Good Will Hinckley of Fairfield, Maine, is a nonprofit organization devoted to the needs of children. Originally founded as a home for troubled and disadvantaged youth by the Rev. George Hinckley in 1889.
Still active today, its programs include the Glenn Stratton Learning Center (GSLC), Roundel Residential, and the College Step-up and Transitions Program. GSLC offers clinical and educational services to students in grades K- 12 with social-emotional and behavioral challenges. Roundel Residential is a therapeutic treatment center for adolescent boys and girls. The Good Will Hinckley campus is also the site of the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, a public charter high school.
George Hinckley was a friend of Ernest Thompson Seton through their mutual involvement in the early days of the Boy Scouts of America. Hinckley invited Seton to visit the campus in 1912. During his visit, Seton built a fireplace (campfire area) and built a large seat made of loose stones for himself, similar to the ones in council rings he built in several summer camps in the 1910s and 1920s. The following year, the stones had fallen down, and the seat was rebuilt by a professional stone mason.
A campus tradition was a Seton Fireplace ceremony to mark the beginning of each school year. The fireplace continues to be a favorite meeting spot in the Good Will Hinckley campus.
The area is known as the Black Wolf Chair and the Seton Fireplace and is accessible from the Good Will Hinkley Trails.
Photos courtesy of the LC Bates Museum on the Good Will Hinkley campus.
