Scouts of all ages should know about Camp Miakonda

Once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout. One of the “wonders of the Scouting world” can be found in Toledo, Ohio, at Camp Miakonda. It’s the oldest Scout camp in Ohio and the fifth oldest in the country. 

Camp Miakonda opened in 1917 and is still serving youths (both boys and girls now). The camp occupies 160 acres of pristine land along the banks of Ten Mile Creek, a tributary of the Ottawa River, which flows into Lake Erie.

 

For the full flavor of Camp Miakonda, access on YouTube a 30-minute film produced in 1945, entitled “Your Boys Today...Your Citizens Tomorrow.” The narrator is comedian and film actor Joe E. Brown (known for his enormous elastic-mouth smile), who grew up in Toledo.

 

The two museum buildings at Camp Miakonda display more than 6,000 Scout memorabilia items dating back to 1910, when the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) was formed. The museums are nationally renowned. 

Curator David L. Eby says: “Miakonda is a Native-American word that means ‘land of the crescent moon.’” The “C” in the Camp Miakonda logo has a crescent moon shape. 

The camp is owned and managed by the Erie Shores Council of BSA, which is headquartered in Toledo and serves Scouts of all ages in five northwestern Ohio counties. 

The camp is the centerpiece of the DeVilbiss Scout Reservation, named after Thomas DeVilbiss, an industrialist and philanthropist, who was the president of a major manufacturing complex in Toledo. 

“Camp Miakonda evokes so many memories,” Eby said. “For starters, the swimming pool was the world’s longest when it was built in the 1920s – 480 feet long, containing 1.3 million gallons of purified spring water. 

“The Council Lodge is an octagonal, five-story tall log building that was designed to have open campfires inside it,” Eby said.

 

“There were eight treehouse campsites along the creek where 32 Scouts could sleep 32 feet off the ground in the tree tops each night. Rustic staircases wrapped around the tree trunks,” Eby said.

 

“There was a full-size teepee village where Native Americans taught Indian lore. Scouts enjoyed sleeping in the teepees during their week of summer camp,” he noted. 

“The Lookout” is a giant flagpole that was once the main mast on a Great Lakes freighter that was donated by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company, a subsidiary of US Steel Corporation. Scout buglers climbed to its crow’s nest to play signals five times a day, Eby said.

 

The official mascot of Camp Miakonda was “Jake the Goose.” The critter arrived one day in the early 1950s, and “never left,” Eby said. “He became the camp ranger’s pet and was with him constantly.” 

“During summer camp, patrols of Scouts would line up to hike around camp, and the goose would get in line, too, and walk along with them. Jake also learned that if he hung around the trading post when he was hungry, kids would come out with popcorn, chips, candy and other treats.” 

“Furthermore, Jake learned that if he chased the kids and flapped his wings, some kids would drop their food and run. Jake scooped up and promptly ate what they dropped.” 

Jake died in December 1956. As part of Camp Miakonda’s 90th anniversary celebration in 2007, a 5-foot tall, 3/4 ton gravestone was placed on the spot where the goose was buried.

 

“The marker is billed as the world’s largest goose tombstone…but it is likely the world’s only goose tombstone,” Eby said laughingly. 

Scouts at Miakonda also flock to the Jacob T. Goose Memorial Campsite.

Arbor Day recognizes the importance of trees in America

Inspiration for the observance of Arbor Day in April comes from the ancient Greek proverb, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Congratulations go out to the citizens of Pine Knoll Shores, N.C., as the community celebrates its 22nd consecutive year in 2023 as a “Tree City U.S.A.” The designation is awarded annually by the Arbor Day Foundation. 

In 1907, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt penned an Arbor Day letter to America’s school children in which he emphasized the necessity of careful use and the perpetuation of the country’s natural resources. 

“Arbor Day is now observed in every state in our union – and mainly in the schools,” Roosevelt said. “You give part of a day to special exercises, and perhaps to actual tree planting, in recognition of the importance of trees to us as a nation, and of what they yield in adornment, comfort and useful products to the communities in which you live.” 

“When you help to preserve our forests or plant new ones you are acting the part of good citizens.” 

Roosevelt commented that a nation “without children would face a hopeless future”…and a country without trees would be in the same boat. 

Jean Macheca of the Pine Knoll Shores History Committee noted that “conservation” must have run in the Roosevelt family genes. A member of the extended family, Alice Green Hoffman, who bought all the land in present-day Pine Knoll Shores in 1917, was an eccentric tree hugger.

