148 NA TURE-ST UD Y RE VIEW 



the trend towards the camp became an annual pilgrimage. The 

 boys went off to school and to college, new associations were formed, 

 and new faces appeared on the camp site. The equipment grew 

 until a moving van was required to move the goods from the 

 winter storage loft to the island camp; while others joined the pil- 

 grimage until as many as eighteen young people were frequently 

 settled upon the island to enjoy the out-of-door life, the restful 

 quiet of a New England pond beyond the reach of its industrial 

 life, and the comradeship which only life away from the con- 

 ventions can give. 



For thirteen years this camp was maintained and in 1902, the 

 last meeting of the campers convened on Johnny's Island. The 

 cam.p in its completed state was the growth of years and its chang- 

 ing aspects represented the various degrees of demands in the 

 life of a boy as he changes from his thirteenth to his twenty-sixth 

 year. The old straw sackings were replaced by cots; the small 

 tent grew to a colony of five and six; the rough fire place was 

 abandoned and a home m.ade folding camp stove was invented; 

 the old grub pail grew to a kitchen tent; the lone canoe to a fleet 

 of six; a ferry was run to the highway for the convenience of 

 visitors; yet with all these changes it was out-of-doors, it was 

 simplicity, and it was rare friendships. The camp was an evolving 

 camp, built at the beginning according to the ideals which came 

 from a boy's reading, but representing as time went on little of the 

 story-book type but a type all its own. It was no conformist 

 camp; it was maintained for one purpose at the closing years, 

 for mutual improvement and pleasure. 



The real leader of this camp was Lawrence Thurston, Yale 

 1S9S, and it was natural as the years went by that many of his 

 classmates made up the list of guests on Johnny's Island. Early 

 in his college course, Lawrence definitely decided to become a 

 missionary, and the last years of the camp were marked by the 

 presence of an increasing number of those whose life interests were 

 the same as his own. After the camp of 1902, Lawrence Thurston 

 with his wife, a member of the camp since 1900, sailed for China, 

 but after a year of intensive work he was ordered home because 

 of ill health and he died in Claremont, California, during the spring 

 of 1904. A book, "A Life with a Purpose. A Memorial to John 

 Lawrence Thurston, First Missionary of the Yale Mission" 

 tells the story of his consecrated life. 



