William Dickson Boyce (June 16, 1858 – June 11, 1929) was an American newspaper man, entrepreneur, magazine publisher, and explorer. He was the founder of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and the short-lived Lone Scouts of America (LSA). Born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, he acquired a love for the outdoors early in his life. After working as a schoolteacher and a coal miner, Boyce attended Wooster Academy in Ohio before moving to the Midwest and Canada. An astute businessman, Boyce successfully established several newspapers, such as The Commercial in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Lisbon Clipper in Lisbon, North Dakota. With his first wife, Mary Jane Beacom, he moved to Chicago to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. There he established the Mutual Newspaper Publishing Company and the weekly Saturday Blade, which catered to a rural audience and was distributed by thousands of newspaper boys. With his novel employment of newsboys to boost newspaper sales, Boyce's namesake publishing company maintained a circulation of 500,000 copies per week by 1894. Boyce strongly supported worker rights, as demonstrated by his businesses' support of labor unions and his concern for his newsboys' well-being.
By the early years of the 20th century, Boyce had become a multi-millionaire and had taken a step back from his businesses to pursue his interests in civic affairs, devoting more time to traveling and participating in expeditions. In 1909, he embarked on a two-month trip to Europe and a large photographic expedition to Africa with photographer George R. Lawrence and cartoonist John T. McCutcheon. Over the next two decades, Boyce led expeditions to South America, Europe, and North Africa, where he visited the newly discovered tomb of King Tutankhamun.
Boyce learned about Scouting while passing through London during his first expedition to Africa in 1909. According to somewhat fictionalized legend, Boyce had become lost in the dense London fog, but was guided back to his destination by a young boy, who told him that he was merely doing his duty as a Boy Scout. Boyce then read printed material on Scouting, and on his return to the United States, he formed the B.S.A.
From its start, Boyce focused the Scouting program on teaching self-reliance, citizenship, resourcefulness, patriotism, obedience, cheerfulness, courage, and courtesy in order "to make men". After clashing over the Scouting program with the first Chief Scout Executive James E. West, he left the B.S.A. and founded the L.S.A. in January 1915, which catered to rural boys who had limited opportunities to form a troop or a patrol.
In June 1924, five years before Boyce's death, a merger was completed between the B.S.A. and the struggling L.S.A. Boyce received many awards and memorials for his efforts in the U.S. Scouting movement, including the famed "Silver Buffalo Award".
Personal life and family
Boyce was born on June 16, 1858, in New Texas, Pennsylvania – now Plum Borough —to a Presbyterian farm couple, David and Margaret Jane Bratton Boyce. The Boyces had three children: William Dickson, Mary, and John. During his rural childhood, Boyce acquired a love for the outdoors. He began teaching school at the age of 16 and then worked briefly as a coal miner. He returned to teaching before joining his sister at Wooster Academy in Ohio, which—according to school records—he attended from 1880 to 1881. It is uncertain if he graduated or was expelled.
He then worked as a teacher, lumberjack, secretary, and salesman in the Midwest and Canada before settling in Chicago, where he quickly became known as a persuasive and shrewd salesman and learned business quickly. His books on business, travel, and expeditions often used the phrase "We pushed on." On January 1, 1884, Boyce married Mary Jane Beacom (1865–1959), whom he had known since his Pennsylvania childhood. Boyce called her Betsy, but to many her nickname was "Rattlesnake Jane" because she matched his skill in poker, was an expert shot, and rode horses cross saddle. It had also become obvious that she was more masculine than Boyce himself, although he had never admitted this, it became clear out of his journal. They had one son and two daughters: Benjamin Stevens (1884–1928), Happy (1886–1976) and Sydney (1889–1950).
Boyce's personal activities included hunting, yachting, Odd Fellows, Freemasonry, Shriners, golf, country clubs and the Chicago Hussars—an independent equestrian military organization.
In 1903, Boyce purchased a four-story mansion on in Ottawa, Illinois, which became the center of his family and social activities. Thereafter, he showed little interest in Chicago and its social activities; he would only go there on business. Boyce and Mary led increasingly separate lives and eventually divorced, which was reported on the front page of the Chicago Tribune because of the prominence he had attained by that time. The divorce was finalized in a Campbell County, South Dakota court in September 1908; his wife's property settlement was close to $1 million (USD).
