Camp Gregory Philosophy

Over 50 years ago, a caring minister named Caspar Gregory envisioned an interdenominational community-supported Christian camp for our youth.  Mr. Gregory’s enthusiasm in pursuit of this dream, inspired the establishment of a rustic camp known as Camp Gregory that was founded in 1941.  The goal of Camp Gregory is to offer opportunities for campers to live and work together in wholesome ways, with emphasis on the physical, emotional, social, and environmental dimensions of life.

Camp Gregory is a community camp, offering the opportunity to explore the inter-relating dimensions of life: spiritual, emotional, physical, and social.  The program reflects the Christian ethic of our area churches, emphasizing our similarities.

In a rustic setting, Camp Gregory provides the challenge of living and working together in unity, fostering stewardship of our environment, and personal responsibility beyond the camping experience. Guest leaders for religious education as well as the camp staff will help campers explore their relationship with God, their environment, and with each other.

Camping is a viable and effective means for furthering this objective.  As a vehicle for the church’s ministry - regardless of denominational affiliation - camping has the opportunity to provide Christians with community experiences in which their faith might be discovered and experienced.  Whether the activities are day camping, weekend retreats, or week-long events, they help an individual to develop a sense of the inter-relatedness of all things in God’s world.  Through your leadership, campers will be encouraged to grow in, to strengthen, and to share their faith.

It is not the intent of Camp Gregory to advance any specific denominational philosophy.   Rather, it’s goal is to present a overall view of the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

History of Caspar Gregory Camp (written in 1954)

The founding of Caspar Gregory Camp in 1941, was the fulfillment of a dream of Caspar Gregory, who, with other pastors of the Southern Cayuga Larger Parish felt the need for a place where the people of all ages could spend time together in fellowship and recreation.

The Larger Parish, a group of nine churches of five denominations, has been in existence for some years, having been organized Aug. 9, 1932, under the leadership of Caspar Gregory, pastor of the Scipioville and Levanna churches. These nine churches extended from Union Springs, thru Aurora, Scipioville, Poplar Ridge, and Ledyard to King Ferry. Groups from these churches used to go to Cayuga Lake for part of a day for discussion and conference, and occasionally a group with Mr. and Mrs. Shubert Frye of King Ferry, would spend a couple of days at a small cottage near the lake, but this was quite inadequate. There was no place on the east side of Cayuga Lake which could accommodate a group, and camps owned by other groups were unavailable.

In September 1940, the Larger Parish staff, feeling keenly the need for such a place began seriously to discuss the matter and make some plans. During the discussion, Mr. Gregory passed a fifty-cent piece to Mr. Harry Jones with the remark, “I should like to start the fund.” At this meeting of the staff a committee was appointed to set about finding a suitable location and possibly continue from that point. Mr. Gregory was the first to go exploring along the lake, making inquiries about available land along the shore.

A month later, in October, Mr. Gregory went to Cambridge, Mass., to attend a meeting of an association of astronomers to which he belonged. His hobby was astronomy and he was one of a number of star observers over the United States whose observations were reported to Harvard and used in the magazine published on this subject. While in Cambridge, he died of a heart attack, and all thru the countryside people of all ages mourned. On the day of his funeral, some friends were talking together and wishing for a way to keep alive his great-hearted spirit. The suggestion was made that, since the Camp idea was very close to his heart, that a camp be established as a memorial.

The camp committee already named, appointed other committees, to find a suitable site, to plan buildings and lay-out, to plan a fund raising campaign and to enlist workers. The staff of the Larger Parish approved the action of this committee. At a memorial concert in Union Springs given by Miss Elsie Phillips of Rochester, the plan was announced to the public. This was November 1940.

By January 1941 the site was selected, the present 30 acre tract with a quarter of a mile of lake frontage, to cost $1500. Total cost of the camp was to be within $15,000 including the land, a main lodge, five cabins, all equipment, furnishings and labor. Donations come from all over the countryside, also from distant places. One gift from Japan, sent by Rev. J. S. Egawa, a former student of Mr. Gregory at the Theological Seminary at Auburn. Labor, trees and materials were given as well as cash and in time the goal was reached.

