By the Harrison Historical Society

Newfound’s properties, and the buildings thereon, together with land connecting the neck on Bluff Point, were purchased in 1919 by Mrs. Elizabeth Horton of Ridgewood, New Jersey. In 1914 on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire, she had opened a Christian Science camp for girls. When she moved the camp to Harrison five years later, the Newfound name was transferred, too. Silver Birch Lodge Road on the north end of the property was the original entrance to Newfound. Very quickly, Mrs. Horton created a new road in the middle of the property off Route 35, south of the Silver Birch Lodge Road. This road, slightly reconfigured, is now the main entrance to both Newfound and Owatonna.

During the first year of its operation, a small cottage from the north end of the island that Mrs. Horton had purchased was brought over the ice and settled on the hillside facing west, on the north edge of the property line. The age of the cottage in 1919 is unknown, but the building has been in use as the Arts and Crafts Shop ever since. In 1999, the building was restored--re-roofed and enlarged slightly--and continues to be used as a craft shop.

In the spring of 1918, two prefabricated buildings were brought to Harrison on the narrow gauge railroad and hauled to Camp. The first building, the dining room, was reconstructed on site. A new, enlarged dining room was built on this site around 2000. This building has a large deck on the south side for outside dining, a large fireplace at the west end of the building, and an outdoor grill. Mr. Ridlon, who has a shop on Route 302 in Casco, built wrought-iron chandeliers and a fireplace screen for the dining room. Each chandelier is different, depicting items that make Camp important to the campers such as cabins, loons, moose, and boats.

The second building, a “cubie house” was also reconstructed on site. A “cubie house” is a long building with a central hall off which are multiple five-foot square “cubies,” each with a door and a window, into which trunks, clothes, and personal belongings are kept. Each camper and counselor is assigned a “cubie.” Mrs. Horton, affectionately known as Aunt Elizabeth, brought this unique private “cubie” idea with her when she moved the camps to Harrison. The “cubie” tradition continues to this day and the first “cubie house” is still in use. If one looks carefully, it is possible to find the numbers showing which wall parts and which roof parts went together on both buildings.

Several years later, a second cottage was moved from the south end of the island to the peninsula and was used as the owner’s home during the summer. Later it became the Director’s Cottage. This cottage and the adjacent Lodge were struck by lightning and burned on Thanksgiving Day in 1944. Both were rebuilt for the next summer and are still in use.

The first building built on the Newfound property was the Hilltop Lodge. This building was restored in the late 1990s and is still used by campers on “the hill.” The cabins, cubie house, and lodge on “the hill” were originally designed for the youngest campers, but now house the oldest ones. These cabins on the Hill are named Far, Farther, and Way Out.

Around 1935, Newfound had an extensive riding program run by Leon Beck, Mrs. Horton’s son-in-law. It was run from the brick farmhouse, the Ed Jordan farm, next to the Silver Birch Lodge Road just north of Camp Newfound. Harry Winslow remembered watching Mr. Beck demonstrate trick riding by standing up on the backs of two horses. Leon had stalls built in the barn of the brick farmhouse and named the place Long Lake Equestrian Farm. The riding ring across the road had a judge’s stand which in later years was moved by Harry Andrews to his home on Edes Falls Road and used for storing wood. Remnants of it can still be seen among the pines. Mr. Beck and Dorothy “Becky” Horton Beck were divorced in 1943. Leon Beck left Maine and the riding program was run locally and moved to other local sites, then discontinued in the mid-1950s.

During and after World War II, “the Hill” cabins and “cubies” were not used because enrollment decreased during this period. Because of the declining enrollment, all campers were housed in the eight cabins lining the north side of the peninsula. These cabins replaced the platform tents that were the original homes for the campers. To support the war effort, Newfound campers helped local farmers harvest, and manned look out stations on nearby mountains. They like to think that a report of a light in the distance helped snare a German submarine, but they will probably never know for certain.

Later, canoe trips became an important part of the camping experience. A favorite trip was paddling to Naples, through Brandy Pond, down the Songo, and through the locks to Sebago State Park. One year, a group of the oldest campers took a five day trip into Sebago Lake where they crossed to Frye Island and then paddled to Raymond where the fish hatchery was located. The Old Town wood and canvas canoes were very stable and seaworthy. It was a good thing because they took canned food in heavy wooden boxes on the floor of the canoes, making the paddling extra heavy! Nothing was easy in the early days of camping and hiking, yet Mount Washington was a favorite climb; and Mount Pleasant, which almost every camper climbed each summer, often seemed the hardest.