Hoffman adopted this island as her home and ensured that “it would remain generally untouched by development during her lifetime and beyond,” Macheca wrote. 

“Gabrielle Brard, Alice’s companion of 22 years, remembered that Alice was convinced that without the protection of the maritime forest, the dunes would be destroyed and her ‘island paradise’ would be lost. According to Miss Brard, ‘Not only did Miss Hoffman cherish the trees, but she left standing orders that no animal, not even a snake, be killed on her land.’”

 

“One early PKS resident, Phyllis Gentry, remembers visiting Alice’s home, Shore House, as a child and having to navigate a winding driveway that bypassed many stately old trees. She was told that Alice couldn’t bear to cut them down and had built Shore House around them.” 

Hoffman’s “reluctance to sell off any part of her acreage made it possible for the land to pass unspoiled to her conservation-minded Roosevelt heirs,” Macheca said. Hoffman died in 1953 at age 91. 

The Roosevelts were “the ideal caretakers of a carefully planned, ecologically aware community. When most developers in the 1960s were clearing immense swaths of forest to erect cookie-cutter houses and stripping barrier islands for development, the members of the Roosevelt Trust were consulting with attorneys to draw up the environmentally sensitive and tree friendly covenants for Pine Knoll Shores.”

 

Macheca said that the earliest restrictions stipulated that Pine Knoll Shores property owners “leave all vegetation, trees, brooks, creeks, hillsides, springs, water courses and ravines in as near their natural state as is compatible with good building and land use practices….” 

“In the ensuing 50 years (since the town was incorporated in 1973), PKS guidelines regarding general treatment and protection of the land and vegetation, especially mature trees, have remained constant,” and are deeply ingrained in the community code, Macheca said.

 

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, once said: “Forests are the lungs of our land.” 

Everyone’s invited to come and breathe in some of that pure Pine Knoll Shores air.

Welcome to the ‘beach town in a forest’

Pine Knoll Shores proudly clings to its reputation as being a “beach town in a forest.” Located on Bogue Banks in Carteret County, N.C., the town is preparing to celebrate its 50-year anniversary on April 22. 

The first owner of land here in 1910 was John Royall, whose estate was known as “Isle of Pines.” He sold his property in 1917 to Alice Green Hoffman; her business on the island was named “Pine Grove Farms.” 

After Hoffman died in 1953, much of the 2,000-acre Hoffman homeplace became available for residential development, offered through the Roosevelt family trust. (Hoffman’s niece was married to the eldest son of former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.) 

The Roosevelt family hired Stone & Webster, an engineering-construction company, to manage the project. Pete Rempe, an employee with the firm in New York City, revealed: “I am the guy who thought up the name ‘Pine Knoll Shores.’”

 

Walt Zaenker of the Pine Knoll Shores History Committee said: “Pete Rempe’s enthusiasm for Pine Knoll Shores was demonstrated by his purchase of one of the first lots put on the market in 1957.” 

Meanwhile, A.C. and Dot Hall of Raleigh took an interest in Pine Knoll Shores, wrote Phyllis Makuck, another local historian. Dot’s mother, Ruth “Mabee” Bray, loved the beach. 

“The family used to go to Nags Head on vacation. However, when looking for beach property to buy, they quickly eliminated Nags Head because it had no oceanfront lots with trees. They visited Wilmington-area beaches and could not find a section with trees there, either,” Makuck said. 

“Then they came to Bogue Banks and saw an expanse of property totally wooded on both ocean and sound sides.” 

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. “Mabee was selling high-end women’s dresses for a shop in Raleigh,” Makuck wrote. “The owners of the dress shop decided to put a similar shop on the Atlantic Beach causeway.” They hired Mabee to manage the beach shop. 

A.C., who was the city planner in Raleigh, had dreams of building an oceanfront motor lodge with “an unobstructed ocean view, so he chose a site (with 300 feet of ocean frontage).” 

In 1963, when the first section of the “Atlantis Lodge” was completed, Mabee moved in. She quit selling dresses and managed the lodge for 17 years.

A.C. and Dot Hall at the Atlantis Lodge.

 

Guests at the Atlantis Lodge.

In the 1960s, building a canal system as part of a real estate development was a common practice up and down the east coast, Makuck said. A.C. helped design the plan for the Roosevelts. 

“I put on big boots and walked the land many times. It was swampy, had lots of low spots…several small ponds and a large one,” A.C. told Makuck. 

