Leonard S. Clark: Interview

An interview with Leonard S. Clark by Penny Bott

Clark

You have asked me to tell some of the early experiences in my life. To me the most outstanding fact, in addition to the fact that I had a wonderful father, and a wonderful mother, and wonderful brothers, and wonderful sisters, was the time when Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton came to Cos Cob.

Mr. Seton was a boy, born in England, and about the age of twenty he became a writer. His father did not want him to be a writer, for he thought there was no future in it.

So Mr. Seton stole away from England and went to Canada and changed his name. Instead of using his proper name of Ernest Seton Thompson, he used the name of Ernest Thompson Seton, and the first books that he wrote are written, and are published today, in the name of Ernest Thompson Seton.

In 1900 Mr. Seton, with his wife - his daughter was not born at that time - came to Cos Cob and bought parts of three farms, with the outlet on Orchard Street in Cos Cob. He had erected a wire fence around his property, and he had two large iron gates at the entrance to his home, which was on Orchard Street.

Bott

That is the Pomerance property now, or is labeled Pomerance?

Clark

That is the Pomerance property now, and the property that they own, with the family. In fact, two or three branches of the family own it.

He erected these gates, and someone - and honestly and truthfully I didn't do it - but someone marked up the gates with all kinds of things that never should have been put on a gate, with paint. That was in the year 1902.

At that time I was a student in the Cos Cob School. The Cos Cob School at that time was not the present school, but a school near the Hub in Cos Cob. And I remember distinctly Mr. Seton coming down in the spring of 1902 and inviting us older boys - and when I say older boys, in 1902 I was ten years of age - to come to his property for a camp.

I remember very distinctly that we, about ten or twelve - some say it was seventeen, but I don't think it was quite that number - during our Easter vacation, we went up to Mr. Seton's property. I remember distinctly that we were told to bring along a blanket, so that we could sleep in a tent that night.

I remember as we went up we were jumping across the brook, and I remember distinctly that the brook was running full with the spring freshets in the early part of the year, the latter part of winter. I remember that my blanket dropped in the brook as I was jumping across, so that that night I had no blanket, no dry blanket, to sleep in. I remember that Mr. Seton had put up one tent, and I've used the wrong word, tent, because in reality it was an Indian tepee. And it was an original Indian tepee that Mr. Seton had bought somewhere from Indians and brought with him to his place, which he called Wyndygoul.

I remember that Mr. Seton had a gardener and a superintendent of his property, Mr. John Hansen. And Mr. John Hansen had a little tent - and that was a tent, not an Indian tepee - to one side, where he was to serve as cook. And he was to serve as watchman over the group of boys who were there. I remember that in the evening, Mr. Hansen built a large fire in front of our tent, in a place that had been cleared so that they could have an open fire there.

Bott

Were you located near the stream, or up above where that pond is now?

Clark

Well, you've asked about the pond.

Bott

You might as well tell me.

Clark

Mr. John Hansen, not only was he a watchman for us, but he was the contractor for Mr. Seton. He had put in the road, and he had built the dam. So that the dam and the pond was built by Mr. Seton. Before that time it was just a flowing brook. And our camp was just to the left of that pond, as you face the upper part of Mr. Seton's property. If you go there today, you can see a little spot of ground - oh, it can't be more than forty square - that's leveled off. And on that little spot of ground was where Mr. Seton had the first camp, and had the first fire of which we sat around, and Mr. Seton told us stories. I remember that that first night - we were all youngsters, and we'd never been out before - oh, what will I say, ten o'clock at night, someone got up, and perhaps I had a finger in the pie, and we started the fire up again. Mr. Seton had gone across the lake to where his personal home was, and he heard us jumping and hollering, and saw the flames coming up, from his home. So he came over and told us that we ought to all go back to our tepee, and we all ought to go back to sleep, and he stayed with us that first night so that we wouldn't get into little boys' mischief that was so prevalent for us to do.

Bott

Was the fire burning all night?

Clark

The flames died down, but the coals were bright pretty much all night long. They were the large logs that had been put on, and so of course they held the fire during the night. But he stayed with us and so we slept - as much as we did sleep. I shouldn't use the word slept. I guess I should have said we stayed all night; we didn't do very much sleeping. But that was the first camp, and we were the first boys who Mr. Seton had on his place called Wyndygoul.

Bott

Now, let me ask you this. When he came to the school to get acquainted with the youngsters who had been painting his gate, and perhaps to make overtures of friendship to them, what did he tell you about this campout? What was the particular magic that made you people go?

