History
The Chester County Council was formed by a charter by the National BSA Council in 1919, and was charged with overseeing the Scouts in Chester County under the leadership of Dr. Arthur A. Schuck, who later became the third Chief Scout Executive in the BSA and who had previously been Deputy Chief Scout Executive under Dr. James West. In the early years, the council, forming in the wake of the armistice ending World War I, was able to consolidate the independent troops, despite most of the adults that were qualified were off in Europe.
In the 1920s, the council, under the leadership of Charles Heistand, underwent a metamorphosis that resulted in the acquisition of a new Scout camp, and the formation of its own Order of the Arrow lodge. Prior to the acquisition of the Reynolds Farm property on the Mason-Dixon Line near Rising Sun, Maryland and Oxford, Pennsylvania, Scouts attending summer camp were loaded up onto military trucks, and then shipped out to Camp Rothrock, the council's old summer camp property located near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The council longed for a camp closer to home, and after being rejected by the former Philadelphia Area Council as being "too far", the council acquired the Reynolds Farm, then a moonshiner haven, and the new camp, the Horseshoe Scout Reservation, opened its doors in 1928.
Just a year before, Mr. Heistand inquired about starting an Order of the Arrow lodge in the council, and contacted Dr. E. Urner Goodman, who was then serving as the Grand Lodge Chief (now the National Chief of the Order of the Arrow). After a failed attempt in trying to get the Philadelphia Council's OA Lodge, Unami Lodge, to install its chartered members, Dr. Goodman himself conducted the first induction ceremony, at Camp Hillsdale, near West Chester. Mr. Heistand, Joseph Brunton (who later became the National OA Conference Chief and Chief Scout Executive), and several other members were inducted, and Octoraro Lodge #22 was born.
Since the opening of the camp, and the founding of the OA lodge, the council has seen its fair share of growth throughout the county, eventually extending down into Cecil County, Maryland with the formation of several Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs as far south as Port Deposit, Maryland. Most of this achievement was under the direction of Lewis Lester, who was the longest serving Scout Executive of the council (in the 1940s and 1950s), and was influential in expanding the facilities at both Camps Horseshoe and Jubilee (later to become Camp John H. Ware, III). More recent additions to the council included the relocation of the council service center from downtown West Chester to an office building just off of the U.S. Highway 202 bypass in Westtown Township, Pennsylvania, and the opening of the new "Cub Town" facilities at Camp Ware in 2004.
Read more about this topic: Chester County Council
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