“Bringing together knowledge gained from aerial contour maps and from many soggy walks through the area with skills as a master land planner and designer, A.C. determined where the canals had to be for drainage purposes and…the best locations for home sites to ensure they could have well-functioning septic systems. He wanted to design quiet neighborhoods with lots of trees and did not want there to be any through traffic.” 

“With a smile, he said: ‘You better know where you are going when you drive in there. It’s not easy to find property if you don’t, and that was by design.’”

 Makuck reported that the eastern portion of the waterway was completed in 1967, and the western loop was finished in 1971. Then, a bridge at Mimosa Boulevard was constructed, and the waterway’s two parts were connected, thus allowing full circulation of water throughout the waterway.

Pine Knoll Shores was once called ‘Isle of Pines’

Pine Knoll Shores, N.C., became a town 50 years ago in 1973…but its history goes back much farther in time and involves a mysterious woman who was regarded as the “Queen of Bogue Banks.”

Alice Green Hoffman

 

To set the stage: In 1915, almost all the land on Bogue Banks between Hoop Pole Creek (now in Atlantic Beach) and the western tip at Bogue Inlet (now in Emerald Isle) – about 8,000 acres – was owned by John Allen Crosskeys Royall. 

Royall amassed a fortune in Boston, Mass., as an oil company executive. He began buying parcels of land on Bogue Banks in 1910 and built a hunting lodge on the banks of Bogue Sound (in present-day Pine Knoll Shores). Royall named his estate “Isle of Pines.” 

He met Alice Green Hoffman in 1915. She was a wealthy New York City socialite who was living in Paris, France. She wanted out; a war was engulfing Europe. 

She believed that North Carolina’s Bogue Banks offered a completely safe haven. “It is too remote to attract gas bombs,” Hoffman exclaimed.

 

When she visited Royall’s property, Hoffman instantly fell in love with the land, remarked Phyllis Makuck of the Pine Knoll Shores History Committee. 

Hoffman found a “divine spot – a knoll from which one could see the ocean,” Makuck wrote. The location “was concealed by the magnificent semi-tropical forest of pines, oaks, sassafras, holly, cedar and dogwood trees. I was simply carried away,” Hoffman said. 

Royall agreed to sell Hoffman a 2,000-acre tract in 1917 for $45,000. She didn’t give a hoot about the hunting lodge. Rather, she was attracted to a smaller guest cabin. She enlarged and embellished it, naming it “Shore House.” (The hunting lodge eventually became housing for one of Hoffman’s farm workers.)

 

Carteret County newcomer Alice Green Hoffman was viewed as a celebrity. She was a member of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s extended family. Hoffman had no children of her own, but her niece, Eleanor Butler Alexander, married Gen. Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt III, son of the president. 

Local folks referred to Hoffman as the “Queen of Bogue Banks,” because of her regal demeanor and her eccentric nature. By and large, she declined opportunities to socialize with her neighbors in the fishing village at Salter Path, preferring to maintain her privacy. Her druthers were to soak up nature’s bounties. 

Pine Knoll Shores historian Walt Zaenker said that Hoffman “was described in many ways, but at the core, she was a strong-willed, independent, free-spirited woman who followed the beat of her own drummer.” 

The “queen” was her own driver. Alice operated a motorboat named “Fred” to carry her over to Morehead City or Beaufort, which wasn’t very often. 

While in New York City in 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, Hoffman purchased a 1929 Indian Motorcycle with sidecar. She decided to drive her new motorcycle back to Bogue Banks, forgoing the normal train ride or trip by automobile. 

Zaenker said that Hoffman was 71 years old in 1933 and “walked with the help of a cane.” A long-distance motorcycle ride was “a journey only for the hardy. In 1933, the road system was quite different from what we have today.” 

Hoffman’s real estate holdings on Bogue Banks came under management of the Roosevelt family trust in 1944. 

When the queen died at age 91 in 1953, Hoffman’s property was ripe for residential development…but not at the expense of the trees.

 

Pine Knolls Shore was, is and always will be “all about the trees.”

We’re still pursuing the elusive ‘invention’ merit badge

Only 10 American Boy Scouts earned the “invention” merit badge during the three years that it existed (from 1911-14), and seven of the recipients remain unidentified. 

David L. Eby, who is the official historian for the Erie Shores Council based in Toledo, Ohio, said he believes “invention” is the most famous merit badge in national Scouting history, at least among collectors. 

It was one of the original 57 merit badges first authorized by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1911.

Eby said BSA’s National Committee on Badges, Awards and Scout Requirements terminated the “invention” merit badge because the requirements were too hard, and it was too costly to the Scout’s family. 