Clark

Oh, he told us wonderful stories about the Indians. And please keep in mind that Mr. Seton was a young man then. Please keep in mind that Mr. Seton was a big man. I don't know his exact dimensions, but I'm sure it was over six feet, and he was a strong individual. Please keep in mind that he was a famous speaker. And so here, when he told us stories about the Indians fighting against one another and scalping one another, why, the chills just ran up and down your back. And when he told us stories, everybody paid attention. Not only paid attention, but we were just entranced with his talking. Oh, we had a wonderful experience. To those who have never met Mr. Seton, they can't understand what a dynamic man he was. He just would hold an audience and just keep them without… Nobody ran around, nobody left, nobody turned their heads, nobody spoke. We just paid attention to Mr. Seton when he spoke.

Bott

Did he tell you, '“Now here are the Indians, and these were the ideals that they held up, and this was the healthy life they lived. Now do you want to try it?“ Was it that kind of thing?

Clark

That was the kind of thing he did. He didn't belittle the Indians. No, no, no. He spoke of the Indians as outstanding individuals; people who, as you have said, just devoted their life to outdoors. Just devoted their life to one another. Nothing was wrong, in his vocabulary, with the lndians. They were just the outstanding people, all the way through.

And then he told us wonderful stories, some of the stories that you can read in his early books. He told us those stories. And here he was, this great big man, with a fire burning high, and we boys all sitting around, and he telling those stories, while the chills just ran up and down our backs with that kind of thing. It was the greatest experience that any boy anywhere could ever possibly have had. And then the outstanding thing that he told us was about fair play, about never lying. He looked down on an individual if you told a falsehood, even if it was just a minor falsehood. We were taught always to tell the truth.

And then, as the first camp group drew to a close, he asked us to come back to camp in the summer. The first camp was just… We came up on a Saturday, we stayed over one night, and we went home Sunday. And then he invited us to come up in the summer.

Well, that's when we came up, in the summer. Then he had plans made up for what we were to do. We would swim across the lake. The swim across the lake was about, oh, a hundred yards, perhaps. And then he installed in our mind not only fair play, but in when we had competition one with another. So we ran races for which we got what he called a coup. A coup was a feather, a feather that we could put in our hair, or stick up, 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. And so we were taught…

Bott

That's an Indian term?

Clark

That's an Indian coup. C-o-u-p, I think it's spelled.

Bott

Did the Indians do this, too? Did they have contests and win feathers?

Clark

Oh, yes. Yes, the Indians did do that. The leader was he who had the greatest number of coups.

And then he had marked out on his driveway a distance of a hundred yards, and we had races for the hundred yards, and then we had the two-twenty races. And around the lake, around part of the lake, was supposed to be a mile, and we had mile races, and that kind of thing. He had developed, in the summer, the things that he had just started in the spring, and we had a wonderful time.

And then the next year, he invited us to come back again, and then it grew, and all the Cos Cob boys came. And then Mr. Seton thought it would be well if he had a tribe, and so he called us the Sinawoy tribe of Indians, and things were done. We elected, not a person to be president, we elected a person to be chief. And we had a small treasury to buy little things. I don't know what it was, perhaps we each put in ten cents or something of that kind. And that person who was the treasurer was a wampum keeper. And then he who was the fastest runner, he became the champion miler.

And then he had another game that always greatly interested us, and we just loved to be in it. He had a bag, just an ordinary feed bag filled with hay; and on the side of the feed bag filled with hay was drawn a heart. And one boy was elected to be the deer. He would take this bag and carry it, and he was given a ten-minute head start. First Mr. Seton cut up paper, and the deer would take along the paper and leave a trail. And then ten minutes later, the hunters would follow the trail. Well, it developed into many interesting things.

Bott

How did you catch the deer?

Clark

I'll get to that.

Bott

Oh, okay.

Clark

The deer would go along and leave this trail of paper. But then Mr. Seton immediately saw where he'd made a mistake, because one of the things that he'd taught us to do was not to violate and leave paper or leave things around in the woods. So then he got an old pair of shoes, and he had a blacksmith make a little iron form that resembled the deer track, and fastened it onto the bottom of the shoes. And so the deer, he who was elected to be the deer, would put on these shoes, after the first couple of days, and then he'd run, and we'd have to follow the tracks. Well, we had all kinds of funny things that we would do. For instance, when we had the paper, the first time, to be the track, he who was the deer would take the paper along to a brook, and he'd leave the paper up to the brook. And then he'd throw the paper into the brook, and it would flow down, and of course in that way the deer tracks would be lost.

Bott

Clever deer!

