Ernest Thompson Seton

In 1902, a few rambunctious, somewhat unruly, children painted the iron gates of a private estate in Cos Cob with “all kinds of things that never should have been put on a gate with paint.” This singular incident may be viewed as the beginning of the formation of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. 

Ernest Thompson Seton, from "By a Thousand Fires," by Julia Seton.
Copyright 1967 by Julia Seton.
Reproduced by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc.

The gates were located at the entrance to a 100-acre estate on Orchard Street, known as Wyndygoul, that belonged to Ernest Thompson Seton, who had purchased it two years earlier.  Instead of calling for severe consequences for the young perpetrators, Ernest Thompson Seton must have decided instead that these children didn’t have enough productive ways in which to spend their idle hours. He visited Cos Cob School and spoke to some boys, inviting them to his property for an overnight stay during Easter vacation. One of them was Leonard S. Clark, ten years old at the time, who was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Penny Bott in 1975. He proclaimed at the time of his interview, “ . . . honestly and truthfully, I didn’t do it (paint the gates!).” 

Boys by their tepee at Wyndygoul.
Courtesy of Charles A. Clark

 

Leonard had clear memories of that first overnight at Wyndygoul (a Scottish name meaning Windy Gulch). “I remember distinctly that we were told to bring along a blanket, so that we could sleep in a tent that night.”  Mr. Seton’s “tent” was, in reality, “an original Indian teepee that Mr. Seton had bought somewhere from Indians and brought with him to Wyndygoul.” That night, by the light of an open fire, “Mr. Seton told us stories. . . . When he told us stories about the Indians . . . everybody paid attention. Not only paid attention, but we were just entranced with his talking. . . . Nobody ran around, nobody left, nobody turned their heads, nobody spoke. . . . He spoke of the Indians as outstanding individuals.” In addition, the boys were given advice about values, “about fair play, about never lying. He looked down on an individual if you told a falsehood. . . . We were taught always to tell the truth.”

 

Ernest Thompson Seton teaching archery, from "By a Thousand Fires," by Julia Seton.
Copyright 1967 by Julia Seton.
Reproduced by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc.

At the close of that first night’s camp experience, Mr. Seton invited the boys to come back in the summer for a longer stay. The boys were to be called Woodcraft Indians and given Indian names. Clark’s name was “Broken Arm.” Their activities were chosen primarily to enhance their knowledge and skills of life in the woods. One involved swimming across the lake, which was about a hundred yards. “We ran races for which we got what he called a ‘coup.’ A coup was a feather that we could put in our hair . . . and, if you did particularly good, on the upper part of the feather was a little white thread that he had put on, and that was a grand coup.” They also raced around the lake “for the hundred yards and then we had the two-twenty races.” 

Ernest Thompson Seton teaching fire-making, from "By a Thousand Fires," by Julia Seton.
Copyright 1967 by Julia Seton.
Reproduced by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc.

 A favorite game was the “deer hunt” in which one boy was elected to be the deer and given a head start. He would wear shoes onto which iron hoof forms, resembling deer hoofs and made by a blacksmith, were fastened. Off he would go over hills and rocks, trying to elude the “hunters” who followed the tracks until the “deer” was found to great elation. “It was an honor to be the deer, and we all wanted to be the deer, and Mr. Seton would change around so we would all have a chance.”

 The next year, Mr. Seton invited the boys to return “and then it grew, and all the Cos Cob boys came,” eventually including other boys from Greenwich. Ernest Seton taught the boys lessons which resonated with them throughout their lives. “Everything Mr. Seton taught us had something to do with . . . the development of fine young men, in every sense of the word. . . . He was teaching us honesty. . . . He was teaching us to be a team, to play together. He was teaching us of manhood that was to come, and he was teaching us the worth of outdoor life. . . . Everything that you can think of that’s good.” In addition, “There were no harsh words, no swear words. Swearing was one of the things that you just didn’t do. . . . While we were having a good time, in reality he was teaching us the proper things in life.”

 Ernest Thompson Seton was a member of the Camp Fire Club of America and invited that group to come to Wyndygoul to observe the Woodcraft Indians. He also wrote a book entitled “The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians,” which delineated in great detail the rules, goals, games, and activities of the program he created. Sir Robert Baden-Powell of England, who authored “Scouting for Boys” and organized the Boy Scouts in England, was impressed and influenced by Seton. “But where we were called Seton Indians . . . he called them Boy Scouts.”

Leonard S. Clark
Courtesy of Maryanne Gjersvik

 Leonard proudly stated, “So the Boy Scout movement that’s over the world today . . . came from England back to us. . . . And so the first Boy Scouts in the United States were the group in Cos Cob under the leadership of Mr. Seton. . . . I attribute the good health, the fine characters we had . . . to the outstanding training Mr. Seton gave us boys in Cos Cob.” 