“You had to literally invent some ‘useful article’ and get a patent on it,” he said. “In1914, the filing fee for a new patent was $15 and the fee to issue a patent was another $20. $35 is not a lot today, but it was back then (about $1,053 in today’s dollars).” 

On top of that, add whatever costs were incurred in creating the invention – supplies, raw materials, equipment and so forth, Eby mentioned. 

The three known recipients of the “invention” merit badge were: Stephen H. Porter of Fayetteville, N.Y.; Frederick L. Maywald Sr. of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Graeme Thomas Smallwood of Washington, D.C. 

Porter’s claim to fame is that at age 18, he was the first Scout to earn all 57 merit badges. 

Maywald was a 43-year-old Scout leader. In that era, Scout advancement was available to youths and adults, and troop leaders were encouraged to earn merit badges to serve as an example for their Scouts to follow. Maywald worked as a chemist and held numerous patents. Eby said he believes Maywald’s merit badge invention was an “oil separator.”

Graeme Thomas Smallwood 

 

Smallwood, who earned 51 of the 57 merit badges, had the honor of being awarded his Eagle Scout rank at age 17 during a ceremony at the White House in 1914. First Lady Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, wife of President Woodrow Wilson, actually pinned the badge on his uniform. 

Later in 1914, Smallwood served as one of four Eagle Scout sentries at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. He appeared in press service photographs of the event that were distributed worldwide.

 

Smallwood’s “invention” merit badge patent was for a “false sleeve” to be attached to the Scout uniform. 

The problem, as Graeme Smallwood saw it, was that early Scouts sewed their merit badges onto the right sleeve of their uniforms. If they changed uniforms as they grew, they would have to snip the badges from the first uniform and stitch them onto the new one.

 

With his invention, merit badges could now be sewn onto the false uniform sleeve, that could be attached over the regular sleeve and removed as desired “to keep your badges from being soiled while out in the field,” he once commented.

 

Smallwood’s invention was actually put into production and sold by the BSA. 

“With the advent of the merit badge sash in 1924, the false uniform sleeve uniform went out of use, although some still exist among advanced collectors,” Eby said. 

The inventor of the sash is a Scouting mystery for another day. 

Smallwood’s place in the annals of Scouting history is enhanced through his service as an Army officer during World War I. He and his wife, Dorothy Hubbell Smallwood, had three children. 

A son, Grahame Thomas Smallwood, who became an airline executive, once served as a member of the national BSA Executive Committee.

Eagle Scouts who earn all the merit badges are rarities

Hats off to Eagle Scout Briar McLellan of Raleigh, N.C., who earned all 138 Boy Scout merit badges. The story broke in Raleigh’s News & Observer newspaper in early March.

The Millbrook High School senior plans to enroll in the fall at Marion (Ala.) Military Institute, a renowned junior college.

 

Briar McLellan and his parents, Ken and Kim, celebrate his merit badge achievement. 

His merit badge accomplishment is “next to impossible.” Many have tried, but in more than a century, only 542 Eagle Scouts have “run the table” to earn all of Scouting’s merit badges.

 

Scouting came from England to America in 1910. While visiting London in 1909, William D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher, had become lost in a dense fog. He “was rescued and guided to his destination” by a young British scout. 

The lad trained under British Army Lt. Gen. Robert Baden Powell at his camp for boys that opened in 1907 on Brownsea Island on the southern coast of England. 

When he got back to the United States, Boyce formed the Boy Scouts of America. 

The merit badge program began in 1911, and the first Eagle Scout to earn them all (57 badges at the time) was 18-year-old Stephen H. Porter of Fayetteville, N.Y. (near Syracuse), who accomplished the deed in 1914…mostly. 

In a page 1 story, the Fayetteville Bulletin reported on July 17, 1914, that “Scout Porter has qualified for 56 of the 57 merit badges offered by the National Court of Honor. The merit badge for ‘invention’ is the only one that he has not earned, and he is now working on three inventions, with one of which he hopes to win the last badge.” 

“But the fact that Scout Porter has won 35 more badges than were necessary for his election (to the rank of Eagle Scout) places him in a class entirely alone. His record has not been equaled among Boy Scouts anywhere.” 

The merit badges that Porter earned were for: Agriculture, angling, archery, architecture, art, astronomy, athletics, automobiling, aviation, bee farming, blacksmithing, bugling, business, camping, carpentry, chemistry, civics, conservation, cooking, craftsmanship, cycling, dairying, electricity, firemanship, first aid, first aid to animals, forestry, gardening, handicraft and horsemanship. 

