Tents and Vegetable Gardens

Photo by Detroit Publishing Co.

Paul C. Koeber

It has taken me two tries to score this Paul C. Koeber postcard from Silver Bay; the first had a postmark and writing on the photo; this one is as clean as a whistle. I have seen five PCK postcards of Silver Bay, nos. 1223, 1225, 1226 (this one), 1227 and 1228, which suggests the existence of 1224; the quest continues.

Panorama

Philadelphia YMCA at Silver Bay, 1909

The year before the first Boy Scout encampment, a group from the Philadelphia YMCA camps at Silver Bay. The man wearing a tie is James E. West, who became the first Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. My thanks again to Sarah Forbes Orwig for this photo and its history.

Scout Masters at Silver Bay, 1911

At the Boat House, photo by J.S. Wooley. The man second from the right, seated, is Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946), who founded the Woodcraft Indians in 1902, and in 1910 was instrumental in founding the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) with Dan Beard and Lord Baden-Powell.  To Seton’s left (our right) is John Alexander, the first managing secretary of the Boy Scouts, active in the Philadelphia YMCA, and a founder of the American Youth Foundation (AYF). On Seton’s right (our left) is Preston G. Orwig, Alexander’s assistant in his work with the BSA and YMCA, also a founder of the AYF.

Seton, who liked to go by “Black Wolf,” led the council of chiefs ceremonies and named Alexander “Kinji-Gissis” (Shining Countenance) and Orwig “Wadjepi” (the Nimble One).

My thanks to Sarah Forbes Orwig, granddaughter of Preston Orwig, for sharing this picture and the story behind it.