Sign of relief for scout camp supporters

BY REGGIE SHEFFIELD

Correspondent

News that descendants of the settlers for whom Brooklyn Twp.’s Ely Lake is named have bought over half of the Camp Archbald properties offered for sale was greeted with a collective sigh of relief and quiet applause by a group concerned with the camp’s future.

Joan Otto Esherick and her husband Donald Esherick purchased a 70-acre parcel at the 228-acre Girl Scout camp early last week after hearing that 120 acres were for sale.  Esherick’s family has long maintained a home across Ely Lake from Camp Archbald.  No purchase price for the property has been released.

Late last year, the Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania announced they were liquidating historic Camp Archbald – the second oldest Girl Scout camp in the United States – and six others, as a result of budget shortfalls.

Esherick described her family’s strong historical and emotional attachment to Ely Lake which goes back for generations.

“I’ve loved this land since I was a little girl,” Esherick said by e-mail from her home outside of Philadelphia. Esherick described spending every summer day “from the day school was out until Labor Day” at Ely Lake engaging in every outdoor activity imaginable, “swimming, canoeing, row-boating, snorkeling, hiking, berry picking, swinging on monkey vines, listening to bull frogs, lazing on hot summer days, fishing, hunting for night crawlers after a warm evening rain.” 

Her children and grandchildren – seventh generation Elys – frequent the cottage each summer.

Esherick described her delight with how the properties originally settled by her great grandfather and great-great uncle, Luther and Edgar Ely, and which became Camp Archbald after being deeded to the Scranton Pocono Girl Scout Council in the early 1920s, seemed to have followed a “grand scheme of things” by having now been reacquired by the Ely family.

“Both men were passionate about the outdoors, reforestation, and land preservation, and we, like they, would love to see the land continue to be preserved for our descendants and for future generations of Girls Scouts alike.  We believe that conservation was part of our forebears’ intent in deeding the land to the Girls Scouts to begin with and we’d very much like to honor that intent,” Esherick said.

The acreage she and her husband purchased, known in the family as the “Uncle Ed” parcel, holds historical significance for the Ely family and warm personal memories and meanings for Esherick personally.

“One of the fondest memories I have of this parcel is hiking with my father and sister behind where Uncle Ed’s cottage used to be down to a towering grove of lilac bushes whose blossoms we’d cut to put on our ancestors’ graves in Brooklyn’s cemetery each Memorial Day,” Esherick said.  

The Supporters of Camp Archbald, or SoCA, a group of former Girl Scouts, current scout leaders and other interested persons banded together to support and conserve Camp Archbald for girl scouting, welcomed the news.

“Supporters of Camp Archbald is happy that a good neighbor bought the parcel of land adjacent to camp so that the land will be preserved as is.  We, like all of you, want future generations to know and experience the gem that Ely Lake is, and we want to keep it that way.  The scouts look forward to traditions like swimming to the point and ice cream socials!”

The SoCA Facebook page has topped 1,000 members and a website is under development.

Concern over the future of the camp intensified earlier this year after GSHPA’s surprise announcement in January, met with vocal complaints from local scout leaders, that it would no longer offer resident, or overnight, camping at Camp Archbald.

SoCA volunteers will run a resident camp at Camp Archbald July 15 to 19 but without financial support from GSHPA.  Campers will pay a fee to cover basic costs.

GSHPA has characterized Camp Archbald as too expensive to run at a cost of $527,000 a year.  But critics have challenged that claim as the properties have earned the Girl Scouts over $2.3 million in gas lease revenues since 2009.  By comparison, national revenue from the sale of Girl Scout cookies is estimated to be about $700 million annually.

Media reports have indicated that nationally the Girl Scouts, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization which regularly solicits tax deductible donations, have slated Archbald and other camps for closure and sale to compensate for underfunded pensions.  Some groups local to those camps in other states have formed non-profits and some have sued successfully to take over the camps.

Late last month, the Girl Scouts for Eastern Pennsylvania announced that a 1,054 former Girl Scout camp near Dingmans Ferry, Pike County, is now part of the National Park Service’s Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

In 2012, the Girl Scouts closed Camp Hidden Falls in the Pocono Mountains as part of a regional camp consolidation effort. The Girl Scouts turned to the conservation community including Natural Lands and Delaware Highlands Conservancy in order to make sure the lands were protected.

Over a five-year period, the Conservancy found a buyer and secured grant funds to pay for the property. The Conservation Fund purchased the property in May 2017 and transferred it to the National Park Service on April 23.