A History of the Hudson Liberty Council, BSA

In the beginning, there were Scoutmasters.

There were boys, of course, but in Scouting's infancy back in the spring of 1910, the primary organizational role of the boy was to twist the arm, waylay, or blackjack some adult - a father, uncle or family friend - to become a Scoutmaster. That's all. You had a troop and away you went.

Later that year, as James E. West took control of the movement as the first Chief Scout Executive, troops were asked (only asked) to record their presence with National Office in Manhattan. So, on November 1, 1910, Troop 5 of Faith Reformed Church became the first officially recognized troop in what is now Hudson Liberty Council. There may have been others, but Troop 5 was the first to complete the paperwork.

But, there was no Council yet. Just boys and Scoutmasters.

By Scouting's first birthday in 1911 all troops were required to register with the National Council, Scoutmasters were being advised to recruit troop committees, and three national commissioners -- Dan Beard in the East -- were roaming the country and meeting with local committees interested in supervising the budding program in their communities.

The local committees soon were called "Councils." Most were all-volunteer affairs run by the "interested citizens" of the community, and a large majority of these were Scoutmasters.

Records were as well kept (or as well not kept) as the volunteers had the time and energy. Many were hand written documents. Others were typed on standard stationery with no thought to future recorders of history. And the documents that were kept, were piled in cardboard boxes and stored in some dusty corner, where they eventually became part of the dust.

Such is the fate of the origins of what is now Hudson Liberty Council.

The names of the Scouting pioneers who made up the first Council are long lost, like trails of campfire smoke in the night sky. Their legacy is the thousands of boys (young men and ladies too) who enjoy the program today thanks to the efforts of those who toiled so long ago.

Five founding Councils - Jersey City, North Hudson, Hoboken, West Hudson and Bayonne - make up what is now Hudson Liberty Council. The Jersey City Council received its "charter" in 1916. No Council in the nation actually can claim it was chartered before 1916. It may have been operating, as it was in Hudson County, before 1916, but the actual charter has to date after June 15, 1916. It was on that date Congress issued the first charter to the Boy Scouts of America and empowered the organization to issue charters and establish territories (Councils).

Shortly after World War I, the National Council decided to eliminate the so-called Class B Councils operated solely by volunteers and make all Class A Councils that employed a full-time trained executive secretary.

Slowly, from chaos, order emerged. In fact, on April 2, 1928, almost 12 years after it received its charter, Jersey City Council finally became "legal" in the eyes of the State of New Jersey and was incorporated.

Then, the nation was plunged in to the Great Depression. Money dried up. Scoutmasters and members of Council Executive Boards sold apples on street corners along Hudson Boulevard, or around the county's five major railroad terminals.

Scouting was hurting as 1936 rolled around, and in order to survive, Jersey City and West Hudson Councils merged in the spring to form Hudson Council and on October 1st of the same year, the Executive Boards of North Hudson and Hoboken Councils ratified a certificate of amalgamation forming Alexander Hamilton Council. Strangely enough, Alexander Hamilton Council did not legally incorporate its name, according to existing records, until March 9, 1943.

The Scout movement burgeoned following World War II nationwide and here in Hudson County. The post-war years were to produce two phenomena. On one hand, as membership in each of the Councils soared, the rivalry of the adults in each intensified. On the other hand, the National Council was expanding the program - reshaping Exploring, camping procedures, and other factors and telling the local councils to hire more trained full-time professionals to handle what had now become a very complex organization. National recognized that the hundreds of small community-based local councils couldn't finance the "new look" nor were their physical properties suited for the present and future.

The friendly mergers of the '20s and '30s for mutual survival became the shotgun weddings of the late '50s and '60s. Old-timers, especially in the smaller of the councils being merged, could not understand why they were being "gobbled up." Human nature being what it is, some leaders preferred being great big fish in a little pond rather than settling for being medium-sized fish in a big, clean pond.

On April 30, 1968 in the Jersey City law offices of Victor Ruskin, Hudson Council, Boy Scouts of America and Alexander Hamilton Council, Boy Scouts of America, became a new entity, Hudson-Hamilton Council, Boy Scouts of America. Now there were only two councils serving the territory of Hudson County. The southern tip of the County was served well during all those years by the Bayonne Council. Operating out of limited quarters with few staff, Bayonne Council, Boy Scouts of America, served the youth of Bayonne well, but another era of hard economic times brought about mergers and consolidations of councils throughout the country in the early 1990’s.

On December 31, 1992, the Bayonne Council was dissolved and on January 1, 1993 the territory formerly served by Bayonne Council became part of the Hudson Hamilton Council. Now Scouting throughout Hudson County was part of a single entity and in recognition of that fact the Council on January 1, 1994 officially changed its name to Hudson Liberty Council, Boy Scouts of America. Operating in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, it was endowed with the heritage, the sweat, the hopes and accomplishments of all who had gone before. The spirit of those original five councils still prevails. It continues the spirit of those concerned citizens involved in the very first years whose only proof of official being was a letter signed by Commissioner Dan Beard saying they were empowered to contact interested local organizations for the purpose of sponsoring and organizing troops within a specified geographical territory. Hudson Liberty Council carries on the tradition started over ninety years ago to provide a program to youth which instills in them values which they can live by.

Prologue