Camp Chewonki for boys (originally Split Rock Camp) was founded in 1915 on the shores of Lake Champlain, New York, by a young educator named Clarence Allen. In 1918 he moved his operation to Wiscasset, Maine, to the southern half of Chewonki Neck, a 400-acre peninsula on Montsweag Bay. Clarence and a committed staff ran the camp successfully through both World Wars, the Depression, and into the 1960s.

Chewonki Founder Clarence Allen sitting (center) on the back porch of the Farmhouse, circa 1960.

In 1962 a group of loyal camp alumni formed a nonprofit corporation called the Chewonki Foundation and embarked on a capital campaign to raise funds to buy the camp. The campaign was successful, and shortly later “The Boys bought out The Boss.” Clarence retired in 1965, and in 1966 the foundation hired a young teacher named Tim Ellis, who had grown up at Chewonki, to succeed him. Under Tim’s leadership, Chewonki began experimenting in the 1970s with year-round programs and more extensive wilderness trips. Thus began Chewonki’s transformation into a full-time, year-round educational institution.

Today Chewonki continues to maintain its traditional boy’s camp. It also offers a girls camp, a broad array of environmental education programs, travelling natural history programs, wilderness trips and workshops for adults, and Chewonki Semester School, a residential academic program for high-school juniors. The current president is Willard Morgan, who succeeded Don Hudson on his retirement in 2010.