During the spring, events moved rapidly. In March the first Vesper Service was held on the grounds; a group of 20 Cornell students donated their spring vacation to help with the work, under the direction of Isaac Hazard. Their specific job was the cutting of the first 100 trees donated from farm wood-lots in the area. On April 1. 1941 the papers of incorporation were filed in Albany under the name Caspar Gregory Camp Inc. Members of the corporation were taken from those who attended churches in the towns of Scipio, Venice, Ledyard, Fleming, Springport, Genoa and Aurelius. The first payment on the land, of $100, was made April 24, 1941 and the last August 4, 1941.

In the summer of 1941 the first camp was held for one week, the girls sleeping in the Simkin cottage and the boys in tents. The young people also sponsored a second concert by Miss Philips. During that summer two cabins were begun and were ready for use the next year. The work on the Lodge began. The heavy beams, hand hewn, and put together with wooden pegs, came from the old Five Corners Church, which was taken down and moved to the camp site, with permission of the Cayuga Presbytery. The old bell and the bell tower also came from the old church.

The first annual meeting of the corporation was held at the Emily Howland Central School on January 20, 1942. A chicken pie supper was served to the members for 50 cents per person.

On August 9, 1942, the tenth anniversary of the organization of the Southern Cayuga Larger Parish, an afternoon meeting was held in the Lodge for the dedication of the new camp, followed by a picnic supper and vespers. What could not have been done by one church had been accomplished by the friendly cooperation of all the churches joined together in the Larger Parish.

From then until the present, 1954, many changes and additions have been made. A third cabin was built, the rustic gates were made at the two entrances, and the stone fireplace was made by Isaac Hazard and Alonzo Matthews. Wells College donated a number of dressers and cots and Miss Alice Montgomery gave the silver and lovely English china from Robin Hood, the home of Miss Montgomery and her sister in Sherwood.

Two more cabins were built in 1946, which completed the number originally planned for. Electricity was brought in, in 1947 and '48. The iron bridge over the gully was donated by the town of Genoa in 1951.

In 1949 Floyd Morris, who was the minister at Poplar Ridge, headed a committee which raised funds and planned a cottage in memory of Lillian Russell. This was designated for the use of the camp cooks who needed a place away from the center of activities. Boys and girls of the Parish gathered the stones for the foundation and the fireplace.

The water supply at the Camp had never been satisfactory, in spite of the drilling of three wells, until 1950 when a chlorinating system and pump were installed and water pumped from the lake. Also, installed at this time, were the large refrigerator, a water heater and water cooler. The corporation borrowed $1500 for these improvements. Just this spring, 1954, a fine ten-burner gas stove was donated by the Aurora Rotary. A permanent dock is in process of construction and last summer the sixth cabin was built, most of the responsibility being taken by Mr. E. F. (Grandpa) Nedrow. Another cabin is deemed necessary by the Larger Parish staff for the family of the camp director.

When Caspar Gregory passed the fifty-cent piece to Mr. Jones back in 1940, he probably had no idea of a camp such as now stands as a memorial to him. Almost everything at the camp is a reminder of the many other people who also had the vision and urge to make it come true. Much of Mr. Gregory's character is expressed in the framed tribute "Salutation to Greatness", written by Willard Reynolds, a member of the Larger Parish staff in 1940. The pictures of the Colorado mountains sent by Hugh Gregory, a brother, are of places which he loved near his former home. The lovely china reminds us of the Montgomery sisters, the memorial cottage of Lillian Russell, who for years before her death in 1949 was responsible for the housekeeping and who was ever giving of her time and energy to forward the work of the camp. The materials, furnishings and equipment of the camp, as well as the many days and hours of labor, have to a large extent been given by those who were interested in a cooperative project for the benefit of all.