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.