Clark

Sure. And then the same thing would happen when we put these shoes on. The deer would go to a place where there was a lot of rocks where there'd be no… You'd get on a hillside where there were a lot of rocks, and there were plenty of rocks up in Wyndygoul. The trail would be lost. Well, then the six or eight or ten boys who were the hunters would follow the trail, and he who was the deer would hide that bag, oh, perhaps in a bush somewhere, with the part that showed the heart toward the track, and then he who was the deer, he would go off and hide. And so it was up to the hunters to follow the track, follow the paper at first, follow the tracks in the ground, until they came to where one person would see the deer, and he'd call out ”Deer.” And when he called out ”Deer,” that would be the place where Mr. Seton would provide bows and arrows and where the hunters would try to shoot the deer. And I think each one would have one or two shots, or something of that kind. If they didn't hit the deer in the heart, then the deer escaped, and the game was played over again. If the deer was shot in the heart, then the deer was killed, and in theory, the boy who had been the deer, he was dead. Now that was a terrible thing for that individual. That individual, for the rest of the camp, found, unless he was excused, he could not play in any of the games. He had to clean up the camp. He was dead. He couldn't play in the games. He couldn't run. He couldn't do anything. All he was, in language of today, was the janitor for the camp. He had to clean it up, and get the firewood, and make the fire, and all that kind of thing.

Bott

For all week?

Clark

Until he was excused. Now, at night time, Mr. Seton would have a big roaring bonfire, and we'd sit around this bonfire, and Mr. Seton would tell us all great stories.

Bott

Did he call this a powwow, or did he…

Clark

Powwow, Indian powwow. We'd sit around, and he would tell us stories about the wonderful deer that went today, and how he hid away, and how he got away, and no hunter would catch that deer, he was such a wonderful deer. And here you had this Mr. Seton, and, by the way, his Indian name was Black Wolf. And here he was, this great big man, telling us these wonderful stories. And I'm telling you the truth when I say that pimples just ran up and down our backs, with him telling those stories.

Bott

I believe it.

Clark

And then he would say that this Indian was dead. He's dead, the boy who had missed the deer, and things of that kind. Well, he was dead. Or the boy who carried the bag, and the bag had been shot, he was dead. And so a couple of the boys would go out and carry him in, and put him down on the ground in front of Mr. Seton, and he was dead. And Mr. Seton would then say, ”Well, now we will vote and see whether we'll bring him back to life or not. All those who want to bring him back to life, what can we do to bring him back to life?” And so one of the things that we would do, eight or ten of us would stand in a line with our legs apart, and he who was the dead deer would have to go through our legs. And you can imagine the rear end of the boy going through. Everyone would whack him on that rear end as he went through, and that was his penalty. And something like that was done, and so then, the next day, he was alive again, and he could be the deer again, or he could be one of the hunters again.

Bott

How was he picked to be deer?

Clark

Well, 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 to be the deer, and that kind of thing. But at night time, and this is the serious part of Mr. Seton teaching us what we were, we were taught never to tell a lie. Never to tell a lie. That was one of the fundamental things. Suppose we ran a race, and you were the winner in the race, and I kind of fought with you and said I was right alongside of you, I was one of the winners, too. But somebody had to win the race, and everybody had to come to a conclusion as to who that person was. And then the second thing was fairness in all your activities. Whatever you were chosen to do, you should do it to the very best. With his training, we got the very best training that boys in the teen-age years could possibly have had. Everything that he taught us was on the highest ground of principle all the way through.

Bott

What were the ages of the boys who came those first three years?

Clark

What were the ages? Well, my age was ten, and there were a few boys who were a little bit older than I, and there were a few boys who were a little bit younger. I would say from eight to twelve or thirteen or fourteen. And we chose a chief of our tribe. We were a tribe. We weren't just a group of boys. We were a tribe with a chief, and we chose the person who was to be the chief. I remember a boy by the name of Harold Ferris, who was a little older than I was, and a big strong boy, an ideal boy in every sense of the word. He was the first chief of the tribe, the first chief that the tribe had. But everything that Mr. Seton taught us had something to do with, as I look back on it now, and as I've looked back on it for years, the development of fine young men, in every sense of the word. While we were having a good time, in reality he was teaching us the proper things in life. Well, that was in 1902; and in 1903 we had another camp, and in 1903…

Bott

At Wyndygoul?

Clark

At Wyndygoul. All these were in the same ground. They had put up another tent. His men on the property had leveled off a little greater piece.

Bott

Did you have to pay for this?

Clark

Oh, no, there was no charge. No, no, there was no charge.

Bott

Did he provide the food, too?

Clark

He provided the food. We were each supposed to bring up one thing, and we did bring along something, but in reality the greatest amount was supplied by Mr. Seton. The camp grew in the second year. There was a group from Greenwich who had heard about it. You see, at first we were the Cos Cob boys, and then Mr. Seton got a group from Greenwich to come over. That made it far more interesting, because in the races it was the Greenwich boys against the Cos Cob boys, and in all the things that we did, we had competition.

Bott

Now, you were the Sinawoy tribe. What were they, from Greenwich? Were they a tribe, too?

