Camp Wing/Duxbury Stockade
2008 session dates
Session 1 (14 days): 6/28-7/11
Session 2 (20 days): 7/13-8/1
Session 3 (20 days): 8/4-8/23742 Keene St.
Duxbury, MA 02332
Ages: 7-14 (Trailblazers, grades 9 and up)director : program : activities : facility : history : directions
Director Pat Cleary
I began my affiliation with Crossroads for Kids as a Camp Wing camper at the age of 8 joining my family who are staff alumni. I have worked 22 years in roles ranging from Cabin Counselor to Director. Along the way, I managed to earn two Masters Degrees: one in Education, the other in Educational Leadership and Administration. I currently work, in Dorchester , as a Principal of a “school within in school”, serving the same at-risk youth as Crossroads. In fact, I have used many of the relationships forged through this position to recruit both campers and staff over the years. To celebrate my 20th anniversary as a member of the Crossroads team “Cleary's Courts”, new basketball courts at Camp Wing , were dedicated in my honor.
Program
Camp Wing and the Duxbury Stockade are located 45 miles south of Boston in Duxbury, MA on 220 acres of woodlands and ponds. The unique facilities, including a reproduction of a colonial fort, provide housing for 200 children each session. The combination of activities and team building activities assist our skilled, caring staff in teaching children more about themselves while having lots of fun in the process
While at camp, children have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of activities. Daily instructional swim provides the opportunity to experience success and gain a sense of self worth. During sports instruction, each child can experience many different team and individual sports, and work on skills such as coordination and team work. Each afternoon, campers can try many different activities in Creative Arts (crafts, fine arts, theater, music, radio station) and Outdoor Pursuits (climbing wall, ropes course, camping, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, archery).
Each program area encourages an appreciation of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and provides a literacy component that integrates our philosophy of reducing summer learning loss, while at the same time being a whole lot of fun! Older campers (12 & 13) will also have the opportunity to sign up for Wired Woods, a computer program where they can learn how to build their own website, and for the Sailing Program run by the Duxbury Bay Maritime School.
In addition to more structured activities, each cabin will participate in a camp service project where they learn to care for and respect their living environment, and a cabin challenge where the focus will be on developing peer friendships, team work and self esteem through learning games and team building activities.
In the evening, there are a variety of programs ranging from talents shows, cook-outs, team games and treasure hunts to karaoke nights! In addition, special event days such as carnival, the Olympics and the 4 th of July create an atmosphere of fun and constant variety.
Activities
Campers find a wide variety of activities at Camp Wing. These activities include boating, swimming, archery, survival, high and low ropes courses, a variety of sports, including lacrosse, soccer, baseball, basketball, football, tennis, and more. Also available are creative arts, including jewelry making, drama, mural painting, drawing, sculpture, dance and more. Older campers enjoy learning to create Web pages in the WiredWoods program.
Facility
The Duxbury Stockade, modeled after a colonial fort, can sleep up to 125. Features include, large kitchen, family style dining room, space to hold small workshops or meetings, an indoor fireplace, and an outdoor courtyard with a fire ring.
Camp Wing has twelve cabins that accommodate 120 campers. There is also a separate modern wash house which includes full showers, sinks and bathrooms.
Camp Wing also offers basketball courts, baseball fields, climbing wall, swimming pool, and farm.
The Wing Dining Hall can accommodate 250 campers and includes a large kitchen.
Keene's Pond, nestled in the heart of Camp Wing, provides a peaceful setting for boating adventures.
Ziskind Hall, an open indoor recreation center, with a rustic atmosphere, can house a variety of activities.
Directions
Take Route 93 South to Route 3 South, you will be on Route 3 for about 30 miles. Take Exit 12. Turn left at the light on to Church Street (139). Take an immediate left at the first light on to Oak Street. From Oak Street, turn left on Elm Street. From Elm Street, turn left on to Spring Street. Follow Spring Street until you reach a stop sign. At the stop sign, take a slight left, and continue on to Keene Street. You will see Camp Wing on your right. Please check in the in the main office and obtain a visitors pass. Camp Wing is a large site, if you need to find a specific section (i.e. the Stockade, the Dining Hall, etc.) someone in the office will be able to assist you.