 The interview “Seton’s Indians” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

YEARS AGO IN GLENVILLE

“The whole town was like a big
family. We shared each other’s joys and sorrows.” Frances Chmielowiec Geraghty, on three separate occasions in 1975/76,  was interviewed by Katherine Scanlon of the Greenwich Library Oral History Project to capture memories of a lifetime in Glenville. She had much to tell about a life that had its share of hardships and setbacks, but was remembered by the joy and comfort of a loving and large family.

Frances Chmielowiec Geraghty photo by Karl Gleeson
Courtesy of Oral History Project.

Frances was the third of ten children born in 1907 to Polish immigrants.  “They had such large families. Everybody had. I don’t think there was any with less than five.” According to Frances, “We were all Polish-speaking people. . . . There was a great crowd (of immigrants) that came at once; we were all growing up together.”

Glenville was largely a company town. “Almost every house in Glenville was owned by the American Felt Company.” Rent of a dollar a room was paid to the AFC. Families who managed to snare a house with multiple bedrooms would rent them out to boarders for extra cash. “I don’t know anyone in Glenville that started with my mother’s crowd that didn’t end up owning their own home . . . without asking anyone’s help.”

1908 photo of the Chmielowiec family with sisters Mary and Eleanor and adopted son, John. Frances is seated on a cushion on the floor.
Courtesy of Frances Geraghty.

There was a strong sense of community among these young immigrants. Families grew their own vegetables and many owned chickens and pigs. “There was always an exchange. If you didn’t have a good crop of one thing and the other did . . . you just didn’t refuse anyone. . . . People were closely knit in those days.” Frances remembered that her father would be asked by “the people from the country, upper King Street” to help fulfill their needs of a seamstress, a cook, or a milkmaid.   He would then investigate which ships were coming into the Port of New York, hitch up the horse and wagon, and ride down to the docks. As the passengers stepped off the ship, her father would shout, “Who can cook? Who can sew? Who can take care of horses?” Soon he would have a wagon-load of young people who stayed with them until they procured jobs. 

In those early days of her life, Frances remembered that there was no electricity. “Don’t forget there was no water in Glenville either . . . no water till after I was married (in 1930). . . . Every bit of water had to be brought into the house, pumped in. My mother with ten children on wash day was really something.” In addition, “Everybody had an outdoor privy; and you weren’t embarrassed about it because everyone else had one, too.” Proudly, she stated, “Well, we had the best one in town. We had a five-seater.”

The house, owned by the American Felt Company, in which Frances Geraghty was born in 1907. Her father’s general store occupied space in front of the building (not visible). Courtesy of Frances Geraghty.

News traveled in a different way in those days when people did not have telephones. “There was a very unusual way of gathering people.” Someone with “a very fancy bugle with tassels hanging” would stand in the center of town and blow it. “ . . . everybody came running from the hills or they sent the children out. ‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’” The bugle was blown when the First World War ended. It also announced when someone had died or if an important meeting was to take place.

As Frances reminisced, she said wistfully, “I don’t think anyone today can visualize or comprehend a life like this. . . . You have to remember the quietness of the town. . . . You heard nothing except the humming of the felt mill, and that would be down toward the river. There were no airplanes, no traffic, no cars. . . . You could hear crickets, locusts, maybe a cow mooing or a rooster crowing. Those were the only sounds we heard. The smells were beautiful. You could smell sweet hay and strawberries.”

Frances remembered making deliveries by horse and wagon with her father from his general store to customers on Porchuck Road, Round Hill Road, and Banksville. In the summer, they would leave at 4:30 in the morning. “I remember coming back home at dark, at night. Sometimes my father would fall asleep and the horse would bring us home.” In the 1930s, the A&P came to Glenville; her dad could not compete with their prices and eventually closed his store.

The onset of the Depression led to difficult and challenging times for Frances and her family. “Bill and I got married at the height of the Depression (1930). There were no jobs. There was nothing; no money. . . . My mother had seventeen people in the home. My father was making a dollar a day for the WPA (Works Progress Administration) building the Glenville School playground. . . . There was nothing to do but go and do domestic work. . . . I had dresses that were somebody else’s and coats that didn’t fit.” Frances and Bill, who was recovering from tuberculosis, lived with her parents for a time. Eventually, Bill got a job as a plumbing apprentice for eleven dollars a week and they were able to rent a tiny house near her parents. “It had no water, no lights, and, of course, no heat.” They preferred to call it their “honeymoon house.” “Yet, somehow,” Frances said, “through all that, you had your garden and you had a few chickens.  You survived. And we had each other which was the main thing.”

Economic circumstances improved for them with the onset of the Second World War when she and Bill obtained jobs with Electrolux in Old Greenwich. At the time of her interview, Frances worked at Town Hall. As she looked back on her life and times, Frances stated, “. . . they were rough times, but they were happy days. . . . Those were the good old days.”

The interview “Years Ago in Glenville – Frances Chmielowiec Geraghty” may be read in its entirety at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subject to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.