Heaven on Earth for Boys

TREASURE ISLAND – is a 42-acre island a few miles south of Frenchtown. Although it is closer to Pennsylvania, it is part of Kingwood Township.

In 1913 the Philadelphia Boy Scout Council established a Scout camp here.

The boys would get a break from rustic island life with occasional “shore leave” in Frenchtown. In August of 1923 the Star reported, “The Boy Scouts, about 800 strong, came to town last Wednesday evening from Treasure Island. They were accompanied by a good band, and made the town musical. They were dressed in all fashions, clothing more and clothing less. They were hungry – ate all the pies for sale in town, so baker Hoffman had to bake a second edition. They also ate much ice cream and other extras that our half-dozen eating houses afforded. They played, they sang, they marched – around the streets of town, and at a later hour for home – Treasure Island.”

Their telephone service was via the Frenchtown switchboard. Gloria Sipes Paleveda, who was an operator during the mid-1940s, recalled regularly receiving calls from homesick Scouts, sobbing so hard they could barely tell her their phone numbers.

In its heyday, as many as 2,500 boys in a summer clambered into the camp's big boats to spend a week on the island. It had a daily camp newspaper and a camp song titled “By the Waters That Surround Thee.”

But sometimes those waters would inundate thee. While the flood waters of 1955 rose to cover the island – it was 7 feet deep in the mess hall – more than 350 Scouts were ferried to safety in the camp's boats. The last few staffers had to be removed by helicopter.

In 1958 the Scouts acquired Treasure Island's next-door neighbor, Marshall's Island, from the Trenton YMCA. They joined the islands with a footbridge. Because Treasure Island was in New Jersey, the Scouts set up their rifle range on Marshall's Island because Pennsylvania's gun laws were easier to comply with. For a few years, the Scouts established their main camp on Marshall's Island, but attendance dropped and they switched back to the more-popular Treasure Island.

The camp continued until the floods of 2005 and '06. Faced with the cost of repairs and the inevitability of future floods, the Scout council closed Treasure Island for good after its 2008 season.

I explored the island in 2017 and found the dock intact and well-maintained, and several buildings neglected but intact. The open-sided wheelbarrows that used to transport Scouts' luggage lay rusting and rotting around the grounds. The Unami Lodge, a house-like structure built in 1920 on the southern end of the island, was in good shape. It has a central room for indoor gatherings, and newer additions for dining and sleeping. Nearby was an outdoor amphitheater with sturdy benches that could seat hundreds of Scouts uncomfortably.

At the other end of the island, there were two surviving open-sided shelters for the junior staff and actual indoor quarters for senior staff. The trading post's counters and drawers were empty of merchandise, and paper cups and sales slips littered the floor. The swimming pool, which had been dug in 1958, contained green water and some rubbish thrown in by vandals.

The big dining hall stood empty. The floor was strewn with stray tools, dozens of beer cans, a broken bull horn and a movie screen. Numbers along the wall indicated there had been 36 dining tables, and dozens of folding table were scattered around the room.

The walls had been brightened by scores of canoe paddles, decorated and inscribed by visiting troops. I'd seen them on a visit a few years earlier. But the paddles were gone in '17. A ragged moose head lay rotting on the floor, a relic of past glory.

In 2018 it was sold to the Haubert brothers, John and Dave, who own Colonial Woods and Ringing Rocks campgrounds in Upper Bucks County. Technically, the island was purchased by their LLC called Haubert Outdoor Oriented Adventure Hospitality. The awkward name makes more sense when you know that HOOAH is an all-purpose affirmative cry peculiar to the Army, and that the Hauberts are both Army vets.

A condition of the purchase was that they continue to welcome Boy Scouts to the island, and the sentimental Friends of Treasure Island organization rolled up their sleeves and helped put the place in order.

John told me he wanted to use the island as a place to bring their campground campers for picnics, volleyball and some aquatic fun. The conditions described above have been corrected, and the island is again a place of rustic fun and adventure.

From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"