Camp Minsi at the Delaware Water Gap

"When the old stone face of Mount Tammany looked southward in 1919, it beheld a group of pioneer scouts marching under full camping equipment along that long, long trail which winds along the glimmering shores of the Delaware River. Onward, ever onward, floated the flag of the Bethlehem Scouts until a place of such magnificence and splendor was reached that the party automatically halted and made camp. To this very day, eight years later, we still hold to the picturesque spot as our summer headquarters." — Kamp Minsi Kronicle, August 9, 1926

The Kamp Minsi Kronicle was a one-page weekly paper written by the Scouts, distributed at the camp, and published in the Bethlehem Globe Times during the summer. The quote above is arguably one of the most important quotes the paper ever published, for it succinctly summarizes our humble beginnings. A group of young Scouts, only nine years after the formation of the organization, were out on a hike and found a place they could finally call home. They leased the land from the Philadelphia Trust Company and called the place Camp Minsi¹.

The camp was on the New Jersey side of the Delaware river at the Gap near the base of Mount Tammany. Across the river, on the PA side, stood the majestic Mount Minsi, for which the camp was named². The mountain is named in honor of the Minsi tribe of the Leni Lenape.

The Bethlehem Area Council was formed in 1917 by a few good Bethlehem businessmen who saw the value of the program and believed the local boys needed to be organized. Prior to 1919, Bethlehem Scouts, and indeed Scouts from the entire Lehigh Valley, had no permanent camping grounds to call their own. Prior to the formation of the Bethlehem Area Council, there were no organized Scout Councils in the Lehigh Valley at all. 

Many Scout troops formed temporarily for the sole purpose of camping. Early in the movement Rev. A. D. Thaeler ran the city’s first troop out of the Central Moravian Church. However, it was a temporary troop. The first official troop was Troop 1, organized at the Pro-Cathedral Church of the Nativity in 1914. Later, Rev. Thaeler chartered his troop, which became Troop 2³.

In 1918, the council hired its first executive, Leon John Argetsinger. Mr. Argetsinger was good at his job and soon the Troop numbers were growing. Realizing they needed a place for the boys to camp, Chief Argetsinger and the Council started looking for a camp. It didn’t take long for them to find the spot along the Delaware in 1919. They settled in and remained there for eight summers.

In 1925, Mr. Argetsinger resigned to take a job in Omaha, Nebraska. Jessie Jay “J. Jay” Wilcox was hired to take his place. He served as Council Executive for thirty-seven years, retiring in 1962⁴.