Friends Of Hinds - Recollections

This page is reserved for your recollections of
Camp Hinds of the past. Please e-mail your
memories to FriendsOfHinds@gmail.com

Camp Hinds Rec Hall - 1928

I Remember
By Matt Randall - September 2007

I remember the sound of the bugle at seven am on crisp June mornings.
I remember the snap of the flags as the Commissioners posted them high for the day.
I remember the clatter of breakfast dishes and the chatter boys.
I remember the banging of hammers, splashing of swimmers, and the cracking of rifle fire.
I remember the smell of the sweet, warm summer air and the blanket of stars to comfort me at night.
I remember older campers - dads, leaders, and visitors - passing down the wisdom of their years.
I remember past staff photos - holding me to my oath, law, and obligations.
I remember the thunder of the cannon announcing the close of day over Panther Pond.
I remember the ping of pipes in the showers - a warning of scorching water approaching.
I remember the 'Skipper Patrick' rock, The Block House, the Waterfront Tower, and 'Sketch Craft.'
I remember my 'Second Homes' - Pershing, Condo 2, Androscoggin, Skid Ridge, and Pine Tree.
I remember song and dance in the Ring Dining Hall.
I remember pounding rough-hewn plaques to an ancient building.
I remember flickering flames, boys in drag, and staff singing 'On My Honor' at evening campfire.
I remember weekends at Little Sebago and a Pope on the dock.
I remember lifting boats, trimming tents, and cleaning latrines.
I remember messages on the walls of cabins - memories of my 'Brothers in Arms.'
I remember hacking through the brush to a put up a boardwalk,
and explaining how a motorboat prop got destroyed.
I remember buried treasure on the 75th anniversary.
I remember a sea of white sashes with red arrows on Thursdays.
I remember Mike's house, cribbage at the Training Center, and vacations in the Florida Keys.
I remember staff parties - Greek, Mexican, and Carribbean.
I remember 'Harry Kakelegion,' 'the Scotsman,' and a Tee-A-Ta circle.
I remember The Indian Box, the Kaddywumpus, and the 'Staff Jump.'
I remember Jimmy Buffett and AC/DC wake-up calls,
and telephoned feedback from the residents of the lake.
I remember laughing kids, grateful leaders, and accomplished staffs.
I remember what a Shax is.
I remember friends.
I remember mentors and guides.
I remember saying 'Welcome on board,' and 'See you next year.'
I remember seeing William Hinds and hoping I did him proud.
I remember, and I return to these fond times in my mind.

Submitted by Marty Kadel

Getting up early to play the scratchy Revilee record (till Dean figured out a way to computerize them) ... Mike Cook, Larry Roy, and Brian Dumont doing a great 'Blue Moon' doo-wop set at campfires ... never being found in a staff hunt ... Steak dinners with staff waiters in tuxedos serving 'vin de bug' and Jeff Violette playing the keyboards for mood music ... leaning on the terrarium rail with young scouts just in awe ... the Alfred E Neuman Award ... Doing the Order of the Oar with Glen Gisel & Bruce Rueger (no, there wasn’t a hint of abuse) ... slush puppies with gummie worms ... the partridge that used to perch on the rifle range target line and lived to tell the story ... Dean singing 'Gary Owen' and Bruce singing 'If I were Not a Boy Scout' ... the indian on the rock during retreat ... kids getting back from swamp romps (they told me no one would sign up for them!) ... 3 million parents eating bbq chicken, macaroni salad, & cherry tarts ... a certain half asleep staff member arriving to breakfast without his pants ... being a buddy at free swim to the kid who nobody wanted to buddy up with ... Webelos Week when Scott Valcourt played an alien with a light bulb head and the kids really thought we had been invaded ... watching adults looking for their plaque & now doing it myself ... staff swims under the lights ... 'polite, polite, polite, courteous, courteous, courteous, please, please, please, thank you, thank you, thank you' (staff will remember) ... Indoor campfires on rainy nights ... doing Sam Magee a zillion times ... the 'chipmunk from hell' who ate a whole case of atomic fire balls in the trading post ... spending time with homesick kids ... night motorboat rides (camp directors break rules, too) ... international Staff, especially Keith Nixon and Allen Dennis ... ”This is My Camp” buttons ... Some bad stuff too, like having to fire a few staff members and kids getting injured ... the cry of the loons ... the feeling of being the only one left in camp when summer is over ... after 3 days of rain, arriving at breakfast to find a staff member fishing in a rowboat on a huge mud puddle in front of the dining hall ... rabbit furs ... 'Are You Psyched?' ... Staff sings after the campfire ... sticks on fire ... so much more!!!!!

Little kown fact:

When looking at the 1963 staff photo I remembered that it was the year when we tore down Yale latrine! I'm sure that Dirk Van Hook was part of the crew smashing it to pieces with sledgehammers and axes. I drove the truck hauling away the fragments.

