	Sign In Sign-Up

About Troop 272

Official Statistics about Rose Valley

History of the troop

"As 38 boys raised their arms together and intoned, "May the Great Scoutmaster of all good scouts be with us till we meet again", Senior Patrol Leader Eugene "Buddy" Jarrell, Jr., heaved a sigh of relief. The Troop meeting hadn't gotten too far out of hand; the First Aid talk was pretty good; five scouts got merit badges that had been approved by the Review Board; and Lee Hauser's program for the nine boys going to Philmont in New Mexico finally was worked out.

Quietness came over the Old Mill on this Wednesday night in the spring of 1973, as the five adult leaders filed out after the boys, and Rose Valley Troop 272, Minquas District, Valley Forge Council [now Cradle of Liberty Council], BSA, settled down for another week. Scouting was alive and well in the Valley, with dedicated adults still volunteering to help boys become physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight, to help them to become citizens of character with a knowledge and appreciation of nature.

Scouting started in this country in 1910 but its emergence in the Valley is somewhat obscure. It is known, however, that Rose Valley Troop No. 1 was in existence in the middle 1920's, with Earl Harrison as Scoutmaster and the Rose Valley Folk as sponsor. Members of the Troop at that time included John Allen, George Cornelius, David Elkinton, Al Freeman, Edson Harris, Ed Harvey, Robert Saul, Jack Torchiana, Warren Underwood, John and Richard and Donald Walton. They met at the Old Mill, ran along the creek, worked on merit badges and swelled the crowd at the dedication of the Minquas Path marker in 1926.

The Minquas Path marker stands on Rose Valley Road adjacent to the longtime home of one of the country's foremost authorities on American Indians, Charles Stephens. The bronze beaver was done by Albert Loessle, a famous sculptor of animals, and the plaque showing several Indians carrying heavy packs of beaver skins, was designed by Mr. Stephens. Arthur Scott was a leader in raising money to pay for the monument and in getting the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to put it where it stands. The marker speaks of the trail as a trading path leading westward to the Susquehannock Indians. Over it, thousands of beaver skins were carried each year to the Dutch and Swedish posts on the Delaware. The path crossed Ridley Creek in Rose Valley. All this is important to the Scouts; like the Path, our scouting District gets its name from the Minquas Indians.

Troop No. 1 continued, albeit somewhat sporadically, during the Depression years, with George Y. Starr, Charles Ashbaugh, John Roose, Jack Torchiana and Robert Price prominent among the Scoutmasters. In 1935, for instance, a group met somewhat informally at the Old Mill and in a shack beside the tennis courts; occasionally they went over to Morton to pass merit-badge tests. Howard Kriebel was the lone leader of a patrol whose members included George Allen, Eugene Brewer, William Clement, Townsend and Robert Cox, Thomas and Richard Fogg, Wistar Holland, Mac Peppler, Charles Sagendorph and Lew and William Shay. The group sharpened its Scouting skills at Camp Delmont for two weeks in July. It was poised for the First National Jamboree in 1935 in Washington- Scouting's twenty-fifth birthday celebration- but an outbreak of polio postponed it until 1937, when Howard Kriebel was Rose Valley's representative at the event.

As darkness of war spread over the world, Scouting everywhere tested its program of service to youth and emerged stronger than ever, as was evident at World Jamborees in France in 1947 and Austria in 1951, and the second National Jamboree at Valley Forge in 1951.

In postwar Rose Valley, Scouting first revived with the Cubs. Scouting's Neighborhood Commissioner, George Greer, was busy promoting Cub Packs and Scout Troops throughout a large slice of Delaware County when, in 1950, he helped organize a Cub pack here. Edson Harris, Jr. was the first Cub Master. Cubs flourished here for over 15 years and gave many boys basic experience that enabled them to graduate from Cubs when they reached the age of 11 and to profit from being Boy Scouts. The Rose Valley Cub Pack withered and disbanded when, in the late 1960's, most of its members, being from Garden City, transferred to a Garden City Pack. Rose Valley Folk had been its sponsor.

About 1947, a Scout Troop was formed at Wallingford Presbyterian Church under the leadership of David Ardern, John Highberger and James Lawrence. In 1953, when the Troop's membership climbed to 58, Scoutmaster Richard Cassel left by mutual consent and took a dozen Scouts, Assistant Scoutmaster Charles Humphreys, and half the Troop Committee to Rose Valley. Rose Valley became Troop 272, under a new national numbering system, and Wallingford became Troop 337. The Folk, having sponsored Cubs, was the natural sponsor of the Rose Valley Scouts and again it lent the Old Mill as a meeting place.

