From Six Intrepid Boys to One Disgruntled Cook….
At the turn of the last century, six intrepid boys in the company of a renowned educator, Dr. Elias G. Brown and his assistant, paddled up some twenty-five miles from the southern most shores of Lake George where the roads stopped. They pitched tents on a primitive peninsula that jutted out into the sparkling clear, glacial waters. That peninsula was destined to become Adirondack Camp.
Over the ensuing years, building materials would be sledded and trucked in over the foot thick ice that would blanket Lake George almost every winter; and the makings of a good deal of what exists today on the property, a hundred and some years later, were put in place during these earlier years. Interestingly, a majority of the out buildings that went up over the next thirty years have continued to serve the same purposes for which they were built, to this day. And so, early on, constancy became an Adirondack virtue.
On the other hand, there were some structures that managed to survive only by adapting to changing times. Thus, the very first building on the property, a modest sized cabin where the first campers stayed after stowing their tents, became in time, the “Aide's” cabin – where boys who helped out in the kitchen for reduced tuition stayed. Later, this same cabin became the Cook’s cabin, with the names of the Cook and his wife carved prominently into a long sign that hung over the door. Until one day when the (then) Cook had an argument with his wife and sawed her name off the sign in broad view of an entire camp! Today, our Director and his family live in a newer post and beam cabin erected on the same historical spot. No signs or saws necessary!
Gold Eagles to Girls….
By the half way mark, fifty years after the first campers landed at Adirondack by boat, Adirondack had already established for itself an international reputation as an innovative leader in “building the character of future leaders of our world”. Its Gold Eagle was already recognized as the oldest and most prestigious award in American camping, going (not necessarily every year) to those deserving campers who exemplified the core character values by which Adirondack’s future leaders lived.
The time was mid twentieth century – still, ancient times for some today. When older men talked about “future leaders”, they were usually talking only about boys. Girls were another matter, entirely – and in the case of Adirondack, they just weren’t allowed into such things as the secrets of the Casbah or the recipe for Eagle Food. Girls weren’t even supposed to know about Crazy Kate or the visit of the Russian Ambassador or snipe hunting or tens of other scary tales and special games that had become part of the lore of Adirondack.
The closest girls came at that time to being a part of Camp was a camp a mile down the lake at a place called Lake George Camp for Girls. Not ones to be bashful and fully knowledgeable that, back then boys would be boys only because girls let them be so – the girls of Lake George used to terrorize the brave boys of Adirondack. The fastest and easiest way to do so was to hop into one of their Lyman wooden motorboats and come zipping into Adirondack’s swimming cove – thereby spreading panic amongst the boys who were out swimming – since no self-respecting Adirondack camper ever wore a bathing suit back then. All these poor boys could do was to yell “Fire in the icebox” before diving back into the water!
Cannon, Flags & Candlelight….
By the late forties, ownership of the Camp had passed from Doctor Brown and his wife, who survived him for many years, to an energetic, if not frenetic, Colonel Bill Warrick and his wife, Jane. Promoting camping as a “character builder for young men and future leaders”, The Colonel also ran an all boys military parade regiment at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City, called the Knickerbocker Greys; and a large number of these boys also attended Adirondack.
These were the late forties and fifties, right after our greatest generation had fought and won, with great sacrifice, the Second World War – when military values were valued, when saluting the flag was second nature and when “Retreat” became an indelible few minutes of the Adirondack day. Each day would end with a gathering of the entire Camp around the flagpole and, after a roll call by cabin – “All present and accounted for, Sir!” -- the bugler would play, the flag would be lowered and saluted and a cannon would be fired.
If cannon and flags were to have a role in defining Adirondack back then, so too would candlelight and songs – on the very last night of Camp at that! On this night each summer, the true essence of Adirondack became revealed as campers and counselors alike, would silently gather under the stars at the top of the great field and bid each other farewell, one-by-one. While lighting the candles that each would hold, one by one, all these candles would be lit in the darkness surrounding them. Campers and counselors would sing songs of comradeship to the words in old song sheets that could be read by their candlelight. The tradition has survived to this day – with the boys continuing on with the tradition of planting their candles, still burning bright, by their cabin steps and the girls sailing theirs down the lake on “wish boards”. The entire Camp and waters surrounding becoming a patchwork of glimmering lights that one could imagine were talking back to the stars; and one could feel the power of all-inclusiveness, if not One.
Wealth, Power & Tradition….
Those earlier and middle years however, were still more often the years of “exclusivity”. Years when eight weeks of camp was the norm amongst private school families in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. When wealthy families from places like Venezuela and Cuba kept trunks filled with clothes and gear year around at Camp, so that various siblings and cousins selected to come to Camp each year could do so without fear of losing their wardrobes.
These mid-years were the years in which Adirondack campers would train up in a special rail car originating in New York’s Grand Central Station. No more paddling up from the south end of the lake that had eventually grown into Lake George Village. The new campers would arrive at a rail platform near Fort Ticonderoga, the famous overlook on Lake Champlain and locus of significant battles during the French & Indian War as well as Benedict Arnold’s old command during our own Revolutionary War. From here they traveled the nine miles to the Camp in the back of open trucks sitting on their duffle bags and trunks, making quite a contrast – little rich boys being hauled like migrant farmers to a place that would level them soon enough and make young men out of them.
Of course, they weren’t all rich. The Colonel, and before him, the Browns, were generous owners. That heritage of providing scholarship grants and other forms of financial assistance has been expanded on to this day – though young people today, more so than ever before, come to Adirondack from all walks of life – rich and poor, black, Latino, white, religious denominated or not, famous or not. Today there are, for example, an equal number of public school kids at Adirondack as private.