~ Frank Maguire

Keith Nixon from the UK was our International Camp Staff member in 1986. Click on his photo to read his story about his trip to Camp Hinds.

From Arthur Berry - Transcribed from a talk given at the Order of the Arrow Banquet on December 6, 2008. Arthur was a camper in 1941 and 1943, then on Camp Hinds staff 1944-1946.

I remember that as a camper we were always warned not to go further out of camp than the blockhouse unless we were going to the ball field with our leaders. I remember when the campsites were still close to the waterfront.

When I was on staff I was the bugler and had to watch the time all of the time - and play the correct bugle calls throughout the day. I missed one day when I went out in a canoe with a girl from Camp Kokatosi (now Kingsley Pines) and my clock (not a watch) fell in the lake, the WWII cardboard parts were ruined so I couldn't tell what time it was!

During the summer of 1944 the staff began to notice that Percy Dunne (the Scout Executive) was wearing a white sash with red arrow when in uniform; soon George Anderson, the waterfront director and Dr. Nickles (senior camp director) were also wearing them. We all wondered what was going on.

Then one evening at retreat the camp watched an Indian chief in a canoe come around Chipmunk Point and up to the swimming area. The chief got out of his canoe, strode up to the assembled camp and walked up and down the lines of troops and staff. When he came to certain boys he firmly tapped down on their shoulder – 1, 1-2 – and walked on.

After the ceremony those who had been tapped were instructed to meet that night to begin their ordeal.

We were led out of camp into the woods, and one by one we were told where to spend the night. I was told to “go straight into the woods for twenty-five paces and sleep on that spot.” The spot turned out to be a stump, so that’s where I slept.

The next morning the boys were brought back to camp, where we spent the day in complete silence on camp service jobs of various kinds, with no food, only water to sustain us. That evening we were given a feast, followed by the induction ceremony into the Order of the Arrow.

~This story told to Frank Maguire by Mike King

Someone called the Council Office and asked Mike if he knew the birthdate of Billy Hinds, or the date of his death. Mike said that he did not know. They explained that they now live in the Hinds house at 27 Chadwick Street. There is an old clock there which came with the house. These people had it repaired and it ran well for several years, then quit. Then all of a sudden it began running again, causing them to wonder if the date it stoped or started again is related to Billy's life or death. It seems that when the grandmother was staying in the house, one night she awoke to see a small boy in the corner of the room - but there was no one there!

The Wreck of the Tenny Belle

Gordon Lightfoot sings about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald; Schooner Fare, my favorite folk group, sings of the Wreck of the Mary Ellen Carter; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about The Wreck of the Hesperus. Sit down and listen while I relate The Wreck of the Tenny Belle.

William Bucknam Hinds was an 8-year old boy. He was killed in a traffic accident in 1925. His parents manufactured and distributed Hinds Honey and Almond Cream, a nationally known beauty aid of the era. After the death of their child, the Hinds family wanted to do something for the youth of Southern Maine. They decided to donate funds for the purchase of 125 acres of lakefront property to the newly-formed Cumberland County Council (predecessor of the Pine Tree Council) of the adolescent Boy Scouts of America. Thus came into being Camp Hinds.

The camp itself hasn’t changed much in 70+ years. Campsites have been added; cabins have been moved or demolished; improvements have been made. But, the plan of the camp still revolves around the Triangle, the central physical area of the facility. Landmarks such as the Blockhouse, the Rec Hall, the Council Ring, the Dining Hall, and Harvard (the only public flush toilets in the camp) can still be found at various points along the Triangle. The New Health Lodge, built in memory of Dr. John Konecki, one of camp’s early scouts, and father of Tom Konecki, one of my compatriots, can now be found within the boundaries of the Triangle.

One of the most interesting features of the camp is that it is divided by the Tenny River. This 2 mile long body of water connects Panther Pond with Crescent Lake. There is no current to speak of, and its meandering curves provide ample boating space for hundreds of boys each summer. The “other side” has seen the most development in recent years. New campsites like Siple, Brownsea, Bailey, and Maguire (named for my very own Scoutmaster and long time Camp staff member Frank Maguire) have sprouted in the past 15 years. But, when I was a Scout, attending camp for my very first time, there was only one campsite on the “other side” -- Tenny Campsite. Tenny Campsite was unique. Instead of huge 4 main tents, Tenny had two-man Adirondack lean-to cabins. These were situated in a long, meandering row facing Panther Pond. Tenny had its own Rec hall and leaders’ cabin. At one time, this was the Senior Scout campsite, but, by 1963, it had become just one of the regular sites for troops to camp at for a week or two during the long Maine summer.