Clark

Yes, they were a tribe, too. The name slips my mind for the moment. But they were a tribe, too, and they were some pretty tough boys that came over from Greenwich. I mean in the races, we had to run hard. And when you had the deer hunt, there'd be perhaps five from the Cos Cob tribe and five from the Greenwich tribe, to hunt the deer.

Then Mr. Seton began to give us these feathers to stick in our scalp, to stick in a band that went around, if we did something outstanding. The easiest way to get a feather was to be able to swim across the lake. Now to us as boys, that was just an easy thing. We all had been swimming down in the pond, and that was fine. But you can see why he had it in mind. If the boys were out in a canoe - and he furnished canoes, and we had canoes, birch-bark canoes - if we were out in the canoe, and the canoe turned over, he wanted assurance that every boy was able to swim. If you didn't have the coup for swimming across the lake, you couldn't get into any of the things that we did in the lake.

And in the second year that we were there, he had what was known as the sturgeon hunt. It was just a log, about six foot long, as I remember; and three boys: one to steer, one to row, and one who had a harpoon. The harpoon was furnished by Mr. Seton. It was just a stick of wood with an iron barb on the end, and the sturgeon was just a stick of wood. The sturgeon would be put out in the center of the lake. One group, three in a canoe or in a boat, would leave from one side, and three from the other. We'd both row and try to get it in, and take it back to the place from which we came. It was tremendously interesting, and we had a great deal of fun in that kind of thing. Then Mr. Seton taught us…

Bott

Taught you to use the canoes, I presume, paddle and…

Clark

You see, all the things that we thought were fun, they had some fundamental reason back of it. Taught us how to canoe, taught us how to swim, taught us how to run. And then we'd get a feather, we'd get a coup, if we could run a hundred yards, or if we could do all these various things that he taught us to do. And so we had the growth of life, just at the time when boys, that developed our mentality and developed our bodies in the best possible way. And then when the groups came from other places around, then the competition got greater.

But the greatest thing happened in 1904. I told you we had started in 1902, and we had grown in 1903. Mr. Seton was a member of the Camp Fire Club of America, and in 1904 he invited the Camp Fire Club of America to spend their summer outing at his place in Wyndygoul, and to have something of interest for these very fine men. I remember Mr. Abercrombie of Abercrombie and Fitch was there. I remember, oh, several of the big names of big people in New York, in the athletic world, were there.

And amongst the people who came to that first camp was an Englishman, Sir [Robert S. S.] Baden-Powell. He came, and for entertainment Mr. Seton had us boys come up and run races and, oh, do all the things around camp. Have the deer hunt, go through the woods where he had taught us the names of trees and tell the people the kinds of trees that they were.

And the great thing was Sir Baden-Powell, he took that idea that Mr. Seton had started in Cos Cob back to England. And when he got back to England, he thought it was such a wonderful idea that he started doing the same thing there.

But where we were called Seton Indians and where he had been in the Boer War, he called them Boy Scouts. So the Boy Scout movement that's over the world today - in practically every good country in the world today, I think, there are Boy Scouts - the Boy Scout movement came from England back to us.

And then I remember sitting around the camp fire one night, and Mr. Seton told us about the Boy Scout movement, and he suggested we change our name from the Woodcraft Indians, as we were known, to Boy Scouts. And so the first Boy Scouts in the United States were the group in Cos Cob. We were absolutely the first. The first fifty numbers were reserved for men like Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. [Daniel C.] Beard, Mr. Seton, and all those outstanding individuals. But the numbers were numbered for us Boy Scouts from fifty on. I'm not sure what my number was, but I think it was fifty-seven. But we were the first group of Boy Scouts in the United States, under the leadership of Mr. Seton.

Well, by that time, since 1902, when it started, to 1910 when we became Boy Scouts, Mr. Seton had developed a book. That book was called the Birchbark Roll, and in that book was listed the things that you ought to do in order to get a feather for so doing.

Bott

Was the Birchbark Roll printed when he gave it to you?

Clark

Yes. Foolishly I do not have any, but I know that there are several people in the town of Greenwich who do have the original Birchbark Roll, and some had later editions. But I think there's still one or two of the first issue around somewhere.

Bott

Okay, now, he's printed this book up, and it looks to me like the whole organization is coming together.

Clark

That's right, it was coming together. And in the course of time, during those ten years, other tribes were formed. Tribes came out from New York once or twice, I know.

Bott

Were they Woodcraft Indians or Boy Scouts?

Clark

They were Boy Scouts then. Well, some of them came out before they were Boy Scouts - when they were Woodcraft Indians, too - but not very many. But I remember that there was one particular group who came from somewhere in New Jersey. I think it was just Jersey City, but anyway they came out, and they were crack athletes. They had chosen to come out, and I know we had races with them, and, oh, it was inspiring, just the things we had to do and how we trained to do it.

