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Boy Scouts in Billerica

The Boy Scouts in Billerica are the local troops, packs and crews of the Boy Scouts of America, which have been active in the town since 1912. By August of that year the monthly magazine Billerica listed "Boy Scouts, North Billerica" among the town's societies, with Thomas Bateson as scout leader and sixteen members meeting on Tuesday evenings in the Baptist church vestry, that is, the North Billerica Baptist Church; on August 11, 1912 the scouts went camping on the Concord River. The first troop in the Center, Troop No. 1, was organized in March 1913, and over the following century Billerica troops camped in the town forests, served at fires and floods, appeared at Town Meeting, and built many small public works as Eagle Scout service projects.

According to the magazine's account, Boy Scouts of America, Billerica, Troop Number One was organized on March 12, 1913, under the direction of Thomas Bateson, the assistant scout master at North Billerica. A week later the boys met at the home of Raymond Morley and elected a president (Ralph Webster), vice president, treasurer, secretary and two patrol leaders, Raymond Morley and Allison Dole. Rev. Lyman V. Rutledge, minister of the First Parish, applied to national headquarters for a commission as scout master, which was granted on March 27. Mr. Kiberd, the scout master of Chelmsford, came to administer the Scout oath and examined thirteen boys, who were admitted as tenderfeet, with three more to follow. The patrol met on Wednesday evenings in the lunch room of the Pollard School, by courtesy of the school committee, to study first aid, scoutcraft and American history and to drill on the twelve points of the scout law, and it hiked to Gilson Hill for campfire meals.

The "Billerica Troop Boy Scouts" marched in the town's Fourth of July parade of 1919 with the Spanish War Veterans, the Sons of Veterans and other civic organizations. In 1928 the Girl Scouts and "one troop of Boy Scouts" were using the basement of the high school, Howe High School, as their meeting place, and in 1932 the school department granted the portable schoolhouse at the Center as a meeting place for the American Legion and the Boy Scouts. Troop No. 1 built its own camp, "Camp Manning", on land along Black Brook off the Chelmsford Road. In 1931 the Town Forest Committee acquired 5.86 acres from Mrs. Roloff, Miss Farmer, and John Farmer and his wife, and 6.88 acres from Warren H. Manning, to form Farmer Park, a memorial to the town's first historian, John Farmer, "and to assure a place for the Troop No. 1, Boy Scouts of America, 'Camp Manning' that they have built." The committee's plan for the tract included a dam on the branch of the brook by the scouts' camp, fed by a spring, to make a pond 300 feet by 200 feet. In 1946 and 1947 the fire chief thanked the Boy Scouts, who "have given valuable assistance at several fires."

After the Second World War the scouts' camping ground was the town forest off Baldwin Road by the Shawsheen River, the Jones Town Forest. The Town Forest Committee reported in 1948 that it was "used quite extensively by the Boy Scouts", and in 1949 that the scouts had done considerable work clearing brush there. In 1964 a gate was built at the end of Castlewood Drive with volunteers from the Department of Public Works and the Boy Scouts. On the weekend of June 4 to 6, 1965, more than 250 Boy Scouts from eleven area units held a Conservaree in the forest; they cleared Jones Brook, built a footbridge and set up a forest management demonstration plot. In 1966 the committee thanked Al Oxton, a Boy Scout leader, and his boys for demonstrations at its forestry meeting, and reported that all the scout troops in town used the forest on weekends. In 1967 there was overnight camping on eighteen weekends; on Arbor and Bird Day, April 29, eighteen scouts from Troops 39 and 43 planted trees and hedges, and in May eleven boys from Troop 50 cleared deadfall from the fire roads and debris from Jones Brook. Scouts from several troops prepared the site of a pond for wildlife and fire protection designed by the Middlesex Conservation District, and the committee issued letters of credit for conservation work in the forest and on the Martina Gage lot to 35 scouts in 1967, 26 in 1968 and 22 in 1969. Local troops held a three-day survival camporee there in February 1972 and another survival meeting under Andrew Sims in February 1976, though vandalism had cut back scout use of the forest in 1973.

