Gleanings From
In Christian Fellowship
By Shirley Lindahl
Edited by Jerry Rutherford
First Cub Scout Pack in America
The record shows that the First American Wolf Cub Pack, Kirkland, Washington was organized January 20, 1921. Shortly after Kirkham Evans arrived in town he presided at a public meeting to reorganize the Boy Scout of Kirkland. He wrote in the Wolf Cub record book, "After explaining the object of the meeting I announced that as nothing was being done for the younger boys of the township I was going to form a pack of Wolf Cubs." (At that time they existed in Canada but not in the United States.)
In 1923 Mr. Evans, who operated a variety store on Market St., left Kirkland. Cubmaster duties passed on to Mr. Robertson and Mrs. Mae Belle Estey who became "the first Cubmistress in the United States. The well liked Mrs. Estey remained with her "boys" in a position of leadership for nearly 20 years. As she was a church member the sponsorship came to the Congregational Church and soon the meeting place was there also.
In the early 20's she took the boys to Woodland Park, to the Bremerton Navy Yard to tour the battleship "Arizona." She hiked with them to Juanita Beach to "cook meat on a stick" and spend a week camping with them at Lake Stevens. The boys marched in the Memorial Day parades held in Kirkland and were often asked to put on craft and first aid demonstrations. Mrs. Estey made certain all her boys were in full uniform, which meant a green sweater, red kerchief and green beanie until the 1930's when the blue and gold uniform of today were introduced. One of the members who learned their early scouting skills from Mrs. Estey in the 1920's was Arnie Berkey, our resident church "fixer-upper" and leader of the Men's Fellowship pack which volunteers on many repairs and upkeep around the building and grounds. Other members of the troop (the names may be familiar to some of you) were George Davis, Jr. Walter Gibbs, Wells Elson, Elwood Jewell, Carl Stonefelt, Ed Simpson, Ariel Johnson, Melvin Labarr, Bill McKibben, Jack Wester, Bob Gardner, George Staley, Bert McLaughlin, Bob Barrie and Charles Peach.
Boy Scout Troop #1 (later #451) was sponsored by the American Legion but many of the boys and the committeemen were from the church. During the late 20's and 30's the Scoutmaster was Ernie Fortescue, who later became a very well known and respected photographer in the area. His mother, Anna Fortescue, related the following story when she was 90 years old. (This was in 1979.)
"I remember when Ernie took the Scouts on a camping trip to Silver Springs Forest Camp on the White River. I went along with our three small children and my chore was to help with the cooking. One day the boys had hiked across the river and were crossing a log to return when Wesley Englebrecht slipped. He had the troop's only rope so things looked really desperate as he was swept down the murky river. Luckily he had on a straw hat that stayed snugly on his head. The bobbing hat showed where he was so Ed Hjorth raced along until he could jump in and pull him ashore."
The Boy Scouts often hiked to Camp Collins for campouts. R. H. Collins donated land from his property located near the hill above Willows Road, north of the Kirkland-Redmond Highway on the outskirts of Redmond. A spring on the land provided water and wooded ravine sloping down to the Sammamish Valley gave a variety of terrain for the boys to set up their campsites.
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