Theodore Roosevelt
Village of Cove Neck, Nassau County, New York
Marker Inscription
In honored memory of Theodore Roosevelt Scout Commissioner 1917–1919 Nassau County Council Boy Scouts of America. Dedicated by the Scouts of Nassau County June 14, 1953
The Story
By the time Theodore Roosevelt lent his name and energy to the Boy Scouts, he was a former president living at Sagamore Hill, his beloved home in this corner of Long Island's Cove Neck. In the final years of his life he took up the local post of Scout Commissioner for the Nassau County Council, championing the young movement's blend of outdoor rigor and civic character that so mirrored his own creed of the 'strenuous life.' This plaque, raised by Nassau County's Scouts in 1953, honors that connection more than three decades after his death in 1919.
Why it matters
Roosevelt's embrace of the fledgling Boy Scouts helped knit outdoor recreation, conservation, and citizenship into a national ideal of American boyhood — and ties the movement to the Oyster Bay landscape he called home.
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