Scouting firsts lost in history?

[numbersnerd]

First lost neckerchief slide

[TAHAWK]

I thought of:

 

First statement that "It only takes an hour a week."

First loss of one boot or one shoe on campout.

 

But the first is an adult "thing" and the second, although a standard at every council camp we attended, was not as universal as the marshmallow torch. 

1 hour ago, numbersnerd said:

First lost neckerchief slide

Good one.  Consider this a "Like:" - although that seems to have gone away with the new software.

[qwazse]

I +1ed @numbersnerd for @TAHAWK

[skeptic]

On 11/27/2017 at 8:44 PM, Stosh said:

 

I may be the last scout to stop a runaway horse.      I was at a CW reenactment at Chickamagua in Georgia and one of the troopers was thrown when he got  too close to the artillery.  The horse bolted and took off across the field.  Another trooper tried to catch the runaway but the riderless horse could outrun the mounted horse.  I was standing in artillery reserves and I had read the part about runaway horses in the early Scout Handbook, and dang, it really worked! 

I may be the only Scouter who likely got himself judged too impatient for the Peace Corp due to losing his cool on a runaway horse while in a training course in New Mexico.  I was supposed to work with sometimes difficult people in the highlands of Peru, descendants of the Quechua, but I panicked when the horse got away from my control and went down a slope following horses with more experienced riders. I often wonder if I had not gotten selected out for that if I would have worked with Peruvian Scouts, or anything like that.  It also put me on the top of the list for getting drafted, since I turned 21 that year of 1965 and was not in college due to the course I left.  Never know, but life always has its challenges and possibly lost opportunities. 

[JayAre]

More food for thought--there are at least three articles I've seen that state there was a troop in Monterey, CA in 1908. This is one of them: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/zz/20100131/NEWS/100139743.

 I'm also attaching a photo (not from the article) of the troop (#1, supposedly). 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by JayAre

[NJCubScouter]

Welcome to the forum JayAre!

(As in, Who Shot...?)

[TAHAWK]

People did not wait for an organization.  People bought the book and started up.  I have belonged to two 1908 troops - one in Santa Ana, California, and one that started in Cleveland, Ohio, and migrated to Cleveland Heights, Ohio., by WWII. When BSA arrived in Cleveland in 1912, there were already ninety-nine troops, five of whom claimed # 1.  What I can't determine  vis-a-vis Cleveland District is what happened to former Troop 6 -  STILL 6,  changed to 11?     (About ten years ago, a jackass threw away all the old records.)

BSA did not finally arrive in Orange County, California, until 1926.  Troop 43, then 18 (old as dirt to a kid) decided to remain Troop 43 - its California Peace Scout Number.  Could not beat the 6 x 6 green silk flag with "Semper Paratus" and the UK Fdl. "The best troop in all the land is Troop 43."

So when was the centennial?  1907.

[RememberSchiff]

On 11/29/2017 at 9:20 AM, RememberSchiff said:

 

So the first US scoutmaster was Mrs. Myra Greeno Bass? 

 

Above sign remembers Burnside, KY Troop 1, but was it the first Boy Scout Troop of Kentucky let alone the USA?  Frankfort Troop 1 also formed in 1908.

More info from the State Sentinel, Frankfort, KY . The CO of this Frankfort, KY Troop 1 was the YMCA and Mr. Stanley Harris  was their first Scoutmaster. Here is a photo of the troop taken behind the YMCA. Scoutmaster Harris is on left in third row.  But why the confusion - shoes, the court system,...

 

The same year that Harris started the boy scouts troop, 1908, a doctor told him he had heart trouble and would die within three months. Harris did not die until 68 years later in 1976. He organized the troop to go hiking, so he could regain his strength. It was later discovered that the “heart trouble” was just bad indigestion.

The State Journal Article from August 15, 1976, announced Harris’ passing. That article contains a quote where Harris recalled speaking to the doctor who told him he had three months to live. The doctor, Harris recalled, “told me to die peacefully and I told him I never did anything peacefully.”

A letter written in 1940 from Harris to Todd Crutcher Jr. states that on Jan. 9, 1909, Harris received a letter from Robert Braden Powell, head of the British Boy Scout Association. The letter, which was written Dec. 29, 1908, authorized the troop. However, the Boy Scouts of America does not recognize the authority of the letter, according to the April 1976 State Journal article.

It cannot be proven that the Frankfort troop was the original Boy Scout troop in America because the charter was lost. The charter was used in a civil lawsuit between the federal government and Excelsior Shoe Company, which was selling “scout shoes.” Once the lawsuit ended, the charter was filed in court records in Washington. However attempts to regain the charter were unsuccessful, according to the April 1976 State Journal article. One report said the charter was lost in a fire.

...

More at source, excellent research by author Holly McClurkin

https://www.state-journal.com/2018/05/18/original-boy-scout-troop-reportedly-started-in-frankfort/

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by RememberSchiff

[TAHAWK]

All we have are bits and pieces.

 

In 1909 "Billy" Milne learned of a small group of boys at the First Baptist Church in Barre, VT, who were already members of the Boys Brigade, he offered them an alternative to their routine of marching and drills. By re-organizing into a new "Boy Scout Club" these scouts learned first aid, new outdoor skills and being helpful to others. "Billy" Milne went back to his native Scotland and brought back the books and materials he needed along with a British Charter.  By 1910 Barre's Troop #1 joined the Boy Scouts of America

 

U.S. Army Maj. Robert Lee Bullard, who would rise to the rank of lieutenant general and command the 1st Infantry Division, "The Big Red One," in World War I, met Baden-Powell in England shortly before he shipped out to the Philippines, and was impressed by the British general's scouting movement.

After being posted to the Presidio of Monterey from the Philippines with other members of the 8th Infantry Regiment in 1908, Bullard and three other soldiers recruited boys from the Monterey Grammar School, fitted them out with uniforms, a flag, drums and bugles.

A photograph taken in 1908 shows Troop 1 in ranks by the side of the Monterey Custom House, wearing uniforms.

One of the troop's first outings was a weekend campout at Point Lobos, with the boys in uniform marching out with two mule-drawn Army wagons carrying their supplies, according to a 1936 news story in The Monterey Herald by the late Ted Durein.

Records of the troop's subsequent lineage are sketchy.

Pacific Grove Troop 90 claims to be Troop 1's direct descendent. In an exchange of letters between Alfred Young, executive of Scout Council 25 in Salinas, and Bullard's wife in 1936, Young reported that Troop 1 operated from 1908 to 1912, drifted gradually to Pacific Grove from 1912 to 1918, and was registered as Troop 1, Pacific Grove, from 1918 until 1924, when the number was changed to Troop 90.

Scout officials and historians concede that a number of troops were formed before 1910, but none that were recognized as official Boy Scouts of America units