Troop 272 received its new charter from the Valley Forge Council in June 1953. Chairman Joseph Fletcher and the Folk's representative, Lockwood Fogg, were joined by Humphreys, Peavy, Schoff, Evans, Shay, Logan, and Britton on the new Troop Committee, with William Klug the first Senior Patrol Leader. This Troop Committee set high standards for adult backing and leadership, a demand which has characterized the Committees ever since. Fletcher was succeeded as chairman by Henry Logan in 1954 and 1955, William Benzel in 1956, Donald Ward in 1957, John Metzler in 1958, Joseph Shimp in 1959 to 1961, George Greer from 1962 to 1966, Richard Cassel in 1967 and 1968, William Rumford in 1969 and 1970, and William Mann from 1971 to the present [1973].

The Scoutmaster is, of course, the one adult who is closest to the boys, and has the most demanding job. Rose Valley Troop meets every Wednesday evening all year long, except for Wednesday before Thanksgiving and two weeks of summer camp, and the Scoutmaster always meets with them. To this, add monthly committee meetings, bimonthly patrol-leader meetings, 10 weekend Scouting trips, and monthly district luncheons; it is easy to see where the Scoutmaster's life is. His reward, of course, is in playing a part in the growth of a boy into a man who, upon honor, will do his best to do his duty to God and his country. Rose Valley has been fortunate in having able and dedicated Scoutmasters, some serving only limited terms because of job transfers. Richard Cassel served as Scoutmaster from 1952 through 1961, and was followed by John Rawley and Charles Sted in 1962, William Best in 1963 and 1964, Malcom Baker in 1965 to 1967, Cassel again in 1968, William Mann in 1969 and 1970, and Lee Hauser, the present [1973] scoutmaster, since 1971.

Many Rose Valley adults have devoted untold amounts of their time, energy and patience to Scouting. George Greer is one and, in recognition of his years of service, the Valley Forge Council gave him the highest honor it can bestow- Order of the Silver Beaver. George helped launch the Minquas District, encompassing several townships and boroughs in western Delaware county. Dick Cassel, who was Scoutmaster of Troop 272 longer than anybody else and who filled many other Scouting roles before he retired two years ago, was honored at various times with the Order of Merit, Scouter's Key and Order of the Arrow. Jefferson Calvert, another long-term diligent worker, was honored in 1967 with the Award of Merit. Warren Jacobs was reelected in 1973 to his fifth consecutive one-year term as chairman of the Minquas District.

Summer camp has been a fixture with Troop 272 since 1954 when it went to Delmont Scout Reservation at Green Lane, Pennsylvania, as Troop No. 1 had done years before. Rose Valley was among the first Troops to attend Resica Falls Scout Camp in the Poconos, opened in 1958, being invited because of its good camping record. That same year, George Greer took a contingent of the more advanced Scouts to Philmont Scout Reservation at Cimarron, New Mexico, starting a custom that persisted and that set a record in 1973 when 9 boys, with Lee Hauser and Earl Eggers as leaders and advisors, fulfilled the tradition. In 1972, the Resica-Delmont alternatives were outdistanced by a memorable two weeks for the Troop in Haliburton, Ontario, and in 1973, the Troop went to Camp Wakpominee, near Glens Falls, New York. In 1957 and 1967, the Troop sent Representatives to the National Jamboree at Valley Forge, and in 1960, to the Golden Anniversary Jamboree at Colorado Springs.

It takes a lot of activity to keep 30 or 40 boys busy and interested. Camping has always been a strong suit of Troop 272, with "freeze-outs" at Minquas Pines and Delmont, father-son outings at Elk Neck and French Creek State Parks, advancement tests at Booth's Farm, canoeing on the Delaware and the Rancocas, February pilgrimages to Valley Forge with 10,000 other scouts, and visits to Dover Air Force Base and Annapolis. The Troop has been outstanding, too, in Scouting skills, usually earning over 100 merit badges at summer camp to become a leader among perhaps 800 Troops in the Valley Forge Council. In competitions against the other Troops in the Minquas District at Sun Center, winning the Owl for proficiency in Scouting skills became traditional. The attainment of Eagle status, Scouting's highest award, won in the past twenty years by 35 members of Troop 272, places the Troop among the best of the whole country, a record of accomplishment which records, most of all, the Scouts themselves. The money by which the Scouts helped make their program possible has been raised by their annual Christmas sales, originally of bayberry candles, then wreaths, and now Christmas trees."