Ernest Thompson Seton

Ernest Thompson Seton (born Ernest Evan Thompson August 14, 1860 – October 23, 1946) was an English-born Canadian-American author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 (renamed Woodcraft League of America), and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1910.

Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of one of the first Scouting organizations. His writings were published in the United Kingdom, Canada, the US, and the USSR; his notable books related to Scouting include ''The Birch Bark Roll'' and the ''Boy Scout Handbook''. He incorporated what he believed to be American Indian elements into the traditions of the BSA.

Early life

Seton was born in South Shields, County Durham, England of Scottish parents. His family emigrated to Canada in 1866. After settling in Lindsay, Ontario Seton spent most (after 1870) of his childhood in Toronto, and the family is known to have lived at 6 Aberdeen Avenue in Cabbagetown. As a youth, he retreated to the woods of the Don River to draw and study animals as a way of avoiding his abusive father. He attended the Ontario College of Art in 1879, studying with John Colin Forbes, then won a scholarship in art to the Royal Academy in London, England in 1880. In the 1890s, he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris In 1893-4, he was elected an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

On his twenty-first birthday, Seton's father presented him with an invoice for all of the expenses connected with his childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor who delivered him. According to one writer, he paid the bill, but never spoke to his father again. In his autobiography, ''Trail of An Artist-naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton'', he discusses the incident in detail, but, since he hadn't "a cent of money," he could not pay his father. He went immediately to work and used the money he made to leave the household forever.

In 1882, he joined his brother on a homestead outside Carberry, Manitoba, where he began to write. In 1891, he published ''The Birds of Manitoba'' and was appointed Provincial Naturalist by the government of Manitoba. He continued to publish books about Manitoba for decades to come, including ''The Life Histories of Northern Animals: An Account of the Mammals of Manitoba'' and lived in Manitoba until 1930, when he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

He changed his name to Ernest Thompson Seton (after initially changing it to Ernest Seton-Thompson), believing that Seton had been an important family name. He became successful as a writer, artist, and naturalist, and moved to New York City to further his career. Seton later lived at Wyndygoul, an estate that he built in Cos Cob, a section of Greenwich, Connecticut. After experiencing vandalism by the local youth, Seton invited them to his estate for a weekend where he told them what he claimed were stories of the American Indians and of nature.

He formed the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 and invited the local youth to join. Despite the name, the group was made up of non- native boys and girls. The stories became a series of articles written for the ''Ladies Home Journal'', and were eventually collected in ''The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians'' in 1906. Shortly after, the Woodcraft Indians evolved into the Woodcraft Rangers, which was established as a non-profit organization for youth programming in 1922.

Since 1922, Woodcraft Rangers has served Los Angeles youth with Seton's model of character building, which encompasses service, truth, fortitude, and beauty. Since then, Woodcraft Rangers youth have been received in a safe environment to encourage the discovery of their own talents. Today the Woodcraft Rangers organization serves over 15,000 youth in the Los Angeles county by helping them find pathways to purposeful lives. They offer expanded learning opportunities to youth from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Youth participants are encouraged to discover their natural talents and are embraced daily with the belief that all children are innately good.

Scouting

Seton met Scouting's founder, Lord Baden-Powell, in 1906. Baden-Powell had read Seton's book ''The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians'' and was greatly intrigued by it. The pair met and shared ideas. Baden-Powell went on to found the Scouting movement worldwide and Seton became the president of the committee that founded the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and was its first (and only) Chief Scout. Seton's '' Woodcraft Indians'' (a youth organization) combined with the early attempts at Scouting from the YMCA and other organizations and with Daniel Carter Beard's Sons of Daniel Boone, to form the BSA. The work of Seton and Beard is in large part the basis of the Traditional Scouting movement.

Seton served as Chief Scout of the BSA from 1910 to 1915 and incorporated what he believed to be American Indian elements into the traditions of the BSA. He had significant personality and philosophical clashes with Beard and James E. West.

In addition to disputes about the content of Seton's contributions to the Boy Scout Handbook, conflicts also arose about the suffragist activities of his wife, Grace Gallatin Seton Thompson, and his British citizenship. The citizenship issue arose partly because of his high position within the BSA and the federal charter West was attempting to obtain for the BSA requiring its board members to be United States citizens. Seton drafted his written resignation on January 29, 1915, but did not send it to the BSA until May. The position of Chief Scout was eliminated and the position "Chief Scout Executive" was taken on by James West. In 1931, Seton became a United States citizen.

Personal life

British by birth Seton was not naturalized as Canadian (as status did not legally exist until 1947 thus remained a British subject) and became an American in 1931. He was married twice. His first marriage was to Grace Gallatin in 1896. Their only daughter, Ann (1904–1990), later known as Anya Seton, became a best-selling author of historical and biographical novels. According to Ann's introduction to the novel '' Green Darkness'', Grace was a practicing Theosophist.

Ernest and Grace divorced in 1935, and Ernest soon married Julia Moss Buttree. Julia wrote works by herself and with Ernest. They did not have any biological children, but in the 1930s they sought to adopt Moss Buttree's niece, Leila Moss, who lived with them for years in New Mexico. In 1938, they adopted an infant daughter, Beulah (Dee) Seton (later Dee Seton Barber). Dee Seton Barber, a talented embroiderer of articles for synagogues such as Torah mantles, died in 2006.

Seton called his father, Joseph Logan Thompson, "the most selfish man I ever knew, or heard of, in history or in fiction." He cut off ties completely after being made to pay off an itemized list of all expenses he had cost his father, up to and including the doctor's fee for his delivery, a total of $537.50.

Seton's parents lived out their lives in Toronto, as did brother John Enoch Thompson (abt. 1846–1932).

Two brothers, Joseph Logan Thompson (1849–1922) and Charles Seton Thompson (1851–1925), moved to British Columbia. Besides Seton, George Seton Thompson (1854–1944) moved to Illinois and died there.

Writing and later life

Seton was an early pioneer of the modern school of animal fiction writing, his most popular work being ''Wild Animals I Have Known