Downtown Scout log cabin gets help from Hudson Rotary

by Charles Cassady

If a man’s home is his castle, then a Boy Scout’s castle would be…his tent? Not necessarily. In Hudson there is a more permanent structure that has evoked Scouting for many generations.

It is the Boy Scout Cabin (pretty much the official designation), which has stood since 1931 on the Green. Last year Hudson Boy Scout Troop 321 marked a century since formal incorporation in the Boy Scouts of America (the troop is not much younger than America’s Boy Scouts, who date to 1910). Now local Scout leaders and supporters are turning attention to this 88-year-old facility and its need for renovations.

The Hudson Rotary Club built the landmark on the southwest quadrant of the Green, as one of the organization’s earliest service projects.

“It was actually done back then by a Rotarian who was also a scoutmaster,” said Andrew Morse of Hudson Rotary.

The cabin was designed to be exclusively used for scouting purposes and storage of equipment and gear (but open to the public for such events as the Scouts’ annual Mothers Day flower sale), and it has hosted assorted visiting Scout troops over the years.

“One of the virtues of that cabin is just the rustic ambiance that goes so well with the ideals of Scouting,” said Morse. “When it’s cold and you have a good fire going, it’s just a nice place for a meeting.”

But that ambiance is also a drawback. When it was erected in the Great Depression, the cabin was not a nostalgic reproduction of log cabins associated with Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield but the genuine article, and put together in the traditional manner, with a substance called “chinking’’ between the logs.

Chinking is vital for the insulation and durability of a log structure. In bygone days, the substances used could range from mud, clay and moss mixed together (some folks recommended more exotic mixtures, including livestock hair) to commercial formulas. As the logs will expand and contract in the heat of summer and the cold of winter, any chinking that is not inherently flexible will tend to crack and flake away. This has happened to the Boy Scout cabin.

Morse said that piecemeal repairs “with the best intentions” have been done to patch the cabin, but now the structure needs a major overhaul by log-home specialists who are adept with modern sealants that can preserve the integrity and history of a place.

The Rotary Club is continuing its involvement with the Scouts by helping to reinforce the old cabin, weighing options (based on fundraising) of how and when to proceed “so that it lasts and will continue for the next hundred years. Unfortunately, the craftsmanship is costly,” Morse said. A rough estimate of the repairs might be in the $50,000 range.

“We have a contractor in mind who might do the work. … But does he do the whole project now or part of the project later?”

Morse said the Rotary Club and the Scouts will have to decide based on cash on hand.

Morse is a Hudson resident who lives within a few blocks of the Green, in his own historic home.

“I was a former Scout, I’m an Eagle Scout,’’ he said. “I’ve got three boys and all three have been in scouting. … We’re very active with this troop.”

Morse added, “it is kind of an interesting tidbit” that the logs that make up the cabin are “wormy chestnut,” a coveted wood from American chestnut trees. Mature American chestnuts were felled in untold tons in the early 1900s by a blight; hence the wood was rushed on the market for quick construction, especially for barns.

During the same early-1930s time frame, the dining hall at Camp Manitoc in Peninsula, a shared Scouting destination, was also built with wormy chestnut. Still standing today, it ranks as one of the largest surviving wormy-chestnut buildings in the world, according to Morse.

“I’ve been involved with the troop for about 20 years or more,’’ Morse said. “And one of the things that you look back fondly on is where you had your meetings. It’s a real neat place, and it tends to mark your upbringing.”

For details on the fundraising project and other Rotary Club benefits and events, go online to rotaryhudson.org.

Featured image photo caption: Boy Scout Troop 321 members (from l-r) Ben Shabino, Spencer Pulte, Brian Craven, Henry Mellon, Ben Fisher, Luke Palumbo and Jason Dement stand in front of the troop’s iconic log cabin, which has been nestled on the southwest quadrant of the Hudson Green for nearly nine decades. The cabin is in need of some professional TLC. Photo by K. Garred