George T. Laing, A Lone Tree Founder
The building known today as “Laing Cottage” was one of only five buildings on the reservation when Lone Tree was purchased in 1946. Three of those buildings remain, all on the area known as “The Point.” The scout executive of Lone Tree Council at the time LTSR was purchased was George T. Laing, one of the founders of the reservation, instrumental in its purchase and transformation to a scout camp. In the 1947 Council Annual Report Mr. Laing wrote “If we are accused of spending too much time on our new camp, which we may well be, we ask that you go up and look at the camp before you become too vindictive. We have the start of a wonderful camp… It took blood, sweat and tears. But it is started.”
George Laing had his start in Scouting long before he was scout executive, in fact before Lone Tree Council came into existence. He had been a scoutmaster, recruiter, and Scouting organizer in Haverhill before it was organized under a council. Laing was credited with contributing to the substantial growth of Scouting in the City of Haverhill, having grown the program to 19 troops in the “Haverhill District” going back to the early and mid-1920’s.
George Laing was hired by the Lone Tree Council as its scout executive in 1932 and served until his death. In November of 1948 Laing had been working on the reservation framing a building and suffered a fall. He never fully recovered and passed away months later on April 9, 1949. The local papers in both Amesbury and Newburyport reported that several hundred people attended his funeral including city officials and scout leaders from the area and region. Scouts and Scouters bore his coffin with an honor guard from People’s Methodist Church on Chadwick Street in Bradford, where Laing had served as scoutmaster in the early 1920’s, to Elmwood Cemetery.
A tribute to George Laing in the council newsletter from April 1949 stated “Lone Tree Council has lost its presence, the vision, and the abilities of one who had achieved greatness in service to his fellowmen.” A reflection appearing in the Amesbury Daily News on April 11, 1949 read in part “It is completely fitting, now that he is gone, that there remains on the shores of Country Pond, a vast new camp reservation, the foundations of which he has built so well.”