Others he received were for: Interpreting, leather working, life saving, machinery, marksmanship, masonry, mining, music, ornithology, painting, pathfinding, personal health, photography, pioneering, plumbing, poultry farming, printing, public health, scholarship, sculpture, seamanship, signaling, stalking (animal tracking), surveying, swimming and taxidermy. 

David L. Eby of La Salle, Mich., a Scouting historian, said he learned in 2015, that Stephen Porter’s entire collection of Scouting awards was still intact and is being preserved as a valued family treasure. 

The collection includes “the most famous merit badge, Porter’s ‘invention’ merit badge,” Eby said. “The last merit badge Stephen needed in order to have them all was there.”

 

The ‘invention’ merit badge was discontinued in 1914, but Eby feels certain that Porter received “an extension” to complete the requirements in 1915. Scouting archives show that one final “invention” badge was issued in 1915. 

“What Stephen Porter invented has still not been determined,” Eby said. “We do know that Porter once taught electricity as a vocational education instructor.” 

The first female Eagle Scout to earn all the merit badges was Hannah Holmes of Celebration, Fla., in 2019. She was 14 at the time. Hannah earned an associate’s degree at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and is now a film director in Orlando, Fla.

 

Hannah Holmes

The second female to perform the feat was Isabella Tunney of St. Paul, Minn., in 2020, at age 16. She attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, majoring in business administration.

Isabella Tunney

Cortez, Fla., people demonstrate their ‘resiliency’

Karen Bell owns one of the oldest businesses in Cortez, Fla. – A.P. Bell Fish Company.

 

The original fish house was founded in 1940, by her grandparents, Aaron Parx Bell and Jessie Blanche Fulford Bell. The Bells and the Fulfords were two of the first fishing families to move into Cortez from Carteret County, N.C., more than 100 years ago. 

A.P. Bell Fish Company remains as the centerpiece of the commercial fishing village located on the northern shore of Sarasota Bay near Bradenton. 

Karen is often asked to speak about Cortez’s “past, present and future.” She does so gladly, but it can get emotional, personal and from-the-heart.

 

Karen Bell is a respected small buisness owner within the region.

Cortez seems to have miraculously survived…so far…against all odds. Cortez is Florida’s only remaining working waterfront with functioning fish houses. 

That makes Cortez a tourism “hot spot” destination. The Visit Florida promoters once floated the idea of bringing in tour buses. 

“You’ll be run out of town,” Karen told them. “Let the tourists get a map at the museum and take the self-guided walking tour of the historic district.” 

Her attitude is basically this: Cortez is a real, authentic, living place. We’re not an amusement, nor are we willing to sell our souls to attract crowds of tourists. We’ll welcome you, if you come to experience us, learn about us and appreciate us, but don’t you dare try to change us.

 

Observers say that Cortez “could’ve, should’ve” dried up years ago when changes in fishing rules and regulations just about strangled the mullet fishermen. 

“Why is Cortez still here?” Karen Bell asked. “We’re just stubborn. The people here are resilient. It just seems like no matter what, people stay.” 

Today, A.P. Bell operates a fleet of 17 fishing boats. Most are named after women in the Bell family, but the boats go by “Belle.” Karen said it was a “southern belle” thing that her grandfather started.

 

After graduating from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, she told her father that she wanted to come home to work in the fish house. “I love it here. The people are genuine and down to earth.” 

Now, she’s the boss. It’s like being the head of a large family. “What we do is so important. We feed people. I tell the fishermen all the time that they’re ambassadors for the industry and when they’re out on a boat or out in the world, they sure as well better be good ambassadors for what we do.” 

Karen can be seen patrolling the docks and warehouse in her rubber boots helping to process the day’s catch until the wee hours of the morning. On a good day, the crew might handle 175,000 pounds of fish.

 

Karen can drive a forklift but admits to having “never fished offshore.” She quipped: “If I want a fish, I walk in the cooler.” 

“Gutted mullet is one of the favorite food proteins around the world. Mullet is a very strong fish compared to grouper,” Karen said. 

“With grouper, you get that white, flaky meat and a mild, mild flavor. Mullet, on the other hand, it’s one of those fish that are really good for you. It’s high in Omega-3. I love it blackened, smoked and grilled. And fried is, obviously, always good.” 

Karen Bell has diversified her business interests. In 1996, she acquired Cortez’ Star Fish Company, a wholesale and retail seafood market. A small kitchen was upgraded and eight picnic tables were placed on the back dock, and a restaurant was born. Try the mullet.