Ernest Thompson Seton

Ernest Thompson Seton

Declared by David Attenborough to be his inspiration as a youth.

From WIkipedia:

Ernest Thompson Seton (August 14, 1860 – October 23, 1946) was an author (published in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the US), wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. His notable books related to Scouting include The Birch Bark Roll and The Boy Scout Handbook. He is responsible for the appropriation and incorporation of what he believed to be American Indian elements into the traditions of the BSA.

Early life

Ernest Thompson Seton, born Ernest Evan Thompson in South Shields, County Durham (now part of South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear), England of Scottish parents, Seton's family emigrated to Canada in 1866. Most of his childhood was spent in Toronto. As a youth, he retreated to the woods to draw and study animals as a way of avoiding his abusive father. He won a scholarship in art to the Royal Academy in London, England.

On his twenty-first birthday, Seton's father presented him with a bill for all the expenses connected with his childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor who delivered him. He paid the bill, but never spoke to his father again.

Ernest changed his name to Ernest Thompson Seton, 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.

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. The position of Chief Scout was removed, and the position "Chief Scout Executive" was taken on by James West. His Woodcraft Indians (a youth organization), combined with the early attempts at Scouting from the YMCA and other organizations, and 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 was Chief Scout of the BSA from 1910–1915 and his work is in large part responsible for the appropriation and incorporation of what he believed to be American Indian elements into the traditions of the BSA. However, 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 suffrage activities of his wife, Grace Gallatin Seton Thompson, and his British citizenship. The citizenship issue arose partly because of his high position within BSA, and the federal charter West was attempting to obtain for the BSA required its board members to be United States citizens. Seton drafted his written resignation on January 29, 1915, but he did not send it to BSA until May.

Personal life

Seton married twice. His first marriage was to Grace Gallatin in 1896. Their only daughter, Ann, was born in 1904 and died in 1990. Ann, who later changed her first name, became a best-selling author of historical and biographical novels as Anya Seton. 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 M. Buttree. Julia would write works by herself and with Ernest. They did not have any biological children, but did adopt an infant daughter, Beulah (Dee) Seton (later Dee Seton Barber), in 1938. Dee Seton Barber, a talented embroiderer of articles for synagogues such as Torah mantles, died in 2006.

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 (1898), which contains the story of his killing of the wolf Lobo. He later became involved in a literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy, after John Burroughs published an article in 1903 in the Atlantic Monthly attacking writers of sentimental animal stories. The controversy lasted for four years and included important American environmental and political figures of the day, including President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1907, Seton and the naturalist Edward Alexander Preble verified a claim from ten years earlier by the frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones that Jones and his hunting party of musk oxen had shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near the Great Slave Lake in Canada. Seton and Preble discovered the remains of the animals near Jones's long abandoned cabin.

For his work, Lives of Game Animals, Volume 4, Seton was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1928 . In 1931, he became a United States citizen. Seton was associated with the Santa Fe arts and literary community during the mid-1930s and early 1940s, which comprised a group of artists and authors including author and artist Alfred Morang, sculptor and potter Clem Hull, painter Georgia O'Keeffe, painter Randall Davey, painter Raymond Jonson, leader of the Transcendental Painters Group, and artist Eliseo Rodriguez. He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

He died in Seton Village in northern New Mexico at the age of eighty-six. Seton was cremated in Albuquerque. In 1960, in honor of his 100th birthday and the 350th anniversary of Santa Fe, his daughter Dee and his grandson, Seton Cottier (son of Anya), scattered the ashes over Seton Village from an airplane.

Legacy

The Philmont Scout Ranch houses the Seton Memorial Library and Museum. Seton Castle in Santa Fe, built by Seton as his last residence, housed many of his other items. Seton Castle burned down in 2005 during an attempt at restoration; fortunately all the artwork, manuscripts, books, etc., had been removed to storage before renovation was to have begun.

The Academy for the Love of Learning, an educational organization in Santa Fe, acquired Seton Castle and its contents in 2003. The new Academy Center opened in 2011 includes a gallery and archives featuring artwork and other materials as part of its Seton Legacy Project. The Seton Legacy Project organized a major exhibition on Seton opening at the New Mexico History Museum on May 23, 2010, the catalog published as Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist by David L. Witt.

Roger Tory Peterson drew inspiration for his field guide from the simple diagram of ducks that Seton included in Two Little Savages.

Several of Seton's works are written from the perspective of a predator and were an influence upon Robert T. Bakker's Raptor Red.

Seton is honoured by the Ernest Thompson Seton Scout Reservation in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA, and with the E.T. Seton Park in Toronto, Canada. Obtained in the early 1960s as the site of future Metro Toronto Zoo, the land was later used to establish parkland and home to the Ontario Science Centre. Seton is mentioned in Philip Roth's Novel, Nemesis, where he is credited for having introduced Indian lore to the American camping movement.

Ernest Thompson Seton (August 14, 1860 – October 23, 1946) was a British author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. His notable books related to Scouting include The Birch Bark Roll and The Boy Scout Handbook. He is responsible for the appropriation and incorporation of what he believed to be American Indian elements into the traditions of the BSA.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29052287/ernest-thompson-seton

Seton ("the Chief") AKA "Black Wolf" was an award winning wildlife illustrator and naturalist who was also a spell-binding storyteller and lecturer, a best selling author of animal stories, expert with Native American Sign language and early supporter of the political, cultural and spiritual rights of First Peoples. He was born August 14, 1860, in South Shields, Durham, England, of Scottish ancestry (

In 1931 he became a United States citizen. He died in Seton Village, New Mexico in 1946, aged 86. Seton was cremated in Albuquerque. In 1960, in honor of his 100th birthday and the 350th anniversary of Santa Fe, his daughter Dee and his grandson Seton Cottier (son of Anya) scattered the ashes over Seton Village from a plane.

He was founder of the Woodcraft Indians and founding pioneer of the Boy Scouts of America.

Family Members
Parents
Photo Joseph Logan Thompson 1821–1902

Photo Alice Snowden Thompson 1823–1897

Spouse Julia Moses Buttree Seton 1889–1975

Siblings Photo John Enoch Thompson 1846–1932

Joseph Logan Thompson 1849–1922

Charles Seton Thompson 1851–1925

Henry T. Thompson 1852–1935

Alan C. Thompson 1864–1951

Children Photo Anya Seton 1904–1990

Flowers • 10

Thank you for co-founding such a great, honorable organization it's time and a good, long time after that. Your exceptional intentions and values are by far not best represented in the Boy Scouts anymore, but in it's alternatives, like Trail Life.

Left by Anonymous on 26 Apr 2018

He was an amazing man! I would have loved to have known him.

Left by A DiPalma on 11 Jul 2016

See more Seton memorials in: Find A Grave Sponsored by Ancestry Explore more Birth, Baptism & Christening0 Marriage & Divorce0 Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries1,491

Created by: Kyle Added: 15 Aug 2008 Find A Grave Memorial 29052287 Source citation ×
Family Members Parents Photo Joseph Logan Thompson 1821–1902

Photo Alice Snowden Thompson 1823–1897

Spouse Julia Moses Buttree Seton 1889–1975

Siblings Photo John Enoch Thompson 1846–1932

Joseph Logan Thompson 1849–1922

Charles Seton Thompson 1851–1925

Henry T. Thompson 1852–1935

Alan C. Thompson 1864–1951

Children Photo Anya Seton 1904–1990