There was only one way for the Scouts of Tenny Campsite to get to places like the Dining Hall, the Waterfront, the Trading Post -- the Tenny Belle. The Tenny Belle was a raft built on six 55-gallon drums. It was propelled by a rope-pulley system -- a scout would stand on the raft with one or two of his buddies and pull, hand over hand, the Tenny Belle across the river. It was absolutely THE neatest thing at camp. Some kids loved the waterfront; others spent hours at the Nature Lodge or the Rifle Range. Me? I spent most of my first week traveling back and forth across the Tenny River on the Tenny Belle. It was the thing that made camp unique in my 12 year old mind. Camp had a Dining Hall; School had a cafeteria. Camp had a Waterfront; Fort Williams had a pool for swimming lessons. Camp had a Trading Post; my neighborhood had Millie’s store. Camp had a Health Lodge; my mother was the neighborhood nurse. But no other place on earth had a Tenny Belle.

Getting on the Tenny Belle was not an easy task. From the Dining Hall side, the ground sloped toward the river. Scouts doing their good turns had built “steps” into the bank making the descent easier. But, the Tenny side was something else. There was no easy slope, only a difficult bank. Scouts over the years had tried to carve steps into the reluctant Maine soil, but the approach resembled more a ladder than a stairway. The Tenny boys always had an audience at breakfast and lunch times to see who would make it and who would not. The Tenny Belle had a capacity of SIX BOYS. There usually were more than six, of course, but that was part of the fun -- to see what would happen if there were more than SIX BOYS on the Tenny belle as she made her way across the river. Since being late for a meal was THE cardinal sin of camp, occasionally someone would cut the lines to the Tenny Belle, effectively stranding anyone on the other side.

Troop 22, Holy Cross Church, South Portland, Maine, always spent two weeks at Camp Hinds. Many other troops only spent one week, so Sundays were very busy days. Several groups were leaving, while new groups were coming to take their places. And that meant parents. Not only parents, but aunts and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers and sisters and brothers and cousins several times removed. My parents weren’t coming, so I just wandered around camp, dressed in my full scout uniform. My journey took me to the shores of the Tenny River and the Tenny Belle. It seemed as though there were hundreds of people who wanted to ferry themselves across the river on the Tenny Belle. I sat on the top step of the path from the Dining Hall and watched in amazement as adults and boys crowded onto the Tenny Belle. The first few trips back and forth I counted FOURTEEN people; on one trip I counted SIXTEEN, but ten of them were small boys. The Tenny Belle seemed to ride low in the water, but everyone was laughing and having a great time.

I can’t be sure -- it has been more than 30 years -- but it seemed that, after the group of SIXTEEN, each trip across the river included one more passenger than the previous trip. I watched in horror as the number climbed to TWENTY-TWO passengers. With the surety of hindsight, I realize that as long as the weight was distributed the Tenny Belle would do her job. A large family passed by me on their way to the Tenny Belle. I knew from its size that they wouldn’t all be able to go across at once. But, in true Yankee spirit, they tried. They forgot about distributing the weight. BANG! BANG! BANG! Three floats on the port side exploded out. With no flotation on that side of the raft, the Tenny Belle pivoted on its axis, sending an entire family into the leech-infested waters of the Tenny River. The noise was horrendous, and the camp brass scurried to the river to see what was going on. A horrible sight greeted them: mothers and fathers in their Sunday best were clambering up the banks of the Tenny River with swamp grass in their hair and river water in their shoes and their sons squatted in the shallow water in their brand-new uniforms from Benoit’s. The Tenny Belle lay helpless on its side in the middle of the river, a victim of overcrowding.

The Boy Scouts have always been conscious of their image, and the prospect of lawsuits over a piece of transportation history did not thrill those who made the decisions. At the end 1965 camp season, the Tenny Belle was laid to rest. A new green wooden footbridge wide enough for three boys walking abreast and capable of supporting whole patrols of mothers and fathers was erected before the following season. Her nameplate enshrined on a rafter in the rec hall along with some memories and a couple of faded photographs is all that remains of the Tenny Belle.

~ Bill Wiles

Additional information on the Tenny Belle

Mr. Mann

In 1962, when I was program director, the Scoutcraft department, directed by George VanAmburg, was looking for out-of-camp locations which they could use for overnight camping. We had been told that the council owned some land on Nubble Hill so we directed the campers in that direction but we had no idea of the boundaries of the property. George began sending groups up to the back of Nubble Hill where they camped in the area between the hill and Nubble Pond, accessed by the old dirt road which begins not far beyond the Catholic Church on route 85. It was possible to drive up that rough old road to deliver food and water to the groups camping there. But we still did not know our boundaries, so I went to the town office and got a description of the lot from the tax maps. The site was landlocked and not clearly identifiable, so I called Mr. Alford Mann, the abutting land owner, who lived in “downtown” Raymond. He was more than happy to help us out and he agreed to meet me the next day at the camp gate and he would show me the property lines.

That morning Mr. Alford Mann of Raymond showed up in an ancient Model A Ford pickup truck, and drove me to the road mentioned above, and up that road a couple of hundred yards to where there was an iron pipe set on the left near the road. We got out of the truck and Mr. Mann, an elderly gentleman carrying an axe and wearing bib overalls which covered his ample waistline, led me from that iron marker into the woods to a second iron pipe, which, he explained, was his and our corner. We proceeded as he blazed a trail by chipping the trunks of trees in the way that the old-timers did every few years to define their property lines.

