Ernest Thompson Seton (August 14, 1860 - October 23, 1946) was a noted author and founding pioneer of the Boy Scouts of America.
Born Ernest Evan Thompson, later Ernest Seton Thompson in South Shields, Durham, England, he died in Seton Village, New Mexico.
He met scouting's founder, Lord Baden-Powell, in 1906. Baden-Powell had read Seton's book, The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians, and was greatly intrigued by it. The pair met and shared ideas. Baden-Powell went on to found the Scouting movement worldwide, and Seton became vital in the foundation of the Boy Scouts of America. His Woodcraft Indians (a youth organization), combined with the early attempts at scouting from the YMCA and other organizations, and Daniel Carter Beard's Sons of Daniel Boone, to form the Boy Scouts of America.
Seton was an early pioneer of the modern school of animal fiction writing, his most popular work being Wild Animals I Have Known (1898).
See also: The Woodcraft Folk