If you wish to go directly to the Stockade – please follow Keene Street to the end (.1 mile), take a left onto Myrtle Street. Enter the second driveway (.1 mile on left) 47 Myrtle Street, follow road behind the yellow house. The Stockade is the large log building directly in front of you (The Ellison Building).
History
The land for the camp was purchased in February of 1937 with funds for the purchase contributed by Mr. Daniel Wing, in memorial to her husband who had recently died. Mr. Wing had been a member of the Board of Overseers of the Boys' Clubs of Boston for many years. Many of Wing's friends also contributed to the project and this started the development of the first camp.
During this period, both the Charlestown and Roxbury Boys' Clubs were full of camp talk. Staff members were interested and were taking boys down on Sundays to see where the camp would be. Many of the staff and boys were disillusioned after taking one look at the property, not having the necessary experience or imagination to visualize what constituted a potential piece of camping property. Mr. Gilbert Eaton reported: “However, during the winter, the spark turned into a blaze and by the early spring, many of the boys were interested not only in going down to see the camp, but had made the suggestions to the various staff members that they have a real part in the pioneering work of our camp by participating on weekends, in clearing the brush, and doing other necessary pioneering work on the property.”
The only facilities on the Keene Estate were the farmhouse and the barn, both of which were not in very good condition. Eaton describes how that first winter was in 1937 at Camp. Around the first of March, Mr. and Mrs. Lee Jamison of Maine were engaged as caretakers of the camp. They took up residence in the farm building. During the winter, alternations were made on the old farmhouse. None of the rooms were really finished suitably for the housing of human beings at that time of year, but the Jamisons entered into their work with the spirit that really set the pace for many of the workers, both paid and volunteer, who helped in the construction of the farmhouse and the waterfront. Their duties, among other, were to do the cooking necessary for the feeding of the hungry weekenders that came down, eager to help, and this they did well. There was always a plentiful supply of good, clean wholesome food.
Mrs. Jamison, being of the motherly type, took an interest in these boys, although it was hard for both her and Mr. Jamison to visualize boys who had never seen cows or a large barn. The peculiar questions they were asked, at times, proved most humorous. These boys were to enjoy many happy evenings around the fire in the old farmhouse where stories of nature, animals, and the old Keene Estate, a former meeting place of the Indians in this particular district, greatly interested the boys, and the Staff members.
It was found that across the street from the farmhouse was the place where the Indians used to grind their corn in the fall, which necessarily meant a long explanation to the boys as to how they planted their corn, how they ground it and what they did with it after it was ground. When nine o'clock came, the fire was getting low, and the boys were getting sleepy-eyed, they journeyed up to bed. Each boy had individual cots, sheets and blankets, probably for the first time.
At 6 a.m. the call for them to arise was not music to their ears, as many of these boys had been used to staying up until midnight and sleeping on Saturday mornings until 9 or 10 am. But most of them entered into the spirit of the thing with a zest.
We started at the dam end of the pond and as a project, it was decided to take out all of the wood from the roots, and bushes. Mr. Burger came down every weekend, and with his usual imagination, enthusiasm, and optimism, the land around the pond and around the farmhouse became to look as though it was being prepared for something.
After the first three or four weekends, the real workers were on the job and these boys put in a good eight-hour day on Saturdays and after church on Sunday morning was free time to enjoy nature at its best. Much progress was made along the water front and soon the contract had been let for the excavation of that part of the pond bottom to be used as a swimming pool. Soon after this, contracts were let for the building of the dining hall and the cabins. Previous to the letting of these contracts, and the starting of work, the boys had very little idea as to what form the Camp was going to take. But the minute that the steam shovel and graders got on the job, and the carpenters started to build, then they realized that their dreams were about to come true. To them, it was something that really was a dream. The idea of getting into the country to enjoy the fresh air was something that very few ever thought would come to them in their day.