Just to show you the result of our training, I have never smoked. Mr. Seton told us, and I think the reason he told us so much about it, he didn't want matches in the woods, and he didn't want fires in the woods. Oh, that was about the worst thing you could possibly do, to set a fire in the woods. And he taught us how foolish it was to smoke, and I believe that about a half a dozen of us who were the early Seton lndians have gone through life with never smoking. Oh, yes, we smoked a corn silk once in a while when we were boys, but I mean, in any serious way, none of us ever smoked, and the development of our bodies was just the ideal development.

There we were, out in the fresh air, running races, sleeping on straw at night with a blanket around you, and being taught the great things, the good things in life, and not a cheap thing. There were no harsh words; there were no swear words. Swearing was some of the things that you just didn't do, and it was a wonderful, wonderful training.

Bott

Do you attribute the good health of your body to this start that you had as a boy?

Clark

All of us believe that. As I've told you, there's only four of us left, and when we get together, we talk about the good health that we've had through our life. And we talk about the good health that the others had, who have died. Some died and several of our youngsters died in the first World War, and that kind of thing. You see, all those things had its effect, but the training that we had was outstanding in every sense of the word: the training of truth, the training of physical life, the training of being honest, the training of making your own bed, keeping the camp clean. All those kind of things were just fundamental with us, and the good training that we had had. And so we who are boys left, and those who died in the World War - and many of the boys did die in the first World War - all attribute the good health, the fine characters we had - and I'm not bragging about characters of myself, but nevertheless we all believed in that, and we all talk about it to this day - to the outstanding training Mr. Seton gave us as boys in Cos Cob. Well, then the movement spread, and then it spread all over the world.

Bott

About what year?

Clark

From 1910 on; from 1910 on, when we changed our name. And we were the first Boy Scouts from that point on. Then unfortunately for me - some of the boys carried on later, but my parents were not wealthy parents - I was expected to do some work, and I did. I had to drop out of the Boy Scout movement fairly early in life: I mean when l was sixteen or seventeen, somewhere along like that.

I had to drop out and go to work, but of the others who carried on, George White is one of the outstanding ones, and he's still alive in Cos Cob. Albert Finiels is still alive, and his whole life has been devoted to Boy Scouts and that kind of thing. The other is Joseph Burns. Joseph Burns unfortunately has become deaf, so that he can't carry on like the rest of us do, but he looks back onto his day.

By the way, we all had names. Joe Burns that just flashed into my mind, he was Eel Scout. Now, how did he get the name of Eel Scout? He caused us more trouble, because he could do something that none of the rest of us could do. Mr. Seton became very friendly with the ticket agent down at the railroad station at Cos Cob, and Mr. Seton, before we came to camp, would take some things down and give it to the ticket agent at Cos Cob. And one of the boys was chosen to be the scout, and he would get a ten-minute lead from the others in camp, and he would be expected to go down to the railroad station, and get one of the items that Mr. Seton had left there, and bring it back.

Now he was supposed to be a scout in the Indian warfare, and the rest of us would try to block him off. Well, how did we try to block him off? Please keep in mind that the Boston Post Road, at the time that I'm speaking of, had very little traffic on it. In fact, we used to play baseball right in the middle of what is now the Boston Post Road. We who were the scouts who were trying to stop him would go down and string ourselves all along the Post Road. But Joe Burns in some way could get down to the railroad station and get that paper, and get back, and we couldn't find him. We could not find him. We tried days and days and days, and he got through.

Bott

He was the best scout you had?

Clark

Well, let me tell you the reason. His father was one of the superintendents of the roads. In those days the town of Greenwich was divided into sections, and he was in charge of the roads over in the Cos Cob area. And Joe Burns knew where there was a drain, a water drain, that carried water from the north side of the Post Road to the millpond. And, of course, it was in the summertime when we were in camp, and that drain was clear. So Joe would come down and get in that drain - a hundred, hundred and fifty feet long - and crawl on his belly through the drain, and come up on the other side. And here we were…

Bott

Where was the other end?

Clark

The other end was down near the millpond, but not in the millpond. When it would flow, the water would flow into the millpond. But he would come out, and get out, so that he would get underneath the Boston Post Road, and we would never see him, and he'd go down to the…

Bott

He'd be right near the railroad station there?

Clark

He'd go down to the railroad station and get the paper that was given to the agent to get back. Then he'd come back and go through the drain on the way back, and we'd never - we were two years trying to find him. So when Mr. Seton began to give Indian names, he was known as Eel Scout. And Joe Burns today, if I see him on the road, if I see him, I say, “Hello, Eel Scout.” And he says, “Hello, Broken Arm.” I My name is Broken Arm because I'd broken my arm in pole vaulting.

