Cradle of Liberty Council

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bruce S. Marks Scout Resource Center

The Cradle of Liberty Council (525) is a Boy Scouts of America council created in 1996 with the merger of the former Philadelphia Area Council, covering the city and county of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the former Valley Forge Council, covering both Delaware County, Pennsylvania and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is the largest council in Pennsylvania and is the third largest in the entire Boy Scouts of America.^[1]

COL Council Strip

1 History
2 Districts
3 Scout camps
4 Order of the Arrow Lodge
5 Offices
6 Famous alumni
7 Controversies
8 See also
9 External links
10 Notes

[edit] History

The present council is the result of the 1996 merger of two previous councils, the Philadelphia and Valley Forge councils. The Philadelphia council was founded in 1911. In 1913, the Philadelphia council opened the first American scout camp, Treasure Island Scout Reservation, near Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Two years later, Dr. E. Urner Goodman and Carrol Edson founded the Order of the Arrow, which inducted its first members on July 16, 1915.

T.I. Patch

The council is host to the oldest annual Scouting event in the nation, the Valley Forge Pilgrimage and Encampment.

The Valley Forge Council was created from the Delaware and Montgomery County councils in a BSA-directed merger in the 1950s. Valley Forge was named for the historic winter of 1776-77 camp by George Washington's troops. It opened its first camp, the Delmont Scout Reservation in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, and acquired land to open the Resica Falls Scout Reservation near the Delaware Water Gap in 1962.

Because of a shifting population (with city residents moving to the suburbs), and two councils each trying to gain capital funds for their camps, the BSA suggested to the executive boards of both councils that they merge, a process started in 1993 and made final in 1996.

When councils merge, they are given a new council number, and the new council became number 525. Philadelphia's OA lodge (Unami One), the one founded in 1915 on Treasure Island, and recognized as the first lodge nationally, would be lost in the merger. To prevent this, the members of Valley Forge's OA lodge, Delmont Lodge 43, voted to fold their lodge and became part of the Unami Lodge in 1997.

[edit] Districts

50th anniversary patch

Baden-Powell District^[2] - Serving Ambler, Blue Bell, Conshohocken, Lafayette Hill, Lower Gwynedd, Oreland, Plymouth Meeting, Upper Dublin and Whitemarsh
Conestoga District - Interboro, Ridley, Southeast Delco, Springfield, Upper Darby and William Penn School Districts in Delaware County, PA
Continental District - Serving Pottstown, Pottsgrove, Boyertown & Upper Perkiomen School Districts (North-West Montgomery County)
Delaware District - Serving Northeast Philadelphia
Constellation District - Haverford, Lower Merion, Marple Newtown & Radnor School Districts
Frontier District - Serving Northwest Philadelphia
General Nash District^[3] - Souderton and North Penn School Districts in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Lafayette District - Serving the Communities & School District’s of Upper Merion, Norristown, Methacton, Perkiomen Valley, and Royersford/Spring City
Minquas District - Serving the youth of Chichester, Chester-Upland, Garnet Valley, Penn-Delco, Rose Tree-Media, and Wallingford-Swarthmore School Districts.
Northern District - Serving Northwest Philadelphia
Triune District - Serving South Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, North Philadelphia and Center City Philadelphia
Washington District - Serving Cheltenham, Jenkintown, Abington, Upper Moreland, Lower Moreland, Hatboro-Horsham, and Bryn Athyn School Districts.

[edit] Scout camps

Cradle of Liberty Council operates three camps in Pennsylvania: the Treasure Island Scout Reservation, the Musser Scout Reservation (from the merger of the Camp Delmont and Camp Hart) near Green Lane, and the Resica Falls Scout Reservation, composed of Camp Firestone and Camp Big Springs, north of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania in the Pocono Mountains. While Camp Big Springs is still an active summer camp, the declining attendence and enrollment of the Camp Firestone summer program has caused Firestone to close. This camp is currently used mainly as a Order of the Arrow lodging area and a High Adventure camp. The twin camps of Hart and Delmont had been operated by the Philadelphia and Valley Forge councils respectively before the merger; their consolidation under the name Musser Scout Reservation was a tribute to Pete Musser and the Musser family, long-time Scouting supporters.

Camp Hart Scouts

Treasure Island was damaged by floods from the Delaware River in 2005 and again in 2006, forcing its closure for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Resica Falls is situated near the controversial Tocks Island Dam project of the 1960s, now the present-day Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area.

The council no longer owns any properties in or near Philadelphia. In 1929, Henry W. Breyer, Jr., purchased the abandoned Lindenhurst property once owned by John Wanamaker in Cheltenham on York Road, below Washington Lane. Breyer donated the former Wanamaker land to the Boy Scouts of America for use as a wildlife preserve.^[4] Camp Henry W. Breyer (40.0853° N 75.1311° W ) was sold by the Philadelphia Council in 1990.

