In 1903, a remarkable young man opened a summer camp for the Boys’ Brotherhood of East Oakland. He was just 21 years of age and would go on to become an authority on the upbringing of boys, lecturing all over the country.
The problem, as described by George Ellingwood Joy, was “that ordinary man is so wrapped up in making a success of his business, so intent upon the pursuit of the almighty dollar, that he has no time to devote to the simple things in the boy’s life.”
The Reverend Joy also managed Camp Joys in San Bernardino, until in the spring of 1909, the Boys’ Brotherhood there decided to disband. Joy, however, was also an advisor to the Boys’ Brotherhood of Sacramento and it was for this organization he organized a summer institute on land owned by his father just south of Boulder Creek on the east bank of the river in the summer of that year.
The Sacramento club was the largest west of Chicago with almost four hundred members. For fifteen days in late July 1909, about forty boys from the club, ranging in age from nine to eighteen, stayed at Camp Joy. They were accompanied by a number of their parents who stayed in nearby resorts.
A large open-air pavilion seating four hundred was erected in one of the groves for entertainment and as an open-air dining room. The sleeping quarters were “in a most picturesque location,” being located in eight tents on large platforms that were built over the river.
In 1910, the railroad company established a flag-stop at the camp.
In 1911, the ninth season of the camps, a thirty-two-page brochure describing the Boulder Creek location was published. Besides the activities and outings available to the boys such as boating, swimming, photography, a dramatic club, athletics, culinary, workshop, reading … to name just a few, there was also a treasure hunt. With the goal of “education through play,” each new boy is given a description of the exact location of where the treasure was buried in a prior year. This encouraged him to “observe nature so closely that he unconsciously becomes clever in his knowledge of the woods.”
Now the camp ran from the end of June for two months. A boy could stay the whole summer ($80) or just three weeks ($35). For just an extra five dollars a boy could be part of a three-day excursion to Yosemite, all expenses, including hotel accommodation, included.
After the camp ended, Rev. Joy too returned to his home in Sacramento and the resort remained deserted until the following year.
Over the subsequent years Joy founded a home for young men in Sacramento, and lectured profusely. His talks were often attended by hundreds. The camp was reportedly was sought after by many for a Boy Scout camp, but eventually it became the home of Elihu Huntington. After his death it passed to his daughter Cressie, who was born on the property. In 1971, Cressie had the property re-zoned from single-family-residential to residential-agricultural and allowed the Camp Joy Garden Project to use the land. She and her family members “wanted the land turned into a garden to preserve older values that have been lost since the American public became urbanized.”
Today, Camp Joy Gardens is a small, organic family farm that is run as an educational non-profit organization. You can learn more at www.campjoygardens.org.
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