We asked this question of our unit leaders recently, and it turns out it was harder to answer than we anticipated. So, we turned to council historian John Ropiequet for some background.
Evanston
Peter C. Wercks first appeared in the paper on July 2, 1910, as organizing a troop and started drilling the boys weekly near his home in South Evanston. The large, active group had its own letterhead with a large committee listed when it thanked the Evanston History Center for hosting them in February 1911. But it was affiliated with William Randolph Hearst’s American Boy Scouts, not with William D. Boyce’s Boy Scouts of America. It apparently joined the BSA sometime in spring 1911 after growing from 16 charter members in July 1910 to 110 members including a drum and bugle corps.
Wilmette
Founder Arthur L. Rice left us a manuscript history that now resides at the Wilmette Library. He and co-founder Alonzo Coburn read about Scouting in early 1910, and that summer they decided to get something started for their 12-year-old sons and others. They consulted with the minister of the Congregational Church and the famous Father Vattmann, a close friend of Col. Roosevelt, and started a troop. They did something more than others did—they got a charter from the BSA in New York in October 1910 that hangs in the Kasperson Center for Scouting today.
Glencoe
The Rev. Douglas Cornell at Glencoe Union Church formed a Scout troop possibly as early as April 1910, according to some Glencoe histories that appear to be based on local legend, but there is nothing documented about it contemporaneously. During my Evanston research, I found a mention in one of the Evanston papers that reported the Glencoe Scouts held an outdoor meeting in January 1911, indicating that they had formed sometime the previous year. Like Wilmette Troop 1, Glencoe Troop 1 claimed to be the first troop west of the Alleghenies. A Wilmette Scout named George Bersch, who later became our second lodge chief and a Scout executive in Belleville, amended that claim to the Wilmette troop being the first troop registered west of the Alleghenies. Glencoe Troop 1 didn’t go through the formalities of getting a charter until 1916.
Lake Forest
The Lake Forester reported in August 1910 that a troop was being organized in town. The Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Center has Scout Percy Okl’s Scout notebook showing him registered with Troop 1 on Nov. 12, 1910.
Waukegan (research in progress)
After mention of the American Boy Scouts (not to be confused with the BSA) in the two Waukegan daily papers in mid-1910, an effort started in August 1910 to form a Waukegan troop. By October, Lt. Fred Morey of the Illinois National Guard was leading 75 boys in four patrols in outdoor activities in the woods in and about the town and drilling them as an ABS troop in affiliation with the local YMCA. The Waukegan troops became BSA affiliates at some point before the dedication of the new facilities at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in October 1911.
So, which troop was first?
Probably Wilmette, but we are also considering both Evanston and Wilmette.
About the photo: Wilmette Troop 1 visits the beach at Saugatuck, Michigan, while attending summer camp in July 1911, according to An Illustrated History of Boy Scouting in Wilmette, Illinois 1910 to 1939 by John L. Ropiequet.