Bott

You did pole vaulting, too?

Clark

Oh, yes, we did pole vaulting. And I put the pole on a little piece of stone, and it slipped, and I fell, and I put out my arm. And I broke my arm. So my Indian name was Broken Arm. And I don't think that that was a name that you could just use at any time. When you were in camp, if the person didn't use your Indian name - if a boy called me Len, or something of that kind - then that fellow, if I made a case against him - and to make a case against him with the fire of night you got up and in a great big voice you said, ”And he called me Leonard. He didn't call me Broken Arm.” - he'd have to go through our legs and get spanked on his bottom as he went through. And that was the penalty of doing it. So to use any other name except your Indian name was a terrible, terrible thing in camp.

Bott

What was Seton's name? Was it Chief Black Wolf?

Clark

Black Wolf. And he got his name because he had a mass of black hair. Perhaps you've seen early pictures of him. Well, his hair was thick, and it stood all over. I don't know how he got the name. Now that I think back on it, I guess he just chose it for himself.

Bott

He told me the Indians gave him that name.

Clark

Well, possibly so, possibly so. But anyway, he was just an outstanding man. The training that he gave us has gone through our life. And the training that other boys who came from New York, the tribe that came from New Jersey, the group that was formed over in Riverside - some of them have gone through life with the training that is attributed to Mr. Seton and the training that we had. And so that is the beginning of the Boy Scouts, of which I'm very, very proud to say that I was one of the very first ones in the camp, and the very first ones there.

Bott

Could I ask you some questions about it?

Clark

Surely. Ask me any questions you have. There's nothing in my life that I can't tell you about.

Bott

Good. Well, I was fascinated by the beginnings. He came to the school, and he said, “Come!” just like a Pied Piper. ”Come! I've got this wonderful thing going, and you'll have a good time.” What was the menu? Did he have a menu that he thought was healthful for young bodies? What did you eat? Remember that very first one?

Clark

Oh, you brought up a subject that I'll tell you about in a moment or two that was terribly embarrassing.

We were all supposed to bring up something. Well, I remember the first time that I went up, as I told you, when I was jumping across the brook, and my blanket dropped in the brook. I was supposed to bring up a loaf of homemade bread, and then somebody else was supposed to bring up something else. But if there wasn't enough, Mr. Seton always had some food to one side for us. And Mr. John Hansen, who was the superintendent of his estate, who watched over us at night, he always had some extra food in his little tent. So we always had extra food.

But after we'd had, oh, three or four or five years of these camps, one time we thought it would be nice - and I don't know who started it, but somebody made the suggestion - if we had the girls come up, the girls that we knew in school. And please keep in mind in those days we were just little animals together. Boys and girls just played around together, and there was no sad thoughts or anything else; we were just little kids together. So we invited the girls to come up, and we thought, ”Well, now what can we do? We'll give them a supper. What can we do?” And somebody suggested that we had some rice; why not have some rice? So we thought, ”Well, that's just fine. There'll be, oh, ten or fifteen or twenty girls up, and we'll just get a pan, and we'll cook some rice.” But we didn't know that rice expanded, as it does, when you cook it, and so we brought up rice, and we filled the pan full with rice before we started to cook it.

Bott

Oh, no!

Clark

Well, it started to expand, and we got a second pan, and we got a third pan, and we got a fourth pan. We had rice every place. And that's all we had for the girls, was rice. We never thought about getting any milk or the… And do you know, some of the girls - and there's only three or four or five left alive, who came up to that first camp - still when I meet them on the street - and they're elderly now, as I am - they say, “Let's go out and have some rice. Let's go out and have a feed of rice. Why don't you cook up a dinner of rice?” It's still a joke. Oh, we had rice everywhere.

Bott

Tell me the menu you had the first time you went out, that one night you stayed overnight.

Clark

That first night that we stayed overnight, as I've said, everybody brought along something or other. I brought bread, and I know…

Bott

Were you able to save it? After it fell in the stream?

Clark

I don't know. I made a mess of that first thing. I remember Albert Finiels, Little Thunder, his uncle was Mr. [Alvah E.] Worden, who was the butcher, and I remember he brought up some sliced ham, or something of that kind. And, see, I was to bring the bread, and he was to bring the sliced ham. That was to make sandwiches. Joe Burns, his father had cows, and he always used to supply the milk for us, and things of that kind. His father and mother were generous people, and they would just give us plenty of milk. So we had milk. So I think that our first menu was to be a sandwich and milk.

Bott

Now that summer that came up, when you stayed for a longer period, did you cook your own food? And what did you eat?

Clark

No. Mr. Hansen, who was the superintendent on his estate, he had a little fireplace that was built for him, where he could cook things for us. And then, I don't remember that there was any charge for it, and I don't remember that we brought things up, but I guess Mr. Seton supplied the food.

