History – Bronxville Boy Scout CabinBronxville Boy Scout Cabin

1919

The Bronxville Review, Friday, August 8, 1919

Contract Let for Building Scout Cabin

Nearly all the local Boy Scouts are away, spending the vacation period at different Boys’ Camps, and there will be no meetings until next month. Work is to be started soon on the log cabin, to be erected on the Bronx Parkway, for the use of the Scouts. The building contract has been given to Mr. J. Bajusz. The logs will be shipped from the Adirondacks during the next two weeks, by Mr. Ferris J. Meigs, who volunteered to look after this essential feature. As soon as they arrive, construction will proceed rapidly and it is hoped that the cabin will be completed and ready for occupancy by October 1st.

1926

Bronxville Review, 29 May 1926

Camp Fire Dinner at Boy Scout Cabin

Forty members of Council Celebrate Completion of New Addition

Forty men, members of the Boy Scout Council of Bronxville, gathered together at 6:30 PM – Tuesday afternoon in tile Scout cabin on the Bronx River Parkway to celebrate the final completion of the addition to the cabin.

Three long tables were placed under the rough roof of the building, before an immense flieplace, and siting down these forty men partook of a simple campfire dinner, that, by its very simplicity revealed the genuine, straight-forward spirit that prevailed throughout the occasion.

This was no ordinary campfire “get together”; this was no perfunctory banquet followed by conventional addresses. While a half dozen Boy Scouts served the meal an atmosphere of fellowship crept into the large room and by the time the cigars and cigarettes were passed around everyone was in a genial humor.

Someone proposed singing, and for fifteen or twenty minutes the log cabin echoed with “old time” songs. Mr. Charles Ruston, who was chairman for the evening, proposed a toast to Otis Tiffany Barnes, father of the Boy Scout movement in Bronxville. From then on the spirit of Mr. Barnes commanded the admiration and respect of every man present, though most of the company had never known this mentor of the Bronxville boys of years ago.

After giving a brief outline of Bronxville Boy Scout history, Mr. Ruston called on a number of the men to speak who have for years been intimately connected witli the Scouts; Mr. B. W. Folger, Dr. C. W. Robinson, Mr. A. J. Stoddard, Mr. D. A. McKinlay, Mr. Joseph H. Clark, Mr. Willard Hathaway, Col. F. L. Devereux, Mr. Wright and Mr. Charles H. Smith, Jr. Each man not only testified howgreat were the rewards of their small sacrifices for the Boy Scouts, but how much the idealism of this organization meant to the future manhood of the nation. The occasion came to a close by setting fire to a large stack of boxes and barrels piled on the lawn before the cabin. In a few minutes a great blaze illuminated the building and surrounding trees.

It may have been that this blaze signified the final winning of a difficult goal. Here at last was the cabin completed and a caretaker Installed. The scouts of Bronxville have every reason to be proud of the public spirited and unselfish men who have built up their organization to its present perfection.

1932

The Bronxville Press – Tuesday, January 26, 1932

Portrait in Scout Cabin Recalls Memory of Local Founder

Otis Tiffany Barnes, Whose Likeness Hangs Over the Fireplace, Began Scout Movement Here — Painting By Ruth Smedley W. Right

Over the fireplace in the Boy Scout cabin hangs a portrait of a young man in scout uniform It was placed in the cabin some weeks ago and is the work of Ruth Smedley Wright, wife of Scout Commissioner Harrison Wright. The young man belongs in his place where young scouts can look to him for inspiration for he is Otis Tiffany Barnes, founder of the Boy Scout organization in Bronxville.

It was in 1915 when he was pastor of the Reformed Church that Mr. Barnes started the Scout movement here. He wanted to teach the boys of his church to live clean, healthy and natural lives and so he gathered the boys together into a scout troop, the first that Bronxville ever had. The Scout group has been gradually widened until it took in many more boys of Bronxville. Mr. Barnes not only carried on his duties in the Reformed Church but he found time to take the boys on hikes, to help them in their Scout work and to influence them to become clear thinking, strong minded and courageous.

A photograph of Mr. Barnes used to stand over the fireplace where the portrait is now. Several months ago scout officials decided to replace the photograph with a more permanent record of the founder of their organization here and so Mrs. Wright went to work on a portrait. Mrs. Wright is the daughter of the late William T. Smedley, internationally known artist and portrait painter. She has followed her father’s profession and she too is well known for her portraits. Her portrait of Mr. Barnes was done in her studio at her home here in Bronxville.

The following tribute has been paid to Mr Barnes by Charles Ruston Jr., chairman of the district committee of the Scouts:

“The Village of Bronxville owes a debt of gratitude to Otis Tiffany Barnes, the founder of the Boy Scout organization here. “

“One of his last efforts was at the Boy Scout annual service in the Reformed Church when he delivered a stirring talk on national heroes that all who heard him will remember. ” A short time thereafter he was stricken with an illness which carried him off in a few days, and which many of gloom his friends believe was contracted at Hogg Island where he had worked during the previous summer on the ships being constructed for the war.

“It was, in 1915, that Mr. Barnes requested B. G. Burtnett, 1 Alden Place, then president of the Board of Education, and myself who was in office at the time, to sign as sponsors his application to act as scoutmaster of the first troop. Almost single handed he carried on the exacting work of scout leader for over two years in addition to his duties as pastor of the Reformed Church.”