After the divorce was finalized, Boyce courted Virginia Dorcas Lee, a vocalist from Oak Park, Illinois, who was 23 years his junior and the eldest child of Virginia and John Adams Lee, a former Lieutenant Governor of Missouri. Both Virginia's parents and Boyce's son Ben opposed the relationship. In May 1910, after the planned marriage was announced, an infuriated Ben scuffled with his father outside the Blackstone Hotel and Boyce sustained a facial wound. Ben was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $5 and court costs. Two days later, Boyce and Virginia married and went to Europe on an extended honeymoon. Almost immediately, there was speculation amongst family members and in newspapers about problems within the marriage. On April 9, 1911, Boyce and Virginia had a daughter, whom they named Virginia. A few months later, in December 1911, Boyce signed an agreement to support and educate their infant daughter. After Boyce's wife filed for divorce in March 1912, she moved to Santa Barbara, California, with their daughter and her parents. Boyce did not contest the divorce and arranged for a $100,000 settlement. Years later, the elder Virginia married Richard Roberts, a New York banker, and moved with her and Boyce's daughter to Greenwich, Connecticut. The younger Virginia took the surname Roberts. She did not meet her natural father, Boyce, until she was eight years old.
Ben married Miriam Patterson of Omaha, Nebraska, on June 11, 1912. Both Boyce and his first wife attended the ceremony. At this time Boyce's first wife, Mary, exchanged some of her Chicago property for the home in Ottawa, which sparked speculation that she and Boyce might reconcile. The next year they remarried on June 14, 1913, in Ottawa. They then departed on a honeymoon to Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines, Panama, and Cuba, with their daughter Happy, son Ben, and his wife Miriam.
Business enterprises As Boyce traveled, he often started a newspaper wherever he went. His first venture into commercial publishing was compiling a city directory. He also worked briefly for a publisher in Columbus, Ohio, and a newspaper publisher in Kensington, Pennsylvania, part of Philadelphia. He then boarded a train for Chicago and worked as a secretary and salesman for Western magazine. Restless again, he moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and sold advertisements for a publisher for a short time and then spent a month in Fargo, North Dakota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota. Further north in Canada, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he and local resident James W. Steen co-founded The Commercial in 1881, a newspaper that lasted for 70 years. He sold his share of "The Commercial" to his partner in 1882 and returned to Fargo where he became a reporter. In December 1882, Boyce moved to Lisbon, North Dakota, where he bought the Dakota Clipper.
Beginning in December 1884, Boyce managed reporters and news releases at the "Bureau of Correspondence" at the six-month-long World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, Louisiana. Countries from all over the world sent displays. Boyce was responsible for providing news stories on events and displays to over 1,200 newspapers around the country. He returned to North Dakota after the Exposition concluded, but by early 1886 he had moved back to Chicago. He often returned in North Dakota for publishing business deals and deer- and duck-hunting vacations.
In Chicago, he founded the Mutual Newspaper Publishing Company in 1886 which provided advertisements and articles to over 200 newspapers. In 1887, he established the weekly Saturday Blade, an illustrated newspaper aimed at rural audiences and sold by thousands of newsboys—an innovation at the time. By 1892, the Saturday Blade had the largest circulation of any weekly newspaper in the United States. Boyce's detailed reports of his foreign travels provided articles for the "Saturday Blade" and were reprinted in books by atlas/map publisher Rand McNally. The success of the Saturday Blade spawned the W. D. Boyce Publishing Company, which Boyce used to buy or start several newspapers and magazines. In 1892, Boyce bought out the "Chicago Ledger", a fiction weekly publication. In January 1903 he founded the international Boyce's Weekly, which advocated worker's rights. Boyce's prominence as a supporter of labor attracted labor/union leaders such as John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers and Henry Demarest Lloyd as writers and editors for Boyce's Weekly. Eight months later, Boyce's Weekly was consolidated with the Saturday Blade. Boyce also established the selected subject/topical newspapers Farm Business in 1914 and Home Folks Magazine in 1922. Dwindling sales led to the 1925 merger of the Blade and Ledger into the monthly Chicago Blade & Ledger, which was published until 1937. As Boyce's enterprises grew, he insisted on looking after the welfare of about 30,000 delivery boys, who were key to his financial success. Working with them may have helped him gain an understanding of America's youth. Boyce felt that delivering and selling newspapers taught a youth important responsibilities such as being polite, reading human nature, and handling money. Boyce's focused determination was evident in the advice he gave to young men: "There are many obstacles to overcome, but toil, grit and endurance will help you to overcome them all. Help yourself and others will help you." and "whatever trade you have selected; never swerve from that purpose a single moment until it is accomplished".
In 1891, Boyce began working on his own 12-story office building at 30 North Dearborn Street, known as the "Boyce Building", it was designed by architect Henry Ives Cobb. Even 20 years later, this building was recognized as the most expensive building (in terms of dollars per cubic foot) in Chicago. In 1907, Boyce consolidated his business operations into another office building, also known as the Boyce Building, at 500–510 North Dearborn Street. A new four-story office building—designed by the architectural firm of Daniel Burnham—was built on this location in 1912 and expanded during 1913–14 with an additional six stories. This building was later listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 29, 1996, maintained by the United States Department of the Interior and its National Park Service.