First Camp Wing Summer
Session 1937
By the Spring of 1937 through movies and talks given by Arthur Burger and the various staff members, practically every club member was familiar with Camp Wing. The buildings and the dam began to take shape and interest was at a peak from staff, boys, and parents. During this time, there was much anxiety and many changes in building plans. After much heartache, and a lot of headache, and through much pessimism, the camp was ready to open on June 27th, 1937. At 11 a.m. on the first day, two buses filled with boys from the Charlestown and Roxbury Districts arrived on the campgrounds. The following is an account by Gilbert Eaton of what happened during the first camp session ever at Camp Wing: “The first few days there was no water. At the dining hall, water had to be carried from the farmhouse. No toilet facilities were available, and we took to work digging a latrine in the back woods and a plumber was engaged to fixing modern equipment. The campers did not realize that they were being inconvenienced and I doubt very much if any of them ever noticed the fact that half of the mess hall was completed, with only part of a roof. We were blessed by the weatherman, for we had good weather. Had it rained, it would have been too bad. Boys served the meals and volunteered in the kitchen and for several days we went without a full staff, but this made no difference to us.”
Here, compliments should go to the staff the older members of the Charlestown Club who were on the Staff at the time, for the wonderful cooperation they showed in helping prepare that Camp for their younger brothers and fellow workers.
With a staff of twelve, consisting of:
Gilbert D. Eaton, Manager
H. Belmont Gould, Assistant Manager
Filmore Sanford, Director of Social Activities
Jack Stanford, in charge of athletics
Lee Jamison, in charge of cooking, nature study and handicraft work
This constituted the Senior Council and paid staff. The Junior Counselors were Archie Connolly, Will Sands, Jake Murphy, Bill Carr, Eggo Harrington, Dick Luttington and Gordon Blum. With this able, willing, and enthusiastic group of workers, a real camping program was undertaken. And may it be said here, that a program has never been met with more enthusiasm than this one did from the campers.
Considering the fact that of this first group of 55 campers, 47 of them had never been away from home before and had never been to any camp, we had very little homesickness.
During the first session the campers participated in the Duxbury Tercentenary (300th) Anniversary Parade on the morning of the 5th of July, and received a second place prize for the best marching outfit. The Wing marching unit was lead by the band from the Bunker Hill Charlestown Boys' Clubhouse.
A typical day incorporated a one-hour period of inspection in the morning, fishing, nature hikes, boating, swimming in the afternoon and storytelling and campfires in the evenings. The highlight of the first session was an overnight hike held at the Duxbury Beach and then watching the fourth of July fireworks at Duxbury Center.
New campers arrived every two weeks. The first week there were 55 campers, the second another 55, the third had 70, the fourth had 102 and the fifth had 124. After dinner on Sunday was visiting day for parents and family members. It was the first time most of the parents had ever seen a Boys' Camp in operation and invariably, they were pleased beyond words to see their son with a nice tan body and enjoying himself. The first camp season closed on the Sunday before Labor Day. After dinner, 124 campers with their baggage piled into 3 buses were homeward bound.
The stockade was built by French-Canadian builders brought in from Maine. They used a log building technique without using nails, an art almost forgotten today. After 1938 when construction of the stockade was started, there was interest from the boys of Boston to start using the facility. In 1939, the Stockade was opened with two units. The Duxbury Stockade was officially dedicated in memory of William Leonard Benedict on October 19th, 1940. The following eulogy was given by Dr. Smith-Peterson:
“All of us here have read in our history books of the hardships endured by the first settlers in Plymouth; how a hundred men, women and children landed from the little ship, Mayflower on a wintry December day three hundred and twenty years ago; how they built log houses and a fort which they also used as a church and how that first terrible winter half of their number died of exposure, insufficient food and disease.