“Shortly before his death he had been enthusiastically working up plans for a Boy Scout cabin and had secured permission from the Bronx River Park Commission to place it where it now stands.“

He had often expressed much concern over the lack of active workers and assistants in the field. It was a tribute to him that the movement he had started was carried on efficiently by his successors. The money was raised and the cabin built according to his plans. It was named Camp Barnes.

“Its great open fireplace has witnessed many happy groups of scouts, scout leaders and committee men through all the years since, until now the boys of Scoutmaster Barnes’ time are men but doubtless actuated still by the scout spirit. To the Boy Scouts of today their founder’s zeal and whole-hearted devotion is but a tradition.

“Otis Barnes was an outdoors man and a lover of nature. He made friends; with boys and men without regard to creed He brought out the best in those he came in contact with. He led the boys on hikes and to camp over night by the lakes and streams. He encouraged in them a love for natural pleasures and taught them to be independent, courageous, helpful, loyal and true to their God and country.

“His memory still lives.”

1939

The Bronxville Review-Press, January 5, 1939

Rebuilding of Cabin Cost Village Scouts $7,577 During 1938

Funds to Renovate Headquarters Meeting Place Raised Here Through Gifts

Other Expenses $3,819

Largest Item In Regular Budget Is Council Expenses Of $1,500 – Welfare Fund Contributed $3,250 To Support of Activities

The cost of renovating and constructing added wings at the Bronxville Boy Scout Cabin on Westchester County Parkway property at Midland Avenue during the past year has been given at $7,577.43, according to the 1938 financial report of the Bronxville Boy Scout District council.

Funds to make the necessary renovations and additions to the Scout Cabin were obtained wholly through gifts made to the district organization by individauls and organizations, totaling $7,578 and leaving the council with $.57 surplus in its building fund.

Committee Report Financial reports were given to members of the district council at their meeting last Thursday evening in the cabin, where Harrison Wright, treasurer, rendered the annual fiscal statement of the organization’. Members of the scout finance committee are: H. T. Westermann, Kenneth G. kussell, Howard S. Anderson and Robert R. O’Loughlin.

The cabin was erected in 1919 when, there were only thirty youths in village scouting. Today’s membership in the five troops in the Bronxville district is set at over 200. To care for the large increase in membership, district leaders announced in May, 1938, that the present cabin would be enlarged. This year is the first in many in which all the Bronxville troops are able to meet in one central headquarters. Prior to this year, several of the troops made use of the school gymnasium, while cub packs met in the assembly rooms of local churches.

In its renovated form the cabin is equipped with kitchen and cooking facilities as well as a main meeting room and several troop rooms. Expenditures for scouting purposes, other than renovation of the cabin headquarters in 1938, amounted to $3,819.51. More than eighty precent of the funds’ used in local scouting, or $3,250, was Community Welfare Fund support. Council Budget Given Largest item in the year’s budget was $1,500.24, representing the district’s share in the expenses of the Bronx Valley Council which includes troops in Mount Vernon, Crestwood and Tuckahoe, numbering over 1,000 scouts.

Mr. Wright pointed out that the council activities include maintenance of a Summer camp at Copake, New York, leadership training, council hikes, supervision and record-keeping. To illustrate the amount of record keeping, it was ‘pointed out that a scout to achieve first class rating must pass thirty-three different tests. Results of these tests and other information is kept recorded on individual cards in the office of the Council Scout Executive.

Other items in the 1938 budget of the Bronxville Scouts were: cabin supplies, $462.04; supplies, $401.76; loans receivable, $272.63; troop funds, $240; telephone, $108; notes payable, $100; miscellaneous, $100; printing, and postage, $103.68; electric light, $78.82; cabin repairs, $59.91; and insurance, $7.98. Announcement was made at Thursday’s meeting that a tentative slate of council officers had been drawn up by a nominating committee. The annual election of officers will take place shortly.

1947

Bronxville Reporter – September 25, 1947

Boy Scout News

Cabin Improvements

With the meeting of Troop I on Monday, all four Bronxville District Troops have started fall activities. The repair and remodeling work on the Scout Cabin off Midland Avenue has been completed. The outside of the cabin has been given two coats of creosote stain, the floor of the main meeting room refinished, the troop lavatory remodeled and a stall shower installed, a community troop kitchen set up for the use of the troops giving Father and Son dinners and similar functions, and a modern four and a half room apartment completed for the caretaker.

The entire job was done by Mr. R. Mortensen, the camp building specialist who originally put up the building, under the supervision of Mr. Harrison Wright, Chairman of the Building Committee. The cost of the repairs was covered by budgeted funds allocated to the Boy Scouts by the Community Welfare Fund but the capital expenditures covering the remodeling were financed by donations from the Leonard Morange Post of the American Legion and a group of individual friends of Scouting.

Mr. Connors, former caretaker of the cabin has been succeeded by his son who, with his wife and three children, moved into the new quarters as soon as the builders moved out in early September. The low log fence around the front of the cabin that had to be removed two years ago when the new outlet to the Midland Avenue storm sewer was laid across the Scout Field is being rebuilt by District Commissioner Harold Ewald and Troop 3 Scoutmaster Ben. Pearson with the help of the Scouts and the flagstone walk is being relaid. This will prevent parked cars becoming mired in the low ground in front of the cabin this Winter and afford an opportunity to restore the lawn in front of the cabin next Spring. A glass enclosed bulletin board is being placed on the outside of the cabin by the front entrance where the new cabin rules and all notices of activities will be posted in the future.