Every week we share a different image on the Essex on Lake Champlain Facebook page and invite our viewers to play some Vintage Essex Trivia.
What can you tell us about the scene on this old postcard? Where is it? Have you been there? When do you think it dates to?
Here is what the community had to say:
Alice Pettersen: Seen this many times in my lifetime!
According to the caption along the top of the postcard this is an aerial shot of Camp of the Pines in Willsboro, NY with Vermont and the Four Brothers Islands on Lake Champlain in the distance. The back side of the postcard shown below gives us a bit more information:
The description of the camp on the back of the postcard reads:
CAMP-of-the-PINES, Willsboro, NY
“Where Lake Champlain is at its Best”
Single rooms to private cottages
with Central Dining Room
Modern Appointments — Sports
Private Sand Beach
There is also a message on the back from someone saying they’re having a “wonderful time here” — presumably at this camp? The stamped date looks to read August 8, 1956. So it’s safe to assume this camp was in operation then. Do you know more about it? When was it built? Does it still exist — perhaps as someones home or private camp now? Where exactly is it in Willsboro?
Do you have any thoughts to share about this old postcard? Please leave a comment below!
Share Your Essex Artifacts
If you want to share your old photos of Essex (also brochures, postcards, menus, tickets, artifacts, etc.) on the blog please email us at editor [AT] essexonlakechamplain [DOT] com.
If I remember correctly, the Camp was on the Point Rd just past the flat rock property, and almost across from the old Smith House. It was not visible from the road.
Great memory, Eve!
My Dad Clyde W. “Coach” Kaminska was the Camp Director of Camp of the Pines. It was a combination kid’s and family camp run by the Lutheran Laymen’s League of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. In the mid-1960’s the Camp relocated to Schroon Lake NY.
Hi Kathy, I also went to camp of the pines, and I remember you. We also went to the Lutheran Church, in Bronxville, across from Concordia. If I remember correctly, your Dad worked at Concordia, and lived on the street along side Concordia! I always enjoyed the camp, which I attended during the summers of 1962 & 1963. I hope all is well!
Just saw your post. Yes. We lived in house #5 and attended the Village Lutheran Church across from Concordia. My Dad was the Athletic Director & coached football, basketball & baseball.
Kathy, i just stumbled upon this blog. I stayed with my grandparents at the camp on Lake Champlain in the mid sixties for two weeks for several summers. I remember playing with you and I remember your Dad, Coach. When the camp moved to Schroon Lake my grandparents continued to rent a cabin for the summer. Your dad taught me how to water ski off the dock one summer. It is a fond memory.
Susan McCracken Brunell
I just googled Camp of the Pines for fun and was delighted to get a result. My family spent our summer vacations here from 1953-1958. Then we moved from Montreal to Toronto and it was just too far to drive. I have many happy memories of playing on the beach and making clay figures. (there was clay just under the sand) There were huge rafts that I was finally able to swim out to our last summer there. Two vivid memories are the scent of pines mingled with scents of fresh baked bread, and the donkeys Jack and Jill. I know that people would come the same week every year and my parents looked forward to seeing everyone again. There was also a talent show held one evening. The postcard you posted sums up what the camp was like very nicely.
My family vacationed in Essex approximately 1956-57 in the summers. We rented “Jack’s Rock Cottage”. Large house on Lake Champlain, with a humongous rock at lakeside where you lounge around on or dive into the lake from. We went to a Sunday nite social down the street, where I had my first baked spaghetti. A beautiful, beautiful place! The smell of pines, the freezing cold water of the Lake and the amount of hunger you would devlope after playing around at the lake all day. I wonder if anybody else remembers “Jacks Rock Cottage?!