from 1925 until his death in 1932. 

The General Secretary of the Boy Scouts of America Meets with Pelham Residents

On November 14, 1910, John L. Alexander gave a rousing address about the benefits of Scouting to a large audience of Pelham residents.  The meeting was attended by a host of Pelham luminaries including Captain Daniel Delehanty, John Butler, Eugene Kremer, Rev. Lewis Gaston Leary (pastor of the Huguenot Memorial Presbyterian Church), Rev. Donald MacKay (pastor of the Church of the Covenant, Congregational), Seth T. Lyman (owner of Lyman’s Drugstore), William R. Montgomery (later, Town Historian), local physicians John Byers and Augustine C. McGuire (who also served as President of the Board of Fire Commissioners of the First District Fire Department), and many others. 

Mr. Delehanty spoke of the mission of the Boy Scouts of America and then-current theories for improving the development and growth of adolescent boys.  He next “delved in detail into the practical working of the plan and was listened to with close attention.”  According to one report, “[t]he applause was abundant and frequent.” 

Success

These Pelham residents – true visionaries – as well as the School Board and local clergy could never have known the positive impact their hard work subsequently would have on the lives of thousands of Pelham boys who joined the local Boy Scout program over the next hundred years.  By the 1950’s virtually every boy in the Town of Pelham was a member of one of numerous Boy Scout Troops that served the area’s youth.

The tradition continues.  Pelham has a single, large Boy Scout Troop (Troop 1, Pelham) that was formed in 1915 (some sources suggest 1916) and will celebrate its centennial soon.  Troop 1 is what is known as a “high adventure” troop that trains its Scouts in scuba diving, ice climbing, snow shoeing, white water rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, dog sledding, horseback riding, caving, camping, hiking, competitive orienteering, and much, much more.  The Troop has made multiple 12-day treks within the boundaries of the Philmont Scout Ranch in the mountains of northeastern New Mexico.  The Troop has been ably led for more than a decade by Ralph Mirra, Scoutmaster.

The Troop has a Web site located at:  http://trooponepelham.com/index.html.


Troop 1, Pelham
Patch for Scout Uniform.

"ORGANIZATION OF BOY SCOUTS
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INTENDED TO DEVELOP CHARACTER IN YOUTH AND MAKE FOR GOOD CITIZENSHIP. - ALL THE PELHAMS INVITED TO JOIN.
-----

At a meeting held two weeks ago at the residence of Mrs. Eugene G. Kremer, in Pelhamdale avenue, Pelham Heights, Mr. Robert Holmes presiding, a temporary organization of the Pelham Boy Scouts was effected by the appointment of a committee, with Mrs. James F. Secor as chairman.

A number of boys have joined in the movement and several representative citizens of the Heights have furnished a guaranty which assures the establishment of the Scouts and enables the committee to invite members from all the Pelhams. Mr. John Butler has consented to act as treasurer.

The School Board has appointed a committee to co-operate with the managing committee of the Pelham Boy Scouts and has made arrangements to alow [sic] the use of the Highbrook Avenue School House and to permit the installation therein of modern gymnastic apparatus. Active steps are being taken to secure the necessary funds for this purpose. Contributions may be sent to Mr. John Butler, Treasurer, Pelham Heights.

The leading objects of the Boy Scouts are: Recreation, camp fire camp life, self-government, woodcraft pursuits, honors by standards, personal decorations for personal achievements and a heroic ideal.

It gives physical health and development; it teaches energy, resourcefulness and handicrafts, it puts into the lad discipline, pluck, chivalry and patriotism; in a word, it develops 'character,' which is more essential than anything else to a lad making his way in life, and which is yet practically untaught in our schools.

The committee will welcome the assistance of all citizens of our beautiful villages in this movement to make the boys of the Pelhams capable men, good citizens and kind friends and brothers.

Applications for membership may be addressed to Mrs. John Byers, 246 Corona avenue, and Mrs. Eugene G. Kremer, 305 Pelhamdale avenue, Pelham."

Source: Organization of Boy Scouts, The Pelham Sun, Vol. 1, No. 30, Oct. 29, 1910, p. 1, col. 2.

BOY SCOUTS FORM COUNCIL
----
CAPT. DANIEL DELEHANTY MADE PRESIDENT – MUCH INTEREST AROUSED – BOARD OF EDUCATION LENDING A HELPING HAND.
-----

A permanent organization of the Boy Scouts of Pelham has now been effected.  Capt. Daniel Delehanty, U.S.N., retired, is president of the Council, which includes in its membership the clergy and many of our patriotic townspeople. 

It is hoped and expected that every citizen will lend his sympathetic interest and active co-operation to this inspiring work.  Therefore invitation has been extended to the citizens to attend a meeting on Monday night next (November 14th) at eight o’clock, at the school house, Highbrook avenue, near the Boulevard, Pelham, to confer with the members of the Council.

John L. Alexander, General Secretary of the Boy Scouts of America, will address the meeting and will answer questions as to the scope of the movement and its practical working.

