Photo Courtesy of S. David Phraner A contemporary view of the former Camp Pinelock main building shows the Big Spit Pond.
A contemporary view of the former Camp Pinelock main building shows the Big Spit Pond.
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — A former resident, the son of a former Bloomfield Girl Scouts summer camp director, has written a 30-page monograph of the camp to preserve a largely forgotten chapter in township history. According to the author, S. David Phraner, 82, the monograph took almost four years to write and is, as noted on the title page, “an anecdotal history, candid observations and memories of Camp Pinelock, once a unique Bloomfield Girl Scouts camp in Knowlton Township, Warren County, NJ, 1946-61.” He offered the work in memory of his mother, Florence C.C. “Pepper” Phraner, and dedicated it to the Historical Society of Bloomfield and the former Bloomfield Girl Scouts Council.
“The origin of the monograph was the discovery of an album of photographs given to my mom in 1947 at a camp reunion at the Westminster Church,” Phraner said in a recent telephone interview.
His mother became director in 1947, the second year of the camp’s existence. She remained director for five years.
“Her first season was successful and the staff put together an album to commemorate it,” Phraner said. “That was sort of the origin of the monograph, the discovery of this album.”
The photographs reawakened memories for him. Phraner was the only boy in camp from 1947 to 1949. He was packed off in 1950, at age 11, to Camp Tamarack, a Bloomfield Boy Scouts camp.
But memories aside, Phraner could not find information to piece together a history of Pinelock until he contacted the HSB and Councilman Rich Rockwell, a society member. With assistance from Bloomfield Public Library librarian Lisa Cohn, a keyword search was made of The Independent Press editions and Rockwell sent Phraner the results: a trove of 187 digitized newspapers that somewhere used the word “pinelock” during the years Phraner requested. For a period of time, the newspaper also had a weekly column dedicated to camp activities.
“Things started to come together very nicely,” he said. “But it took me over a year to go through the newspapers. He sent me entire issues. Pinelock was mentioned somewhere and I had to look for it.”
Phraner also found several mimeographed copies of “Pinelock Echoes,” the camp newspaper, in the photo album. As far as Phraner is aware, two postcards, a bracelet and a short 8mm film are the only remaining artifacts from the camp’s existence. All have been donated to the HSB along with the monograph.
“But the biggest source (of information) was my memory,” he said. “I made a feeble attempt to (remind) the Girl Scouts that Pinelock (even) existed.”
With Rockwell’s help, Phraner had a draft of the monograph circulated, in the hopes of receiving some response.
“We got meager feedback because most of the people are dead,” he said. “The people who responded were from the later years. But there was nothing to really glean for a history.”
Nonetheless, the monograph is entertaining reading.
From June to August, the camp had three encampments, or sessions, of two weeks each. The three 1950 encampments, for instance, attracted 60, 58 and 52 girls ages of 8 to 17.
The camp was a two-hour bus trip, along Bloomfield Avenue to Route 6, now Route 46, to the community of Great Meadows, in Warren County, and then by county road through the village of Hope, including the Mount Herman section, to the nearby hamlet of Centerville and then to the 20-acre camp. The bus could not drive into the camp because of a rickety bridge, so the girls hiked in while boys from the neighboring Hillyard farm, stripped to the waist, handled their duffel bags.
Phraner recalls much of the physical layout of the camp, with its buildings, mess hall and sleeping accommodations in four “precincts,” and the Big Spit and the Little Spit ponds. But there are also accounts that, if not stirring someone’s memory, would stir anyone’s imagination.
One incident was the thunderstorm of Aug. 13, 1947, witnessed by Phraner, when a neighboring barn was struck by lightning and the Pinelock staff formed a bucket brigade to help save a farmhouse from fire. As a thank you, 100 ears of Jersey corn arrived at the camp two weeks later, he said. And there were Farmers Nights, when neighbors were invited to the camp for refreshments, square dancing and a movie. There were annual Fourth of July parades down Polkville Road to Centerville, to the sound of kazoos; Pepper Phraner’s pet monkey, Pappy; “Asthma,” the camp truck; and hayrides with the Hillyard farm boys pulling a wagon of hay by tractor.
There is a lot to this monograph, but with other activities calling for his attention, Phraner still does not know anything about the closing and sale of the camp he knew so well 70 years ago. He wants to complete his history and said he will give this final discovery one last try.
The monograph can be viewed on the HSB website at bloomfieldhistorical.org. Anyone wishing to share Pinelock Camp information with Phraner can do so though the HSB.
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