At one point, the Philadelphia Council was also given a tract of land near the Roxborough Reservoir at Port Royal Avenue and Eva Street (40.0556° N 75.2438° W). ^[5] This land was eventually sold and is now part of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. ^[6]

[edit] Order of the Arrow Lodge

Unami Lodge Flap

The Cradle of Liberty's Order of the Arrow Lodge, Unami Lodge One, is the oldest OA lodge in the country, and in 2005 celebrated its 90th anniversary. The current membership consists of members from the pre-1997 merger of the Philadelphia and Valley Forge Councils, along with new members who joined after 1997. Delmont Lodge 43, the Valley Forge lodge, simply folded as to preserve the histories and traditions of Unami One, but its Vigil Honor members, Founders' Award recipients, and other honored members are preserved from the records of both lodges.

Philly Council Strip

Philadelphia Council also had several other OA lodges in the early days of the OA (an early bylaw allowed each Scout camp within a "first class council" to have itw own OA lodge), but the others folded to become part of Unami Lodge after bylaw changes and camp closures. The only exception to the "one council, one lodge" rule is the five OA lodges in the Greater New York Councils in New York City, in which each of the five boroughs is treated as a "council within a council."

[edit] Offices

As a result of the merger, the Cradle of Liberty Council maintains two offices, the Bruce S. Marks Scout Resource Center in Philadelphia, the other, the Roger S. Firestone Scout Resource Center, in Wayne, just outside of Valley Forge just over the Chester County line.

The Marks Scout Resource Center in Philadelphia was built in 1929. The Beaux Arts style building was designed by architect Charles Klauder. It is located at 22nd and Winter Streets.^[7] The first copy of the R. Tait McKenzie sculpture The Ideal Scout stands outside the Marks Center.

The Ideal Scout

[edit] Famous alumni

Tommy Lasorda^[8]

[edit] Controversies

This section documents a current event.
Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

In 2003, the City of Philadelphia, under the leadership of Mayor John F. Street, filed a suit against the council when the council, threatened by the National BSA office in Texas with a cease and desist order (in essence, the dissolving of the council) due to the council's policy in the tolerance of homosexuals in the BSA, acquiesced to the BSA's National policy regarding the nonacceptance of openly homosexual individuals.

Because of the BSA's policy in barring homosexuals from its membership, the council adopted a policy to allow all those, regardless of sexual orientation, color, race, and religion, to join the program, mainly to regain funds from the local United Way, but was forced to rescind the policy at the annual BSA meeting that was held in the city. The Democrat-controlled city, which owns the Philadelphia building, and has bylaws written in its city charter prohibiting the discrimination of all individuals, was furious at this decision.

VF Council Strip

Because of the decision, the city wanted the council to vacate the office at 23rd and Winter Streets (next to the Franklin Institute science museum), but drew fire by both Scouting officials and city residents, who saw Scouting as an alternatives to the "mean streets" of the depressed areas of the city. Since then, the city has reversed its decision, as the possibility of a sweeping election by Street's reelection opponent, Sam Katz, a Republican, would have favored both the BSA and the administration of President George W. Bush.

Roger S. Firestone Scout Resource Center

In July 2006, Mayor Street once again told the council to change its policy on letting homosexuals be leaders, pay fair market rent or leave the Marks Scout Resource Center. The city said that providing the city owned property rent free to the council violates Philadelphia's anti-discrimination laws. The BSA planned to fight to the city's decision.^[1]

Local Boy Scouts officials must vacate their Center City headquarters by July 24, 2007, if they don’t begin either paying rent or accepting gays, City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said this week. The commission issued its notice to the Scouts on July 24, 2006, stating they could avoid eviction if they began paying fair-market rent or accepting gays, Diaz said. "Our position is that [the Scouts] already have been given notice," Diaz told PGN. "The clock began ticking on July 24, 2006, at the latest." The mayor and City Council also must approve the eviction, but the 1928 ordinance doesn’t specify a time frame for those approvals, Diaz added.^[9]

The Fairmount Park Commission also endorsed the move by the Street administration to force the Boy Scouts to vacate its headquarters on city land.^[10] However, citing "rising violence and other urban ills daily threatening Philadelphia's teens," some community leaders said it made no sense to evict the Boy Scout.^[11] Also, some questioned the objectivity of city solicitor Romulo L. Diaz, Jr., himself openly gay, in moving to evict the Scouts^[12] - especially in light of the fact that the city could lose $62 million in federal funds with the eviction^[13] because of the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005 and the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act.^[14]

No problems had yet occurred between local officials and the council over the suburban (former Valley Forge) office, a possible fact being that the former Valley Forge Council office is located in the northern fringes of the affluent Main Line area, and that the area is mostly made up of conservatives from northern Chester County. In fact, most of the council's activities and training sessions occur in the suburban office, due to its size and flooring area, and it has been slated for expansion since the merger. The city office, which houses the Scout Executive and District Executives for the districts within the city limits, has less space for training, and has been maintained mainly for easier access to city residents, who would otherwise have to use either mass transit (which has limited stops in Valley Forge), or drive on the Schuylkill Expressway (Interstate 76), which is notorious for backups between Center City and Valley Forge.