At the next marker we turned in a southerly direction and headed for the cliff of Nubble Ledge and down the side. We turned left again and headed back to the road. This was clearly a lot of hiking for Mr. Mann, who handed me the axe to carry back, and when we reached the truck he suggested that I should drive it back to camp. That’s the only time I ever drove a Model A.

He then took the wheel for the drive back to his home and I went back into camp to explain to George and the Scoutcraft crew where our property actually was. That’s the only time I met Mr. Mann.

~Frank Maguire

Rattlesnake Mountain

In 1970 the Scoutcraft staff got itchy again to camp in the wilderness so they planned an overnight to Rattlesnake Mountain. I believe that permission was granted by Hancock Lumber so off they went on their adventure.

The next day we received a phone call from the Fire Warden asking if we had been on Rattlesnake the night before, and on being assured that we had a group up there they said that they had received panicked phone calls from people who saw a fire up on the ledges and were afraid of a forest fire.
It seems that no one registered for a fire permit, leaving the rangers literally in the dark. I then had to fill an Indian pump with water and make a special trip up the mountain with a Scout from Kennebunk who volunteered to accompany me. We drove up route 85 to the point where there is/was an old logging road up the mountain. After climbing up we located the dead ashes of the campfire, thoroughly soaked them, and got back to camp before retreat. There we found that the boy’s Scoutmaster was pretty upset because the boy and I hadn’t told him we were going. In that episode we learned two lessons about getting permission!

~Frank Maguire

Greetings from Vermont

In 1978 I was the Program Director. I was a high school music teacher then, teaching in Plattsburgh, NY (across Lake Champlain from my family in the Burlington, VT area) and was speaking to my Uncle Ralph during the winter of 77-78 that I did not want to work locally that coming summer. Ralph was a scout executive (he worked his way up through councils from Nashua, NH through MA, Nebraska, Colorado and eventually becoming the scout exec in LA) and knew Bud Jeffries who called me and offered me the one year position at Hinds in preparation for being the Base Director for the Matagamon HIgh Adventure Base the following summer (which I did in 1979).

I had a great summer at Hinds (and the following year at Matagamon), ones I remember fondly and often speak of with people here. Being from Vermont, I stayed over on Saturday nights (even had a summer girlfriend with a young lady from North Windham) and enjoyed camp life, planning each week's events, going to National Camp School (where I was offered a teaching position following my week there), working with Mike, Steven, George, Ken and the others there. I even got involved in the music program at the Amherst Camp around the corner and played there once a week in one of their jazz ensembles.

Now I am too busy supporting my family (with multiple part-time jobs and three home businesses) to do much in Scouting besides serve as a merit badge counselor. My two boys are scouts (my wife was their den mother) with one working on his Eagle Project and the other a Star headed in that direction.

Too many Camp Hinds memories to bore you with, but again, appreciate your work on the site and please give anyone who might remember me my email address.

Take care
Steffen Parker

To Maine with the Boy Scouts and Percy Dunn
April 6, 2009

A surprise letter came from Scout Executive Percy Dunn in the spring of 1943. He had become the Executive of Pine Tree Council in Maine and needed a Field Scout Executive to be Chief of Staff at Camp William Hinds beginning in June. Would I consider joining him again in this new assignment?

The offer was attractive since I was looking for a new and greater challenge in this time of national crises. It was not my intention to leave the Christian ministry. A war time commitment interested me. At Percy Dunn’s prompting, I flew to Portland, Maine for a job interview. It was always inspiring to be with P.L. Dunn and this visit convinced me to team up with him again in Pine Tree Council and Camp William Hinds. Percy introduced me to Maine lobster at Boone’s Place on the wharf in Portland. How delicious!

There were many decisions to make and arrangements to settle before leaving for the Scout camp in early June. Madeline was expecting our third child the first of June so the church agreed for her to stay in the parsonage until I would come for her and the children in August. Clora Harris volunteered to take Madeline to the hospital when the time came. John Preston—named for his two grandfathers–was not born until June 30, 1943, a month later than expected. Through all the stress of this transition period Madeline demonstrated remarkable courage. Looking back, I marvel at her faith and stamina. The ensuing weeks were perhaps the most trying of our lives.

Camp William Hinds, owned and operated by Pine Tree Council Boy Scout of America, was located on Panther Pond with the Tenney river running through the camp and emptying into the lake. Pond was a misnomer. It was a four mile long lake, half a mile wide. The water was clear and refreshingly cool. Most of the camp property was wooded. I was enthralled on my first visit to the camp.

