On Sunday I was helping out at the Sebago Historical Society’s Fall Festival at their headquarters in Convene, which is part of the town of Sebago. One of my cousins is very active and she showed me a whole collection of artifacts and photo albums related to Camp Wabunaki. Wabunaki was a girl’s camp that operated on Hancock Pond from 1910 to 1963. As some of you know the B&SR ran along the shore of Hancock Pond and passed very close to Wabunaki. The camp had a close working relationship with the railroad and many of the Camper’s Specials were run to bring the girls and their baggage to and from Camp Wabunaki. When the camp closed in 1963 the land was sold off and in 1969 my family bought two adjacent lake front lots which were right across the road from the old ROW. We also were given two of the old bunkhouses that we hauled off the Island in halves and reassembled them and still use them as bunkhouses. Anyway, I am going back to get a longer look at the whole collection because I saw some railroad related items and photos. Apparently the girls were required to keep little diaries while staying at Wabunaki and one had an excellent drawing of the B&H rail bus 3 and trailer on the cover!
I’ll report more as I find it. This could be a great window into the impact of the camp experience for those “city” girls and into the relationship between the camp and the railroad.