Bott

What did you eat?

Clark

Oh, it was just sandwiches and things of that kind. It wasn't any glorious food. As I remember it, it was nothing but sandwiches and milk. That's what we had, and when you're young and active as we were, sandwiches and milk, if there were plenty of them, was all you cared for. After a while, I think Mr. Seton furnished the food. But in the first camp, we were set to do it. Perhaps it didn't work out satisfactorily, so Mr. Seton did it, and Mr. Hansen was in charge of serving it. Serving it is not the right term. Mr. Hansen was in charge of preparing it, and then some of the boys would be selected to serve this meal, and some of the others the next meal, and things of that kind. It was very well organized under the jurisdiction of Mr. Seton; very well organized.

Bott

Tell me about the blankets.

Clark

Oh, yes.

Bott

That the Indians earned, and were their own.

Clark

As I've told you, if you could run a hundred yards in a certain time, if you could wrestle and put down the opponent, and you did things, you got these feathers, called coups. If you did particularly good, they had a little tuft on - the grand coups. Then Mr. Seton furnished a blanket which the coups could be sewn on, and you had to sew them on. First you had to win them, and then you had to sew them on, and you went up in rank if you had a number of coups. I remember that I think you had to have twelve coups, and then you were known as a sachem. And if you had twenty-four coups, you were a sagamore. And it was an inspiration for you to get a coup and have it sewed on to the blanket. And then, at nighttime, you'd come out with this blanket with the coups all around.

Bott

The coups were the feathers?

Clark

The coups were the feathers that you…

Bott

And they sewed the feathers on the blanket? Well, what would they do with the headpiece then, if they sewed the feathers on the blanket?

Clark

The headpiece was… Very, very few had achieved enough to have a blanket; very, very few. The rest of us…

Bott

Oh, you had the headpiece first?

Clark

Had the headpiece first.

Bott

And you filled out that with feathers?

Clark

Filled it out with feathers. Then, if you had enough feathers to become a sagamore or a sachem, then the feathers were transposed to the blanket.

Bott

Then you didn't wear this headpiece anymore?

Clark

Yes, you wore the headpiece. You're still getting more feathers. Then, you came around with your blanket with all the feathers on, and your headpiece with the additional feathers in, too. So, oh, you were a wonderful athlete if you could do that.

Bott

Would he supply the blankets?

Clark

I think so.

Bott

Were they army blanket types?

Clark

I think so.

Bott

Were they that sort of greenish?

Clark

No, I remember mine was blue in color.

Bott

Blue.

Clark

Mine was blue in color.

Bott

You had different color blankets?

Clark

Yes, as I remember. I think they were army blankets that he bought, perhaps a dozen of them, or something of that kind. I really don't know where the blankets came from, but I'm sure Mr. Seton provided them for us.

Bott

They were wool?

Clark

Yes, wool. Oh, they were grand to sleep in. If you used them for blankets to sleep in, of course you were very careful of them, you know, and all that kind of thing. Oh, that was a big honor, big honor.

Bott

Did you ever become a sachem?

Clark

No, I never did. I never did. Well, personally my life did not carry on as long as it did with some of the others. I got the job working for Mr. Worden, and Saturday was the day when he had groceries and things to deliver, and I couldn't go up there on Saturday, and that was when the other boys went. And so I really dropped out long before some of the others, but i was always interested in it, and I was always a part of it. Oh, yes, it was the big thing in our life.

As a matter of fact, one time they had the sportsman show at Madison Square Garden, in New York, and Mr. Seton persuaded them, I guess would be the right term, that he would have some boys come down. And in those days in the Madison Square Garden they arranged for a little lake in the center of it, to bring in kind of an outdoor atmosphere. And we were supposed to come down and have some races in this little lake, in canoes. But when we got down there, they found that the equipment that held up the water wasn't sufficient for the stirring around that would take place if we raced in that lake. But Mr. Seton took about a dozen of us boys down to the Madison Square Garden. I'm only telling you this to show you how important it was, if the men from New York, big men, Mr. Abercrombie, as I tell you, and other men of his stature, came out and saw what Mr. Seton was doing for the boys. And it made such an impression on them that they wanted us to come down and do things in Madison Square Garden. That's how important life was with Mr. Seton - that's how it grew.

But they didn't have the Facilities down there in Madison Square Garden, so we didn't do very much. We walked around with our Indian blankets on, and walked around with our coups on our head. And we talked to people about it and explained how we got the coups and how we got the blanket and all that. But we couldn't perform any of the things that Mr. Seton had hoped that we would perform down there.

So in 1910 as we sat around, the Seton Indians became an obsolete group, and the Boy Scouts took over the camps then.