The Boy Scouts is not opposed to existing organizations; it is not sectarian; it is not military and does not depend on drill.  It is educational; stands for good citizenship; engages in peace-scouting activities and is character-building through well-defined altruistic effort.

The aim of the Boy Scouts is to supplement the various existing educational agencies and to promote the ability in boys to do things for themselves and others.  The method is summed up in the term ‘Scout-craft’ and is a combination of observation, deduction and handiness – or the ability to do.  Scout craft consists of First Aid, Life Saving, Tracking, Signaling, Cycling, Nature Study, Seamanship, and other instruction.

This is accomplished in games and team play and is pleasure, not work, for the boy.  The only one equipment it needs is the out-of-doors, a group of boys and a leader.

The School Board has kindly made arrangements to allow the use of a room in the Highbrook Avenue School Building as a meeting place on inclement days when out-door work is irksome, and a gymnasium has been ordered and will be installed soon. 

All the funds required have been subscribed.”

Source:  BOY SCOUTS FORM COUNCIL, The Pelham Sun, Vol. 1, No. 32, Nov. 12, 1910, p. 1, col. 6.

BOY SCOUTS IDEA EXPLAINED
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INTERESTING MEETING ON MONDAY NIGHT AT PELHAM SCHOOL HOUSE – EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS OF LOCAL MOVEMENT – MANY PRESENT.
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The appearance of the Jubilee Singers at the Manor Club and official meetings of the Town Officers last Monday night did not prevent a considerable attendance of prominent citizens at the Highbrook Avenue School House to hear Mr. John L. Alexander tell about the Boy Scouts in this country and in England.  Mr. Alexander has a pleasing and forceful personality and an intimate and persuasive eloquence.  He showed that it was possible to analyze the character of a man because that had reached the fullness of its development, but that it is no more possible to do the same as far as a child’s character is concerned than it is to analyze a bud or embryo.  He led his hearers by easy steps to agree with him that the development of the child is in miniature a copy of the development of the race and that true education must recognize this development and use it.  He showed that at the age of twelve the boy reaches the imaginative period equivalent to the development of man of the age of chivalry and that the Boy Scouts idea is based upon scientific principles in following this theory of development.  He said that the Scout’s oath was an adaptation of the knightly oath, when the knight placed his hands between those of the king and swore to accept the king’s conscience as his own and placed his conscience in the keeping of the king.  The Scout neophyte (the ‘tenderfoot’) is equivalent to the page of the olden time.  The second class scout is equivalent to the esquire, and the scout is the knight of old.  His ideal was truth, protection and courtesy to the oppressed particularly to women.  He was taught manners in his relations to women as page.  His principal duty was service to all those and to the king and this according to the speaker is the key-note of the Boy Scouts movement:  service to others and to the nation and hence patriotism.

The speaker’s method of illustration is shown by his story of the widowed mother of whose two sons, one a strapping six footer, kept the roof over his mother’s head and furnished the entire support of the family while the other was a poor helpless cripple, upon whom she lavished her unwearying care and affection; being asked which of the two she loved the more, she said:  ‘I love Tom.  He is a fine fellow, keeps the roof over our head, and gives us all we have to eat and wear.  He is very kind and is a good boy and I love him.  But, there is Willie there, I take care of him every day.  I think I love him a litte more than I do Tom.’

This shows, he said, that in order to make the big love the institution or his birthplace he must do something for it.  He must work for it, not it for him; and he told with much impressiveness of a number of young men who were his boys, from whom he received a loving cup only recently and whom he met every year at Christmas to renew old friendships. 

He gave the credit for the chivalric conception of the ‘Scouts’ to General Baden Powell, while not omitting to express appreciation of the work done by Americans such as Seton-Thompson and Dan Beard.

Mr. Alexander then delved in detail into the practical working of the plan and was listened to with close attention.  The applause was abundant and frequent. 

Captain Daniel Delehanty, U.S.N., retired, presided. 

The meeting was called to order by Mr. John Butler of Corlies avenue.

Mr. Eugene Kremer addressed the meeting in a few earnest words urging co-operation and united action in support of the movement. 

The Rev. Lewis G. Leary expressed in well chosen words his approval of the plan and his desire to help in its development.  Mr. John Butler read the treasurer’s report showing adequate financial resources and a guaranty against possible deficiencies.

Among others there were present:  Rev. Donald Mackay, Major John Weiss, U.B.B.A.; Captain Beech, U.S.N., retired; Messrs. Robert A. Holmes, James F. Secor, A.G.C. Fletcher, Seth T. Lyman, Wm. R. Montgomery, Edmund Seymour, Doctor John Byers, Doctor McGuire, Harry B. Milliken, Mrs. Butler, Miss Butler and Mrs. Delehanty.”

Source:  BOY SCOUTS IDEA EXPLAINED, The Pelham Sun, Vol. 1, No. 33, Nov. 19, 1910, p. 1, col. 6.

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As noted above, I have written about the origins of Scouting in the Town of Pelham before as well as the history of the Scouting program in our Town.  For a few examples, see: 



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