All the work of the camp with the exception of the cooking
was done by the boys ... Mornings were given over to camp
work and swimming. After dinner there were baseball, tennis,
rowing, and short hikes. Occasionally there would be an
all day hike planned. Some botany was studied and, in
a very elementary way, zoology. As a final end-up for
the summer there came the hike through the Presidential
Range.
For more than ten years the camp was successfully continued
until Dr. Talbot's failing health necessitated its closing
and the site has since been used for private purposes. Some
of the assistants, trained by Dr. Talbot, soon established
camps of their own, which attained success. Dr. Shubmell,
who had been an assistant of Dr. Talbot's in 1903, split
off from Dr. Talbot, taking some of the boys with him and
a short distance south, on Little Squam Lake, and established
Sherwood Forest Camp, which he continued until 1910. On
this same site. Dr. John B. May, who had been a camper and
councilor under Dr. Shubmell, in 1914 established Winnetaska
Canoeing Camps, which were continued by him until 1928.
In 1886, two years after Dr. Talbot's camp was established,
Edwin DeMeritte opened Camp Algonquin, a few miles east
which was operated as a private camp for boys. Camp Idlewild
on Lake Winnipesaukee was opened in 1892 by John M. Dick,
who had some training in a YMCA camp at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
So out of the influence of Balch's idea there had grown
up, within a few miles from Chocorua in the succeeding 14
years, a whole brood of successful camps that followed the
practices he had established. And, moreover, these camps
have transmitted their influence far and wide.
While Ernest Balch had in the back of his mind the founding
of a monastic order, it had to prove itself a success before
anyone became bold enough to suggest that "what was
good for the boys might be equally good for their sisters.
As early as 1892, a girls' camp was established by Professor
Fontaine at his natural science camp called Camp Arey, thus
establishing just claim as the first organized camp for girls.
In 1900, Mrs. Oscar Holt took some girls as summer boarders
in a small cottage, the "Redcroft," on the shore of Newfound
Lake. After two years she decided to entertain only small
boys and thus originated Mowglis, the pioneer camp for young
boys.
The year 1902 was significant in the history of girls camps.
Laura I. Mattoon, a teacher in a private school of New York
City, then established Camp Kehonka in Wolfeboro on the
east side of Lake Winnipesaukee. At this period in time
it was considered a startling thing to do, to take reputable
New York girls in their teens and young women into the woods.
It scandalized some of the good schoolmistresses to hear
that she let girls run around in the broad daylight in bloomers.
In the same year Miss Munoz established Pinelands at Center
Harbor.
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