As camp Chief of Staff, I worked with thirty-five adult and junior staff men and two-hundred-fifty Scouts for two-week periods through the summer. Soon after camp began problems with some veteran staff members developed. I do not want to give the impression that the 1943 camping season at Camp William Hinds was a failure. Five or six adult staff members, and perhaps as many junior staff personnel, created the problems. There were a number of talented and dedicated men who were loyal to me and who helped to make the camping experience memorable for the hundreds of Boy Scouts in camp. However, had it not been for the unwavering support of Percy Dunn, I doubt if I would have survived the summer.

Immediately after camp was over I drove the camp truck to Alfred Station to bring our family and household goods back to Auburn, Maine. Because it was war time, special arrangements to purchase gasoline for the truck and our V8 Ford had to be made with the proper authorities.

Returning to Madeline and the children after the trauma of the summer was an emotionally happy experience. What a thrill to see baby John, now eight or nine weeks old, for the first time. He was a beautiful baby! I could only guess at how difficult the summer had been for Madeline. She was a “survivor”.

Tears were shed as we drove away from Alfred Station in the loaded truck and our Ford car. Madeline had Anne, Daniel and John with her as she drove. The more than four years with Second Alfred church, our first pastorate, had been fruitful and happy. We were leaving our first home, after the Gothic in Alfred, and many friends dear to us were being left behind.

The trip to Maine was arduous, especially for Madeline. We were fortunate to be able to spend the first night on the road in Berlin, New York with our friends, Pastor Paul and Ruby Maxson. It was difficult to find a motel the second night. No lights were allowed outside places of business because of the war so we literally groped our way into a motel kind enough to take us in.

It was heartwarming and reassuring to have Percy and Clara Dunn help us settle in to our rented apartment on Beacon Avenue in Auburn, Maine. Lewiston Auburn is the twin city that was headquarters for the Pine Tree Council district I was to serve as Field Scout Executive. Our first floor apartment was on top of a hill that overlooked the city of Lewiston and the Androscoggin river. Remodeled from an elegant home, the apartment had hardwood floors and a beautiful fireplace with a ceramic arch decorated with a woman’s face, oak leaves and acorns. It was pleasant to come home from night Scout meetings and sit with Madeline in front of a cheery fire. I often brought home a huge Italian sandwich or a lobster sandwich to enjoy together. We paid $30.00 a month for the apartment. A coal furnace was our heat source and, because of war time restrictions, we brought coal home, one bag at a time, in our car. I foolishly used kerosene one morning to relight the furnace fire. The kerosene exploded in my face, singing my hair and burning off my mustache. It could have been a major tragedy but it was an embarrassment for a Scout Executive.

Because washing machines were not available during the war, Madeline was forced to wash all our clothes by hand until the Irish lady next door saw her predicament and gave her a working old electric washing machine. We were thankful for it and did not replace it until after the war. The washing was done by putting the clothes in a revolving basket with wooden slates. The war caused restrictions and inconveniences that are now forgotten.

Being Field Scout Executive for the Lewiston-Auburn District of Pine Tree Council was interesting and demanding. The district covered the communities from Lewiston-Auburn north to Rumford. More than four feet of snow the winter of 1943-44 made travel sometimes hazardous. Days found me in the district office much of the time and most week nights I was visiting Troops or conducting committee meetings relating to Scouting. A number of Troops were made up of French-Canadian Scouters and Scouts whose meetings were conducted using the French language. I remember Freddie LeBranche who was the Scoutmaster of an excellent Troop. He and his wife became close friends.

The British had a base at the Lewiston airport for training British pilots to fly Grumman aircraft. A number of the pilots were English Boy Scouts and came to our office to get acquainted. We had Norman Bleers, a charming British Scout, for dinner several times. We wonder, “Did he survive the war?”. Those were the terrible days when England was being subjected to devastating bombings day and night. “The Happy Gang”, a Canadian radio program we heard almost every day, often sang, “There’ll always be an England, and England will be free, As long as there’s a cottage small beside the crystal sea”. When there was a movement under way to send English children to the United States to escape the bombings, Madeline and I applied to host one. We corresponded with the father of the child scheduled to come to us and he sent us a burned out German fire bomb. It was decided not to evacuate the children.

Madeline and I participated in a number of church and community activities in Lewiston-Auburn. Madeline sang in the Congregational church choir and was active in a Baptist Women’s organization. I preached many Sundays in rural and small town Baptist churches. My “barrel” of sermons was made use of often.

An experience with birds deserves telling. I came home from the office for lunch one day to find a flock of beautiful birds eating the seeds on the ash tree in our front yard. The markings on the birds were yellow and black and a search of our bird guide led us to believe they must be Evening Grosbeaks. One hitch was that the guide said this species was seldom seen east of the Mississippi river. This flock of birds couldn’t have been farther east than this. When I telephoned Dr. Sawyer, a Bates College biology professor and a member of my District Board, he assured me that we were seeing Evening Grosbeaks. They had been observed in Maine for several years.

