Summer is over — realistically, if not literally.
Kids are back in school. If they still write that traditional “What I did over summer vacation” essay — hundreds of Westport boys and girls will recount their weeks at Camp Mahackeno.
They’ve done it for 80 years. The Westport Weston Family YMCA’s camp has grown and evolved quite a bit, since the original Y camp began in 1938, at Doubleday Field (between Saugatuck and Kings Highway Elementary Schools — or, as they were then known, Staples High and Bedford Junior High).
No photos exist from the original camp at Doubleday. This is an early scene from the present Mahackeno site.
That first year 58 boys enjoyed sports, nature study, crafts, songs, storytelling, and swimming at Compo Beach.
In 1942 the Y was offered 32 acres, near the then-new Merritt Parkway.
F.T. Bedford — son of the Y’s founder, Edward T. Bedford — said his family’s trust would pay half the price, provided the town ponied up the other half.
Within a few weeks, Westporters pledged their portion: $10,000.
In 1945 — exactly 80 years ago — the YMCA camp had a home of its own.
An early scene: Pledge of Allegiance.
The next year — at F.T. Bedford’s request — the name was changed to “Mahackeno.” That honored “Mahackemo” (with an “m”), a chief of the Norwalke Indian tribe who in 1639 met Roger Ludlow and traded land between the Saugatuck and Norwalk Rivers — including that very spot — for wampum and other goods.
Generations of boys swung on a rope suspended from the parkway bridge, clambered over (and almost drowned under) a giant World War II-surplus float, and swam, canoed and fished in the river.
Fun on the river.
They played baseball on dusty fields, did arts and crafts in rustic cabins, and slept out in the woods.
There was boxing, too.
Girls joined Camp Mahackeno in 1969,
It expanded over the years. Mahackeno now includes a heated outdoor pool with a splash pad, a dock for canoeing and paddle boating, 2 large slides, a climbing and bouldering wall, laser tag and mini-golf.
Campers also enjoy an archery pavilion, playgrounds, a gaga pit, basketball courts, sports fields, picnic areas, fire pits, wooded trails, and an amphitheater.
This year, over 1,000 youngsters attended Mahackeno. Plenty are 2nd, even 3rd, generation campers.
They were joined by nearly 200 teenage and young adult counselors — many of whom had been campers themselves.
Registration for Camp Mahackeno’s next season begins in January.
Until then, enjoy these photos of the early years.
(Most photos courtesy of Westport Weston Family YMCA archives)
In 1953 — 8 years after the camp opened at Mahackeno — Westport artist Stevan Dohanos drew this Saturday Evening Post cover.
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Oh, yah! Remember it so well. Mid-Sixties. I also remember the ‘dressing down’ I received after wandering away from the swim area without telling my swim buddy or anyone else, only to come back an hour later to find half the camp searching for the ‘drowned kid.’ And the group sleepovers in the center lodge on rainy nights when we couldn’t stay outside at the upper campsites. Or the ghost stories around the camp fire, told by our teenage camp counselor. Or watching one of the early satellites go by overhead. Great time and place to be a kid!
What a wonderful collection of priceless photographs and memories. Thanks Dan.
I was a camper from ‘57-‘64, a CIT from ‘66-‘67 and a head counselor ‘68-‘69. I loved every minute of it.
In the mid-seventies I taught campers how to shoot rifles with bullets. I was 16, and had no feelings about it. Now, I’m horrified.
Does anyone recognize anyone from those pictures?
I definitely remember a couple of the boys.
Boxing without headgear, good times. Not sure that would fly in 06880 today.
In response to Jack Backiel, I sorta passively recognize some of the faces (the faces are familiar; the names are long gone after all these years) and think I may be the dark-haired kid (the hair is also long gone) on the dock in the fourth picture down from the top. I was at Camp Mahackenoe in the late 1940s. I think the guy facing the audience in fifth picture from the bottom (four above the Dohanos cover) is Jay Van Zandt, the Y director at the time. Fond, fond memories. Thanks, Dan, for reawakening them.
Don: that does indeed look like Jay Van Zandt. I did not realize he was the Y director way back in the day. He was a junior high social studies teacher in the 1960s.
Wonderful pics!
I just read that the cost for that first year of the camp was 30 cents a week. What was the approximate cost in the 1960s?
Great photos. I seem to remember going to a day camp called Aspetuck. I think we spent one overnight and the rest of the 2 weeks was just during the day. I remember the tents. I remember the ritual of hanging and drawing down the flag and folding it just so. I remember campfire stew. I remember that they tried to teach me how to swim. Never did learn. Wish I had pictures of that bunch of us elementary school kids. I must have been about 7 or 8. So…1956 ish? I was born in 1949. I’m sure my mom was happy to get me out of the house for a few hours a day during the summer. Otherwise we spent most of the summer at Compo. Hmmm….great memorys. Hadn’t thought about that Camp Aspetuck for years.
My twin Ann and I were counselors in summer of ‘59! Bruce Jamison was the camp director! A great time! The Downshifters used the large barn in the winter to work on our cars. I put hydraulic brakes on my ‘38 Ford in the winter of 59-60!
Yes to Ellen Naftalin-‘s Aspetuck memories:-) (My maiden name was ‘Pomerantz’..In the early 1960’s , Weston, my mom (she also then ‘happy to get us out of the house a few hours in the summers’ 🙂 she then sent both my younger sister,Nora & Me to Camp Aspetuck. My one memory there:listening to the camp counselors singing songs to us, the end of each day.I remember my older brother,Jeff, going to Camp Mahackeno , some years earlier, he wore their ‘Camp t-shirt’, that summer.:-)