Scouting in Illinois: Grave of William D. Boyce

Ottawa, Illinois was once home to, and the final resting place, of William D. Boyce. The city pays tribute to this founding father of Boy Scouts with the Ottawa Historical and Scouting Museum. Half of the small museum houses exhibits on local history and the other half is devoted to scouting. Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts are both represented in the museum. Boyce also founded the Lone Scouting program, which is well-represented in the museum.

Boyce’s final home is in the Ottawa Cemetery. His grave is memorialized with a memorial statue of a Boy Scout wearing a scouting uniform.

It was a sub-zero day in January when we visited the Ottawa, IL sites that pay homage to William D. Boyce. We were on the tail end of a 3-day trip to Starved Rock State Park and had timed our visit to be sure to be able to visit the Scouting Museum. We pulled up to the Museum and were the only ones there, save for the lone elderly man sweeping snow off the sidewalk. We got out of the car and he asked us if he could help us. We told him we were there for the museum and he came over to open it up, we were the first visitors of the day. We made comments early on about being Scout leaders ourselves, and yet we still got much more of a tour than we anticipated. The friendly, but much too clingy, tour guide followed us through the Scouting room of the Museum telling us history we’ve known for years. I wandered off ahead to explore on my own, leaving my poor husband with the talkative guide. We then proceeded to the other room of the Museum, which houses mainly local history, as well as a reproduction of Boyce’s office and Boyce’s actual sofa back table. Again, we were unable to lose our guide. The previous day we had purchased a vintage Scout uniform from an antique shop and were unsure if it was from the 1920s or 1930s. Before leaving the museum, we went back to the Scouting room to compare their uniforms. We thought this time we would surely lose our escort since we had already been through the whole thing, but were sorely mistaken. As we tried to have a private conversation about the uniform we had bought, we were told about Boyce’s connection to Disney. We left as soon as possible, passing up the gift shop and the chance to buy unique patches.

William D. Boyce's Memorial in Ottawa Cemetery

After a quick stop at a statue memorializing the radium girls of Ottawa, we headed to the cemetery. There’s a sign showing the way to Boyce’s memorial at the front gate and it was just down the main road. We drove to the memorial and got out to look. The memorial has a lifesize statue of a Boy Scout in uniform. Anxious to get back into the warm car, we skipped Boyce’s actual grave in the nearby family plot.

William D. Boyce brought Boy Scouting to the US. Legend has it, he was in London, lost on a foggy day when a scout approached him and helped him find where he was going. When Boyce tried to tip the scout, he was refused, as the scout said it was part of his duty as a Boy Scout. A few months later Boyce founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910.