Ernest Thompson Seton - (1860-1946)
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I. Biography and Literary Works
Ernest Seton, also known as "Black Wolf," was born August 15, 1860, in South Shields, Durham, England. He was born of Scottish ancestry and his father was a wealthy ship owner. When his father lost his fortune as a ship owner, the family immigrated to Ontario, Canada. His father was not a very good farmer so the family again moved to Toronto were Seton went to school.
Seton was active in the arts from his early teens. He won the Gold Medal for art before he was 18. At 19, he went back to England to apply for a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Art. He received a seven-year scholarship that he did not complete. After being very ill from poor living conditions, he moved back to Canada to live with his brothers in Manitoba, near the small town of Carberry.
Seton made a worse farmer than his father because he was mostly interested in his nature surroundings. He would go into the Carberry Sandhills for days and weeks on end. He was thought to be lazy by the people of the town. There, he wrote his first natural history articles.
His first visit to the United States was in December of 1883. He went to New York where he met with many naturalists, ornithologists, and writers. Throughout the late 1880's, he spent most of his time between Carberry, Toronto, and New York. He became an established wildlife artist and was given a contract in 1885 by the Century Company to make 1000 mammal drawings for the Century Dictionary.
Within his 1000 mammal drawings many were made in the western states including Wyoming. He passed though Wyoming many times while traveling between Carberry, Toronto, and New York. Many places in Wyoming interested Seton, especially the northwestern portion of the state. There, he found many beautiful areas to draw and write. During his time in Wyoming, Seton was inspired to write one of his earlier books, The Biography of A Grizzly.
In the early 1890's, Seton went to Paris to study art. This is where he found information for his first book, The Anatomy of Animals, published in England. While writing his book, he met Mark Twain for the first time. During the height of the Impressionist Period he painted The Sleeping Wolf which hung in the Paris Salon in 1891.
He married for the first time in 1896 to Grace Gallatin, a wealthy women, who was also a traveler. Their only child was a daughter named Ann. She was born in 1904 and died in 1990. Ann wrote historical novels that were very popular, several were made into movies in the 1940's and 1950's.
In 1902, Seton's articles on woodcraft were published in the Ladies Home Journal. In 1910, Seton was chairman of the founding committee of Boy Scouts of America. He wrote the first handbook entitled The American Boy Scout. He also served as Chief Scout from 1910 until 1915. Seton did not like the military aspects of scouting, and scouting did not like the Native American emphasis of Seton. After leaving the Boy Scouts of America, Seton organized "The Woodcraft League of America".
The Woodcraft League prospered in 1922 with the children's organization "Little Lodge." This organization was an all-male league until the early 1950's. Seton continued to run the Woodcraft League until 1930 when he moved to Sante Fe, New Mexico, to become an American citizen.
Seton built a castle in Santa Fe and he divorced Grace, his first wife. He later remarried to Julia Moss Buttree in El Paso, Texas. In 1938, they adopted a daughter, now Dee Seton Barber. Julia was also an author and her first book was Rhythm of the Redman which was published before her marriage to Seton. She worked as Seton's assistant and secretary. They lectured in schools, at clubs, in churches, and in lecture halls. They did their lecturing throughout the U.S., Canada, France, England, and the Czech Republic.
After Seton's death on October 23, 1946, Julia continued to write and live in the Sante Fe castle. She also continued to lecture on her own. Her last tour was sponsored by the Audobon Society in 1967. She suffered a stroke in 1968 and died in 1975 in Sante Fe.
Every year, six days in early July are dedicated to commemorating Ernest Thompson Seton in Carberry, Canada. The Seton Center sponsors the event from July 8 -13, which includes activities for youth and adults. Some of the events are guided hikes, driving tours, stories, woodcraft skills and campfires.
II. Work Cited
Barber, Dee Seton. A Short Biography of Ernest Thompson Seton: Ernest Thompson
Seton Institute, Inc. 1997, March 13, 2000.
This essay was submitted by a student of Judy Iliff, a teacher at Campbell County High School in Gillette, Wyoming.