By Robert Selwa - Macomb
Daily Staff Writer
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP - Map
Southeast Michigan's first museum devoted
to the history of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts has been established
here, thanks to a man who loves scouting and has been active
in it for many fond years.
John Dyer-Hurdon began the Washington Scouting
Museum from his own collection of scouting items and those of
friends in scouting. The Scouting Museum occupies a large room
in the former Washington High School on Van Dyke, a half-mile
north of 26 Mile Road. Other parts of the building are used as
the Washington Historical Museum. Both museums are open 1
to 5 p.m. the second and fourth Sundays of each
month.
The opening of the Scouting Museum coincided
with the 75th anniversary of scouting in the United
States.
„I approached the Washington Historical
Society with the idea of having a scouting museum here and they
were tickled with the idea,” said Dyer-Hurdon.
The oldest uniform in the museum dates back
to 1912, a Boy Scout patrol leader uniform. The oldest Girl Scout
uniform dates back to 1924.
Trail medals from trail hikes all over the
United States, such as the Kettle Moraine Trail of Wisconsin
and the Covered Bridge Trail of Indiana, are highlighted.
Dyer-Hurdon provided his collection of 240
coffee mugs to the museum.
“It's a tradition in scouting that when
two adults meet, they have a cup of coffee together. We collect
coffee mugs from wherever we go,” he related.
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He found
some of the items in the museum at flea markets, such as a 1937 National
Jamboree staff neckerchief. The scouts held their first national
jamboree in the U.S. that-year in Washington, D.C. at the invitation
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Scouting originated in England, Dyer-Hurdon
noted, when Sir Robert Baden-Powell organized a camp for 20 boys
in 1907. He did so upon discovering that many military troops
had grown up in cities without any knowledge of survival in the
wilderness.
The movement was brought to the United States
by a Chicago Newspaper publisher, William D. Boyce. “He
was lost in a London fog, and a Boy Scout helped him find his
way,” Dyer-Hurdon related. “He was so impressed with
the helpfullness and leadership the boy had that he promoted
and helped organize the Boy Scouts in the United States.”
That was in 1910 - 81 years ago. The Girl
Scouts began in the United States in 1912 with the first troop
in Savannah, Georgia.
Now, as then, Scouting promotes the attributes
that Baden-Powell set forth as the finest for both children and
adults - trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfullness, friendship,
courtesy, Kindness, obedience, cheerfulness, thriftiness, bravery,
cleanliness and reverence. Scouts explore nature and develop
skills such as those the Indians and the pioneers had, Dyer-Hurdon
noted.
Old copies of Baden-Powell's books and early
scouting manuals and equipment are part of the Washington Scouting
Museum.
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