Scout Troop Oldest in Florida

Early Boy Scouts of Punta Gorda remember with fondness and awe the visits of Uncle Dan Beard, national Chief Scout, who treated them to rattlesnake appetizers and taught them how to throw a tomahawk.

Oldest Boy Scout troop in Florida is that of Punta Gorda 5 --- having been chartered March 5, 1921. It was, however, successor of Punta Gorda Troop l organized in December 1916 but which let its charter lapse after two years.

J.H. Albert was the first scoutmaster and served only five months. He was succeeded by W.D. Wilson who served out the year. Assistant scoutmaster was Frank M. Cooper, Jr.

Three members of Troop l are still living. They are Byron L. Rhode of Jacksonville, Edwin Rountree of Punta Gorda, and John T. Rose, Jr., of Fort Myers.

There was no sponsor that first year. A committee consisting of Cooper, F.R. Blount, Charles Cochran, H.S. Blazer, J.H. Lipacomb and Leslie L. Lewis provided what little financial support was needed.

Just 13 boys signed up: Edwin Smith, Joseph Rutterer, Charles M. Cooper, James C. Goff, Harry B. Blazer, Furman B. Moodie, Byron Rhode, John T.Rose, Jr., Wheeler Sheffield, C.M. McWilliams, Hy W. Massey, Berlin Lewis and Charles E. Midgett.

Rountree joined the following year along with 14 other boys. Cochran was scoutmaster for the second year, but the little troop faded when he resigned to operate the family drug store.

Troop 5 was organized in April 1921 under the leadership of J.H. Sutherland. Records list the sponsor as "a group of citizens." Rountree and Rose were scouts in this troop along with Harry Goulding and Joe Addison who are enjoying their senior years at Punta Gorda.

Scoutmaster with the longest tenure is U. S. Cleveland, now president of the Charlotte Harbor Area Historical Society. He served 12 years from 1946 to 1958 after six years as assistant scoutmaster. For this record, Cleveland was awarded the Silver Beaver medal, highest honor of scouting for leaders.

"Those were wonderful years," says Cleveland. "I joined Troop 5 in 1931. The motto in those days was `Keep the out in scouting.' We went on weekend camp-outs in the wild every month and one-day field trips in between. Two meetings a month were devoted to study and tests for merit badges. Uncle Dan Beard "Uncle Dan Beard in his declining years came to Florida in the winters. He spent the season of 1935-36 as the guest of Barron Collier in the Charlotte Harbor Hotel.

"Uncle Dan would come to our meetings and show us how to throw a tomahawk and spear. We were mightily impressed and the envy of other boys in town who did not have such an exotic skill.

"We used to have father-son banquets sponsored by the Rotary Club. Uncle Dan was the speaker at the 1938 banquet and brought along a `special treat' which he said he had prepared himself. It consisted of white, delicious meat chopped fine in a relish dressing on crackers.

"After we proclaimed the appetizers the best we had ever eaten, he told it was rattlesnake. What a time we had the next day boasting to our friends about what we had eaten and assuring one and all it was delicious.

"I became scoutmaster in time to observe the Silver Anniversary of Troop 5 in 1946. We celebrated with a community party and Scout field meet March 30-31.

"A highlight of the event was the investiture of four tenderfoots in a solemn ceremony by torch light in the woods along Alligator Creek. Sheriff Fred Quednau prepared a tasty `slumgullion' stew for supper that evening. He would not tells us his `secret recipe,' and we wondered if it also had rattlesnake for an ingredient.

"After the ceremony we sat around a big bonfire and I told ghost stories. The boys' favorite was about a woman in Punta Gorda who dressed in blue denim, upholstered her furniture in blue denim and draped her windows with blue denim.

"While on the train to Tampa, she met a drummer no one else could see, and she only out of the corner of her eye.

"The drummer explained he was a ghost who had promised never to go home until he had sold a box-car of blue denim for his firm. Unfortunately he fell under the wheels of the train while running to catch it after an unsuccessful sales trip. He begged the lady to buy some denim to help him escape riding the train through eternity.

"Believing the apparition long dead, the lady ordered a whole box-car of blue denim. A week later the denim manufacturer delivered the huge quantity of material, and she spent the rest of her life using it up.

"Such yarns, told around a bonfire in the woods, is an experience youngsters of today rarely have an opportunity to enjoy," stated Cleveland.

Kiwanis Built Cabin

The Kiwanis Club became sponsor for Troop 5 in 1939 and built it a cabin in what then was a woods at Harbor View on the north shore of the bay. It had 20 double bunks with plank bottoms. Boys had to bring their own bedding and food. Cooking was over open fires outdoors.

The cabin was little used during World War II because of the strict rationing of gasoline. It was difficult get together enough gas to transport the troop to its cabin. Consequently, Kiwanis moved the cabin to Gilchrist Park at Punta Gorda.

The troop outgrew its cabin so Kiwanis raised money in 1952 to replace it with a larger, concrete structure. The principal contributor was Lou Calder, a retired New York City detective who built a luxurious hunting lodge on 500 acres along Alligator Creek, now the Burnt Store Isles golf course.

Because of Calder's generosity, the Boy Scout meeting hall, now also a community center owned by the city, was named after him. It since has been enlarged.

Troop 5 today is sponsored jointly by the Kiwanis Club and The Congregational Church of Christ. Alan Thomas is the scoutmaster. All are proud of the Troop's outstanding heritage of duty to God and Country.

Author: Lindsey Williams