SCOUT FIXES UP LONG-FORGOTTEN HISTORIC MARKER

A couple years ago Gerard Horn was making his way around Norwalk hunting down special places for a middle school history class scavenger hunt.

Along the way found an Eagle project. Along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive he located an old monument to what had been a champion tree, the state’s second-largest red oak. The massive tree along what was then Ely Avenue was estimated to be over 300 years old. It fell into decay in the 1970s and was taken down, but descendant trees grow nearby. The largest, in the city’s right-of-way along the road, is known as the “Legacy Oak.”

The marker was placed by the Norwalk-Village Green Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution as part of the city’s 300th anniversary. It reads, “Second Largest Red Oak Known Norwalk Chapter D.A.R. 1951.”

When Horn found the area for the scavenger hunt more than six decades later, it was overgrown with tall grass and brush, and the marker was barely visible. A surrounding fence was rusting away.

Now a Life Scout in Stamford Scouts BSA Troop 5 and a freshman at Brien McMahon High School, Horn made restoring the old monument his Eagle project, one of the final steps to become an Eagle Scout, BSA’s highest rank. It is achieved by only about 4 percent of Scouts.

“It wasn’t in the best condition,” he said. “I decided to clean it up.”

On Saturday, he and fellow Scouts and some parents went to work with shovels and other tools to do just that. By late afternoon, the overgrowth was gone, the marker had been reset and surrounded with white stone and a new split-rail fence. Horned worked with the city’s Department of Public Works on the project.

When Horn makes Eagle, it’ll be with at least 55 merit badges — far more than the required 21.

“Swimming was fun and I really liked Shotgun (Shooting),” he said. But he also discovered he had a knack for plumbing by working on the Plumbing merit badge.

“I might pursue a career in plumbing,” he said.