Becky Horton then married George Cobb, a Maine Guide, in 1945. She and “Cobbie” began helping her mother run the camp in the mid-1940s. Becky then took over the Camp Newfound ownership and operation in 1951 when Mrs. Horton passed on. In the 1940s and 1950s, Becky sometimes invited local girls to the camp for the summer. One was Flossie Carruthers, whose grandfather, “Uncle” John Keene, was caretaker at Newfound for many years. Priscilla Morrison McGarry and her cousin attended, as did Duffy Forrest Carabia whose parents were friends of Becky’s.

In 1954, Robert Verrier, husband of Mrs. Horton’s granddaughter, Barbara Beck, built a floating cabin named “Dreamboat,” which he floated to camp from the Harrison launch. “Dreamboat” floated off the north side of the camp in front of the cabins for years and was used as a place to sleep for special occasions. It was later “landed” and today is used as a staff cabin by the lake.

George Leavitt, who grew up in Naples and later lived in Harrison and Bridgton, was caretaker from the mid-1940s until his retirement in the mid-1970s. A one-time cook at Newfound, Mrs. Paine, was famous for her cinnamon buns. Edward S. Tarbox often transported Camp Newfound girls in his buses during the 1940s and 1950s when the only camp vehicles were an open, slat-sided truck and Becky’s nine passenger DeSoto touring car. Mrs. Axaminta Thomas did the camp laundry for many years, washing, starching, and ironing the middies and bloomers, which was the camp uniform.

Around 1960, Becky organized an international youth group called Camporee. The program started at the end of regular camp and was for teenagers from the United States and abroad, who were coming to Boston to attend an annual youth meeting at The Mother Church. For a number of years many young people came to Camp for little or no cost to enjoy the activities at Camp and to get acquainted with each other before heading to Boston for this meeting.

A 1960 booklet describes Newfound as a 115-acre campus lying on a wooded finger of land pointing into Long Lake, surrounded on three sides by shallow water and white sandy beaches. There were six outpost campsites on a 15 acre island reached by a natural sand causeway. At one time it was possible to drive on the causeway to the island, but because of the dam and the locks between Long Lake and Sebago Lake, the causeway is underwater, although it is easily walkable. Currently, there are two leantos on the island and an old “outhouse.” Campers sometimes uses the island for over-nights.

In 1960, 88 campers ranged from 6-16 with a staff of 22. Today the number of campers is around 100 with a camper/counselor ratio of 3:1. The tuition in 1960 was $500 for 8 weeks. The cost remained in effect until the 1970s when it was gradually increased to cover more of the operating costs. In the early 1970s the 8 week season was divided into two sessions, one 3 weeks and one 4 weeks. Becky retired in 1965 after selling the camp to the trustees who were operating Camp Owatonna, the former Camp Ropioa, as an adjacent brother camp to Newfound.

Newfound had a fleet of 22 Old Town wood and canvas canoes, as well as a war canoe. In the early 1980s these canoes needed repairs and were costly to maintain, so they were sold, along with their original “bills of sale” to interested parties. Both the Newfound and the Owatonna war canoes have been restored. In 1982, midis and bloomers were replaced with t-shirts and shorts.

A new shower and bathroom building, called Oz, was built on the Hill for the teenagers in the middle 1990s. The bathroom facility in the lower camp is called Oaks. It was not until 1968 that hot water showers were available at Newfound. Before that time the girls had to get pitchers of hot water from an outside spigot at the kitchen for sponge baths, or they took their soap and shampoo into the lake at Hairwash Rock just off the canoe house. Lake bathing has been discontinued because of environmental concerns.

The eight cabins that line the north side of the peninsula have been restored with porches built onto the front of each cabin. Because the girls keep most of their belongings in their “cubies,” the cabins are not large; only books and writing materials are kept on the small shelves above the cots. The cabins were designed to hold eight campers and two counselors. The cabins have the wonderful names of Fold, Cozy, Sunshine, Still Waters, Green Pastures, Twin Pines, L’Amitie AND Gaiety Gables.