It was intellectually stimulating to meet monthly through the winter with Peter Bertocci, a Bates College professor, and the local Unitarian minister. We met in our home and took turns presenting a paper on some issue and then discussing it. I believe sociology was Dr. Bertocci’s field. He later became a professor at Boston University and authored one or more books. I can’t recall how the idea of our getting together originated. We enjoyed it.

I joined a group of people interested in target archery in forming the Orumby Archery Club. “Orumby” was the name of a renowned Indian in the history of the area. We established an archery range on which we could shoot the York round requiring a number of 100 yard shots. In the archery club I met Harold A. Titcomb (Uncle “Hat”). His name was prominent in target archery circles and he was most helpful to us in organizing our local club. Madeline and I were honored to have him as a guest in our home and I was in touch with him later.

Our family life in Maine sometimes was lonely, especially for Madeline. We missed our families and friends acutely and were thrilled to have cousin Vida Randolph Barrs bring her three children from Boston to visit us. Christmas Eve we attended the very large and beautiful Saint Peter’s Catholic church Midnight Mass. The priest was active in our Scouting program.

Anne was five years old in June of 1943 and so went to kindergarten in Auburn in September. It was exciting to follow her progress and enthusiasm in school. One winter day Daniel, who was not yet three years old, wandered away from our house causing Madeline to call me at the office greatly alarmed. I rushed home to receive a call from the nearby fire station that a little boy was there who might be ours. Baby John made us all happy as he grew. He was caught one day with a caterpillar in his mouth as he sat on the front lawn.

Before camp began in 1944 we were surprised to receive word from Rabbi Karl and Eva Weiner that Karl was going to be on the staff of a private camp not far from Camp William Hinds. Arrangements were soon made between us to have Eva and their baby, Danny live with Madeline and our children for the camp season. It worked out well for Karl and me to have the same day off each week from our camps and be at home together with our families. Madeline and Eva enjoyed being together. They had religious discussions in which they compared Old and New Testament scriptures. Eva was pleased to learn how to sew from Madeline. After the camping season the Weiners moved to Colorado Springs, CO.

Serving as Chief of Staff for Boy Scout Camp William Hinds on Panther Pond was sheer joy in 1944. Percy Dunn and I recruited the entire staff and we were in full control of the management and program for the camp. I was happily surprised to be inducted into The Order of the Arrow, a national Scout organization, in an impressive Indian ceremony. I supervised the construction of an outdoor chapel and an archery range for the camp.

Blueberries grew in abundance on the camp property and one week we sent the campers out, by tents, with #10 cans to pick blueberries. The winning tent got a watermelon as a prize. Our cook baked blueberry pies and blueberry muffins enjoyed by everyone.

One unique program event during the camping season stands out in my memory. The father of a camper was a talented camper, fly fisherman, canoeist and general outdoorsman. On our invitation he took a day at camp to set up a model camp and demonstrate axmanship, fly casting and poling a canoe. His relating of fishing and camping experiences kept the Scouts spellbound at evening campfire.

An Indian council fire I led at Camp William Hinds one evening when the “Old Timers” from Portland, Maine were our guests is unforgettable. The “Old Timers” were affluent business men who were supporters of the camp and who came to visit every year. The fire was laid in the campfire ring and the Scouts filed silently into the arena with blankets over their shoulders and wearing single feathers on their heads. I wore a full Indian headdress and opened the ceremony by invoking blessings from each point of the compass. Facing north with arms outstretched I intoned, “O north wind, bring us FIREI”. At that moment flames burst out of the wood laid for the fire. It was awesome!

As you may have guessed, the burst of fire was brought on by a mixture of chemicals that were activated by a staff man in the edge of the circle who pulled on a black thread attached to the neck of an open bottle at the base of the firewood. I had never seen it done before but it worked perfectly.

~Written by Elmo Fitz-Randolph in his autobiography.

Back to Hinds

My heart yearns for a certain place
Apart from this world, it is a peaceful space
Nestled amongst the lakes and trees
By a river flowing free
Where many gather each year
Without any worry or fear
To work, to dream, and to play
And keep our worries at bay

In this real world that finds no peace
Plagued by troubles that never cease
This place I speak of provides a stasis
Like a cool refreshing oasis
It puts the soul at ease
Like a fresh, cool spring breeze
A star that always points north
That guides me as I go forth
And like a turning compass point I find
Myself coming back to Hinds

~ Owen Maguire 2015

The Canvas Falls

The canvas falls
And it becomes evident to all
The summer has gone and past
With memories I hope to make it last
Through the toils and the pain
My hope is for faith to regain
That the magic of camp may never dwindle
And like a cheerful fire may rekindle

Many thanks are to be given and shared
To the staff who dared
Who made this space a better place
For all Scouts to embrace
To make a difference in a life
That our Scouts may live without strife
A difference you all make
In this place I pray you do not forsake
The pride you all now should feel
I hope is very real
And to the staff that didn’t fall
Here is to the 2015 Camp Hinds staff congratulations to you all!

An original poem, dedicated to all the members of the 2015 Camp Wm Hinds Staff as they close the season.