Bott

Did you vote on it? Or did you just say there…

Clark

No, no, no, we voted it. Mr. Seton advised us to do, of course. If he advised us to jump off a cliff we would have done it, but he advised us. He talked about it. He talked about Sir Baden-Powell being over there. He talked about Sir Baden-Powell and his background. He talked about Sir Baden-Powell taking it to England, and then coming back. He told us the whole story about it, and that's the part that I want to emphasize to you: that what we kids did under the leadership of Mr. Seton in Cos Cob, beginning in 1902, is in reality the basis for the Boy Scout movement that is now all over the world.

Bott

Right, I've got that. Now before we run out of tape, I have two things that I thought might be interesting. One, I'd like you to tell me, as a young boy how Mr. Seton impressed you. You told me that the boys loved him and followed him. Now describe his person a little bit, and how it affected you.

Clark

Oh, not only the boys, but the fathers and mothers of we who were the boys, were tremendously affected by him. Because he was teaching the fundamentals in life. He was teaching us honesty. The one thing that you'd get thrown out for was if you were dishonest. 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. He was teaching us the worth of activity in life. Everything that you can think of that's good.

I never knew Mr. Seton to go to church - I don't think he was much of a churchman himself - to go to the Diamond Hill Church. The Diamond Hill Methodist Church was there, if he wanted to go, but I don't think he was a churchgoing man.

And Mrs. Seton, too. You can't give Mr. Seton all the glory. Mrs. Seton was a wonderful, wonderful woman. She used to come over to the camp fire. if a boy hurt himself a little bit, it was Mrs. Seton who would bind up his cut finger, or things of that kind. She was a tremendous woman and a tremendous help. I'm speaking of the first Mrs. Seton. Mr. Seton married again later in life. I'm thinking of the first Mrs. Seton. And Anya Seton…

Bott

I was going to say, did you Boy Scouts or Indians over there ever see Anya?

Clark

No. She was born there…

Bott

At Wyndygoul?

Clark

Yes. Her mother may have gone to the hospital. But there's where he lived, and it was Mr. and Mrs. Seton, before Ann was born, I'm speaking of. She came later. I remember very distinctly when Mrs. Seton brought a baby over and said, ”This is our new baby, and she's a new papoose,“ and all that kind of thing. Oh, yes, and Ann Seton grew up in that atmosphere. The books that she's writing now are subjects that she knew, and she knew about, when she was young. Oh, yes, Mrs. Seton was a wonderful, wonderful person, as was Mr. Seton, and Anya grew up in that atmosphere. i remember very distinctly Mrs. Seton coming with a baby in arms, and that was Anya Seton. Yes.

Bott

Did the boys idolize him? Did they want to be like him?

Clark

Oh, yes. I could almost say that he was a second father to us. His fundamental belief in right things to do has carried, in my case, and I know, in the case of many others, carried through life. There's a fellow from Greenwich over here, Doug Miller, who is an excellent athlete, and Doug Miller became the head of the Boy Scouts. He gave up his life to do this kind of thing, and others, whose names I can't recall for the moment, became interested in that. Perhaps you've heard of Baxter Liebler. Baxter Liebler was a wealthy boy from Riverside. He came over to the camp. He became interested in the camp. He married and had a couple of children. He became a minister to the church in Riverside. And then he became so much interested in the fundamentals that Mr. Seton had told him that he gave up his wife; he gave up his children; he gave up his parish. And he's still today… In fact, I got a letter from him within the past three or four months. Gave up his life to go out and try to make Christians of the Indians out in Wyoming. That's what he gave up his life for, Baxter Liebler – that is, Father Liebler; I should have given his title as Father Liebler, but to me he was Baxter Liebler. I've forgotten now what his Indian name was. But he was a boy amongst us, and his whole life has been devoted to the things that Mr. Seton taught.

Bott

He was very much affected by it then?

Clark

And we all were affected by it. We all were affected by it.

Bott

Yes.

Clark

Oh, for years I'd meet George White, when I was kind of mixed up in politics or something of that kind, and he'd say, “Mr. Seton wouldn't like to have you do that.“ And he'd shake his finger at me, like that. (laughter)

Bott

Did the boys go to him for advice when they were making decisions about their life?

Clark

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, his life, his advice, his friendship, until he moved away from Greenwich, moved away, was a factor in the lives of every one of us who were closely associated with him in our early youth. And when I say that, I don't mean only the boys from Cos Cob. I mean Doug Miller from Greenwich. I mean Baxter Liebler from Riverside. I mean a fellow from New Jersey whose name slips my mind for the moment, but he came up and he became a Boy Scout, and an official in the Boy Scouts later in life. But he fundamentally got it started in Wyndygoul under the leadership of Mr. Seton in Cos Cob. Oh, it's been wonderful!