Speaking of today – a mere fifty added years since the mid-fifties of the last Century – there are differences between Adirondack of today and yesteryear. Doctor Brown’s commitment to character-building through exploration, close quarters living and respect for each other and the great outdoors remains an integral part of the Camp philosophy. Though the strict disciplinarian approach of the times has come to be replaced by a kinder and gentler Camp. Likewise, Colonel Warrick’s instincts for instilling fundamental values through orchestrated fun and his stubborn commitment to the rightness of things has long settled into our grain – while the military aspects to the Camp have largely gone their way.
The Great Equalizer
This is not to lose sight of the impact of the brief reign of Adirondack’s third owner. Bill Dooley was one of those kids from the Midwest, who literally grew up at Adirondack. After college, he became an educator and a soccer coach. Shortly before the Colonel’s death, he bought Adirondack. To this day Bill remains one of those alumni who remember and revere the old traditions and is always there when you need him. The last thing anyone would have said, especially back then about Bill, was that he would be likely to change a major, underlying principle of Camp.
“…. Future leaders of the world….” Girls! That’s right! Bill opened the door. Enter Moss Lodge Camp for Girls, which became a sister camp to Adirondack during Bill’s reign. Having lost its property to real estate developers, Moss Lodge moved its entire operation onto the Adirondack peninsula. The girls came and Adirondack was never again the same. A phenomenal swim program and manners classes were two of many innovations they brought with them. Swimming has survived – though there are times when we wished the manner classes had survived as well! Of course, bathing suits became de rigueur; and the physical facility was split to provide a level of separation and privacy between the sexes that remains pretty much the same to this day.
The brother-sister relationship between the two camps lasted exactly until the summer of 1980. Moss Lodge’s ill luck had rubbed off on Adirondack, and both camps had fallen on harder times. Attendance and needed investment in essential infrastructure were down. In the winter of ’79 Bill Dooley sold his beloved Adirondack, then briefly re-named Adirondack-Moss Lodge, with a commitment from the new owners to turn it around.
Alex Levitch had gone to Adirondack for four years back in those mid-fifties. His wife, Linda Goodwin, had been raised in Michigan where the pine trees also grew tall and lakes could ice up good in the winter. They had reasons to love Camp. Most importantly, they had one daughter, upon whom they doted everything and who was not taking “no” for an answer on the question of making Adirondack coed with equal rights to the girls to all the ancient secrets and silliness.
The new owners did just that. With the invaluable help of an old friend from Camp, "Sir" Chris Geissman, who had continued on to become a legendary fixture and sailing master at Adirondack, they merged the Moss Lodge program into Adirondack’s and established one camp with equal opportunities for both sexes while still allowing some wiggle room to enable boys and girls to have some aspects of the program just to themselves.
New Beginnings, Old Loves….
For the next three years, the new owners worked to bring back the attendance as well as to begin the necessary investments. This was the period of long days. By day they launched an aggressive advertising program under the headline – "Camp was so much fun I bought it". By night, after finishing their day jobs, they would visit the homes of prospective families and (for the first year, at least) show the only movies they had to show. You guessed it... 16mm grainy film of naked boys shouting -- “Fire in the ice box!” -- and jumping into the lake! “We just want you to appreciate the beauty and completeness of the surroundings,” Linda or Alex would explain. And somehow, it worked.
Those early years for the new owners were critical for several respects. To be sure, the very life of the Camp was at issue, but so were its bearings. Going coed meant questioning and challenging – everything. It was a process that took years and it reinforced in Linda’s and Alex’s minds the seriousness of their mission. In the process, lines of songs and safety rules were re-written; the old tradition of calling counselors by their first names with a “Sir” in front of the name would be sorely tested by the first “Sir” Gail and “Sir” Grace (eventually, it became just first names). Certain games needed to be abandoned or adopted; certain traditions needed to be strengthened; the entire program went up for review.
Adirondack became more nurturing -- kinder too, and more alert to the subtleties and small signals from its young charges. The basic mission – strong hearts, strong character under the guise of having fun -- and core values (e.g., sharing, growing, independence, effort, spirit, leadership, cooperation, creativity, courage and responsibility) remained intact.
Of equal importance, during these years was the several decades presence of some very special counselors. These were men and women, who came to serve as role models in perpetuity for the ideal Adirondack counselor and who were of invaluable assistance in these times of self-examination. Among this unique group of counselors was a man who spoke ten languages (all at the same time according to some) and who told the longest stories at bedtime to the youngest campers – a great man, “Sir” John Halasz -- for whom our fencing pavilion is named -- who built a number of stone fixtures around the Camp and set up shop in everyone’s hearts. Then, there was “Sir” Dud Maxim, a legendary swimmer and athletic director with Trinity School, who began each day of his 40 plus summers at Adirondack with the early morning slap – slap of a long armed crawl that would have him circle the peninsula for all to hear. He could pitch a baseball just, so that both the weakest and the strongest could clobber it for mile -- by just reaching for the best inside that either had to offer.
The Importance of Bedrock
These early years for the current owners saw importantly, the coming of age of three very special Adirondack campers who went on to establish independent professions in education, business and film making and who are today, Adirondack’s Director, Assistant Director and Webmaster. If it is not already said, it should be said –
Every great children’s summer camp becomes a double blessing by, as well as for, its children!
And so, now into its second century, Adirondack Camp moves on through its history toward destiny and recharges its “battery” periodically, through its own. Its bedrock can be deceiving in that so much today looks the same as yesterday, and its “constancy” is greatly valued; but its history reminds us of the extraordinary investment of human energy – love… intellect… sweat… discovery – that this labor of love has both taken and returned.