Congrats on a job well done!

All the best
Owen

Thank you for doing this. That was quite a trip down memory lane!

I have enclosed a photo which I believe is my father, Casper Cowen, and his brother Fredrick Cowan.

The photo near the end on the Merrill Luthe scrap book labeled “Cowan” is Fredrick Cowan, probably about age 14. He was two years younger than my father.

I got as far as Life scout. I don’t think I got another merit badge after I got into High School. I guess I didn’t want Eagle badly enough.

I was in the Order of the Arrow. You know where the induction ceremony takes place. After the ceremony, two others and I stayed behind to put out the candles and the camp fire. The fire was almost out when we realized how dark it was and that we had no flashlights. We huffed and puffed on some embers to get a flame so that we could light a candle to light our way back to the road.

One other memory from Camp Hinds. Alan Graffam (the Deering band leader’s son) always brought his trumpet with him. So every once in a while we would hear the Deering fight song from one end of the camp to the other.

One thing that you might want to add to the biography of my father is that, after he retired, he wrote THE book on Maine real estate law. It is entitled Maine Real Estate Law and Practice. There was no book on Maine real estate law before that. It was published in 1989. It has to be kept up to date, so it is currently being kept up to date by J. Gordon Scannell, Jr.

~ Seth Cowan Feb 2020

Fredrick & Casper Cowen

I’m attaching a photo of two rare OA Madockawanda Lodge patches that I have from the 50s. Both are screen-printed on wool felt by The Felt Crafters of Plaistow, NH, no dates.

I recall before I was on staff when my dad was Camp Director helping with the re-shingling of the Rec Hall one spring-summer in the early 50s. Seemed like an immense job to me at the time. And I remember the annual revival of the pump (on the shore of Panther Pond) and recharging of the pipes (all laid above ground). Inevitably there would be numerous leaks and a recalcitrant pump. Fred Foster, Spud Nason, and Frank Bailey knew all about the system and were in charge of that. As I recall that pump supplied water for Harvard and Yale and maybe some fire hydrants. Not sure if it was drinkable, although Panther would have been pretty clean in those days.

Best wishes — Paul M. Wright Feb 2020

It's funny what one remembers about working at Camp Hinds. I've attached things I remember. Not sure you want to share them with everyone, but here they are. You know, the biggest thing Camp Hinds taught me was that working and fun are not mutually excludable.

1. Looking through the staff pictures, I was a counselor for four years 1961, 62, 63, 65. In the fall of 1965 I started at U Maine in Orono but by then I had summer camps in my blood. So the next two summers I worked as a counselor at a Jewish day camp. Better pay, shorter hours, home every night and lots of female staff. I can still recite in Hebrew the daily lunch blessing.

2. One year I was Canteen Manager and learned a life lesson. I thought it would be fun to be surrounded by all that candy, popcorn, sodas. I was wrong. Someone with negligible math skills was always whining that they had been shortchanged. Someone else decided it would be fine to pay for everything in pennies which I would have to count at least twice and break into little piles of ten so they could really see that they were short. Another remonstrated me for not having the brand of candy, soda, chips they craved. People even asked for Moxie, a disgusting concoction that I absolutely refused to stock. I swore that I would never again work any kind of retail job and I fulfilled that vow.

3. Every season, the staff would get there early to prep. There was creosote oil, which we slathered liberally on fencing, cabins, etc. Get some on you and it burned and caused a rash. One hoped for a breeze to dissipate the fumes. An awful smell permeated whatever you wore. It’s always nice to have this experience in my back pocket, however, since I am ready at any time to blame encroaching signs of mental illness on … creosote poisoning.

4. The road into camp was basically dirt and horribly dusty. The solution … used motor oil that service stations were delighted to get rid of. That stuff was spread on the camp road liberally, weighed down the dust, permeated the dirt and gleamed in the sun like a ribbon of oil spill. Those were the days.

5. There was always a lot of singing going on at camp. As a counselor, you didn’t whistle while you worked, you sang. And nowhere did you sing more loudly that when you were on the back of a truck that you had just loaded up with malodorous trash cans secreted behind the mess hall. Off to the landfill singing: “Gulch run, gulch run, oh how we love that run” while the campers stared. Hard to sing and hold your nose at the same time though.

6. Another fun prep task was being on the mattress brigade. They were taken from all the bunks at the end of the season, cleaned? (I was never quite sure if or how) and then stacked ridiculously high in a tall shed where they slumbered all winter and hoped they would be forgotten. The brigade elected two kings to free climb the huge stack and then defend the top until they were routed and toppled. I have many proud warrior memories including having my partner and I use mattresses as a shield to ward off grasping hands and then a hearty push of our soft but effective battering ram to send invaders tumbling back where they came from.