Scouts also took part in civic life. In 1966 Troop 55 gave pictures to the library of the Kennedy School. In 1970, when the town marked the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower with its namesake Billericay, England, the town report printed photographs of "Girl and Boy Scouts of Billerica in Billericay" and of Representative Stanley J. Bocko and the celebration committee's Boy Scout representative presenting a replica of the Mayflower; that year the Boy and Girl Scouts also sang carols for the tenants of the Greenwood Apartments. Troops regularly attended Town Meeting to work on citizenship merit badges: the troop led by Russell A. Young, a former selectman, sat in on an afternoon session in 1973, Representative John Coyne introduced Troop 55 in 1990, and Troop 30 attended in 1992 with its sponsor, Al Spencer; Troop 11 led the Pledge of Allegiance in 2016 and Troop 30 in 2017. At Town Meeting in 1979 State Representative Michael J. Rea Jr. presented a Good Citizenship Award to Troop 51 and its leader, Mr. Howard, for helping many residents during the Flood of 1979. The Department of Veterans Services worked with the National Boy Scout Food Drive in 1988 and 1989 to provide holiday food baskets for about 150 families, with help from the Cub Scouts as well. From 2008 into the 2010s Troop 11 sponsored the annual St. Patrick's Day lunch at the senior center, and scouts prepared dinners there for 120 people.

Eagle Scout service projects have left a mark on many town buildings and parks. The engineering department coordinated the reconstruction of a gazebo as a Boy Scout project in 1981. Between 1987 and 1992 Eagle candidates painted the walls of the public library, then in the building at 25 Concord Road that is now the Billerica Council on Aging senior center, made a storage area into a program room, landscaped the parking lot, built an enclosure for the dumpster, made a quiet study room (Troop 55, 1991) and renovated the public restrooms (Troop 55, 1992). In 1994 Town Meeting commended an Eagle Scout of Troop 11 for a landscaping project at the Locke Middle School, and in 1999 the Commission on Disability honored an Eagle Scout who built a pier for the disabled on Nutting Lake. At Vietnam Veterans Park Eagle candidates installed an informational kiosk (Troop 30, 2001), improved trails (2002), relocated a memorial marker and made a reflective area (Troop 30, 2003), put up a flagpole, walkway and landscaping at the entrance oval (Troop 55, 2003) and a new entrance sign (Troop 55, 2004), built a kiosk near Winning Pond (Troop 651, 2004), laid out a bocce and horseshoe area (Troop 30, 2008), fenced the community garden (2009 and 2010), and later added a picnic shelter, two gazebos and a ramp at the community garden. Two Eagle projects in 2003 created a picnic area, small parking lot and sign at Bartlett's Landing on the Concord River, and three more in 2006 extended boardwalks, seating and a kiosk on the river trails. In 2004 and 2005 an Eagle candidate made a photographic exhibit on the Faulkner Mills and the Talbot Mills for the Middlesex Canal museum. Two Eagle Scouts built a new library and computer classroom at the senior center in 2008, and another lit and landscaped its flagpole area in 2010. Eagle projects also produced a fitness trail and an entrance booth at the Warren H. Manning State Forest (2010 to 2012), a project at Kohlrausch Park (2009), a shade structure at the Kids Konnection Playground (2013), and canoe and kayak racks, a basketball court and a rebuilt volleyball court at Nicola Micozzi Beach (2013 and 2016). In 2018 the Conservation Commission congratulated an Eagle Scout of Troop 55 who earned the William T. Hornaday Award, scouting's highest honor for conservation, for a series of environmental projects in the town.

The troops named in the town reports include Troop 1 (1913 to the 1930s), Troops 39, 43, 50 and 55 in the 1960s, Troop 51 in 1979, and Troops 11, 30, 53, 55 and 651 from the 1990s on, with Cub Scout Pack 54 named in 2017. The 1985 Lowell directory lists the area council as the Greater Lowell Council, Boy Scouts of America, at 60 Carlisle Street, and in 2004 students at Shawsheen Valley Technical High School fabricated dock parts for the Yankee Clipper Council. The town reports into the 2020s still list "local Eagle Scout Troops" among the Conservation Department's partners and thank "various Eagle Scouts" for volunteer work at the town's recreation areas.

Boy Scouts in Billerica

Boy Scouts in Billerica

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