“We read all that, but it is hard for us too visualize what that first settlement looked like. That is why this Duxbury Stockade, which we are dedicating today, is such a help to us. On a small scale it is a picture of that first Plymouth Stockade. The first settlers needed protection from the Indians and the wolves. During the daytime, the men worked in the cornfields or went fishing or dug clams, but after dark everyone went inside, the gates were closed and they were safe.
“Above all, the boys and girls were supposed to stay inside. Let me tell you of one small boy who disobeyed orders. His name was Thomas Clarke and he was an ancestor of mine. One day, he wandered away into the woods, when no one was looking and was captured by some Indians.
“Most of the neighboring Indians were friendly to the Plymouth settlers, but by bad luck these happened to be some of King Philip's tribe and they did a terrible thing to little Tom. Instead of killing him outright, they scalped him and let him go. Dazed and crying bitterly, a search party finally found him. He would undoubtedly have died had it not been for the skill of the Plymouth physician, good Dr. Warren. Dr. Warren cut out a round piece from a silver porringer, hammered it out very thin and bandaged it on the spot of the little boy's skull. That saved his life. The skin grew over the edges of the silver plate and the boy lived to be an old man. Everyone called him “Silverheaded Tom Clarke.” This was the first instance in America of what the medical profession called trepanning.
“Just to live to grow up in those days was an achievement. People had to work hard to survive. They had to help their neighbors. They had to cooperate. They valued their liberties because they were risking everything in order to be free. Life was simple and life was hard, but it produced character. People had to develop straight backs and strong muscles, but they also had to think straight, do their duty and serve the community.
“So we come to the reasons why Mrs. Benedict has so generously built this Duxbury Stockade in memory of Mr. Benedict.
“First, it is to bring vividly to your minds the conditions under which the pioneers had to live. Secondly, it is to help create respect for the character of those early settlers, a type of character that has set its mark upon American Civilization. Thirdly, it is to perpetuate the example and influence of Mr. Benedict's life. You boys never knew him, and yet in a sense you do know him for the things taught here; the ideals of honor and truth and right living that are exemplified here are the things he stood for all his life. He was modest, friendly and scrupulously honorable.
“May this Duxbury Stockade serve to typify the fine qualities he manifested, and may his influence continue as generations of boys live and work and play within these walls.”
As the Duxbury Stockade was built for American boys in memory of William Leonard Benedict, it is appropriate that a brief summary of his life should be included in the record.
He was born in 1860, a son of the late William Gardner Benedict and Frances Otis Wheeler Benedict. He was a brilliant student and law was to have been his chosen profession, but sudden near-sightedness developed to such an alarming extent that blindness was for a time feared. Consequently his ambitions were necessarily abandoned and after two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he entered the firm of Kidder Peabody & Company. Though a business career was far from congenial, he later became the Senior Partner of the New York house, having gone to New York for the purpose of opening an office which had not before existed there.
In 1908 he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Fourth Degree Order of the Sacred Treasure, and in 1919 was honored by King Victor Emmanuel of Italy who conferred the Chevalier Order of the Crown.
After nearly fifty years in the business world he retired to enjoy the opportunity to travel, which more leisure afforded. Before returning, however, he found time to take advanced courses at Columbia University in higher mathematics, which particularly interested him, also in languages. Thus he was enabled to continue, to some extent, his fondness for study.
He was a former Director in the Seaman's Bank for Savings of New York, the Perkins Institute and Massachusetts School for the Blind of Boston, the Boys' Clubs of New York and a former member of the New York Hospital. He was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the St. Nicholas Society, the Society of Colonial Wars, the sons of the Revolution, the Pilgrim Society, the New England Historical and Genealogical, Bostonian and Japan Societies. His clubs included the Century, the Metropolitan and Down Town of New York and the Union of Boston.
His summer home was in Duxbury where he was a member and former Commodore of the Duxbury Yacht Club.