7. Not sure who came up with the idea, but newly arriving campers each week were greeted by a “doughnut hole” station which I manned on numerous occasions. The kitchen staff prepared a tub of dough and we built a fire below a huge iron pot filled with cooking oil. We rolled the dough into little balls and into the bubbling fat they went. They puffed up brown and delicious and were rolled in sugar. Everyone got to taste ONE, but we really needed a platoon of MP’s to keep grasping mitts from emptying an entire tray. I understood. They were insanely delicious.

8. Later in the week I would man the skeet shooting station. Campers had to pay extra to blast away at clay “pigeons.” I looked fetching wearing my ear protectors while I drew back the spring loaded arm that would throw the discs high into the air. Never, ever get any part of your body in the way of the plate. It released from the spring at frightening speed. If I ever have to shout “pull” one more time, I will scream until I am taken away. And don’t get me started on the acrid smell of gunpowder wafting from those red shotgun casings.

9. The Hiking merit badge required a five mile hike. However, if anyone tried to hike that distance around the lake, they would be arrested for trespassing. So we marched up the oily gleam of the camp road, crossed the highway to a lovely pond and hiked around its still waters. Then we got back on the highway and walked far enough along to view a modern marvel. It supposedly was the highest broadcasting tower in all of New England and suddenly reared up over the pines like Maine’s own Eiffel Tower. Campers were suitably impressed and groused less than usual on their return trek to camp.

10. There was a girl’s camp across the lake but it was a fair distance and forbidden anyway. But there were occasional “socials” where we would get together with the ladies, duly chaperoned, of course. There was one counselor, inordinately handsome, well spoken, a genuinely nice guy, who attracted a lot of female attention. However, once it was whispered that he hoped to be a priest, they lost all restraint. The thought that celibacy could resist their charms was apparently too much for them to bear.

11. Singalongs in the dining hall were common and I was always up for leading a tune or two. It was best to divide the hall down the middle into two rival camps with each having a section of the chorus. That made them actually pay attention and, of course, try to outdo the other side. Sometimes they would get carried away and begin stamping their feet. The old dining hall was up to the vibrational challenge but the kitchen staff made their disapproval quickly evident.

12. We are not talking Broadway show tunes here. My best efforts had the ants go marching one by one, two by two, up to ten and the saints marching in or waltzing with Mathilde.

13. For me, the best times were late at night, after taps, when all the campers were bedded down but many still awake as they digested the latest terror tale spun at the nightly campfires. I would grab my hand telescope, commandeer a canoe or rowboat and get out onto the lake away from any lights from the camp. Back then, light pollution was minimal. I saw several meteor showers mirrored in the lake, viewed the band of the Milky Way, traced constellations, kept track of Polaris, Vega and Sirius and tried to see which planets were up and about.

~ Bruce Fleming Denton, NC 27239

I have been putting off writing this for weeks because, in the act of putting words to paper, I have to accept the finality that Tom Henderson and Fred Gervat have left us and now sit with those who have gone before at the Great Council Fire in the sky.
Fred Gervat was my first “roommate” at Camp Hinds. We lived in Peary Cabin behind the old Dining Hall. He was Nature Director, and I served as Dining Hall Steward. Our shared loved of word play – Fred never met a pun he didn’t like – grew into a bond that lasted 50-plus years. I can still remember that first day when we cleaned out the cabin and discovered a carpet rolled up in the corner. I took it outside and swept and swept and swept it to remove the accumulated winter debris. When I flipped it over to do the same thing to the underside, I noticed the label – Bigelow. Fred and I looked at each other and said in perfect unison – “A title on the door rates a Bigleow on the floor.” Even now, fifty years later, that brings a smile to my face.
Tommy (He was never Hondo to me.) Henderson was a kid from the neighborhood. Even though he was 12 years younger, he and I shared many common interests -- Scouting, Troop 22, and Camp Hinds among others. When I moved back to the Portland area, Tommy and I connected through Troop 22. I had worked at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf and had gone to grad school and worked at Gallaudet College where I perfected my sign language skills. Tommy wanted to learn how to sign, so I taught him some basic signs (including a few that were not suitable for campfire presentations) and pointed him to available resources in the area. He later went on to work with the Scout Troop at the Governor Baxter School. Two memories stand out vividly from my long association with Tommy. One was the Notre Dame-Texas New Year’s Day game for the National Championship in 1978. Tommy, his brother Peter, and I watched the game on a little black and white TV in the basement of his family’s house on Haven Road. Much hooting and hollering that day as the Fighting Irish took home the prize. Several years later, Tommy just randomly showed up at my house in Vermont. He was involved in a timber sale nearby, called my house, got directions from my wife, and was sitting at the dining room table when I came home from work. It was as though we had seen each other the day before as we talked well past my bedtime.
A person wiser than me once said, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot hide it from themselves.” Even though they have passed on, the light they shared burns brightly in our hearts.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm up your face.
May the rain fall soft among your fields.
And, until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

~ Bill Wiles Camp Hinds Staff, 1968-1977

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Created: August 3, 2008
Last Update: July 27, 2024
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