Carla Occaso
Did you know that the first Boy Scout troop in the United States began in Barre? Scout Troop No. 1 was formed in 1909 by William Foster Milne, a Scottish stonecutter living in Barre. Born in Scotland in 1884, Milne emigrated to Barre in 1907, according to Findagrave.com.
After becoming involved with the Sunday School at Barre’s First Baptist Church, Milne began working with its teacher James Grearson. Grearson had organized a “boys brigade” for some of his students that involved training them in military-like marching and drills. Milne asked if he could work with Grearson to incorporate additional skills being developed by the burgeoning scouting movement in the U.K. Milne convinced Grearson to let him organize a boys group to learn hiking, boating, cooking, and “patriotism,” which he had learned before coming to the United States. He named the group the “Boy Scouts Club” after the group being developed in the United Kingdom around the same time. The U.K. scouting movement had emerged after the publication of a manual written by Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell following his military experiences in Africa and India in the late 1800s, according to a 2023 article at ebsco.com by John F. Gamber titled, “Baden-Powell Establishes the Boy Scouts”. Baden-Powell wanted to teach young men outdoor camping and leadership skills.
The manual became very popular in the U.K., prompting scouting groups to be formed in large numbers. Baden-Powell soon recruited his sister Agnes to help form a girls version, the “Girl Guides,” which focused mainly on domestic skills until World War I broke out, after which girls were also taught camping skills. The Boy Scouts of America was founded in Chicago in February 1910, after the Barre group had formed under the U.K. organization.
A statue commemorating Milne and the first Boy Scouts of America troop was designed in 1920 by Carlo Abate, who died before he was able to complete the project. It was completed by Giuliano Cecchinelli II and erected in Barre in 2018.
