Chocorua Island Chapel named to National Register of Historic Places

HOLDERNESS — The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources has announced that the Chocorua Island Chapel on Church Island in Holderness has been honored by the United States Secretary of the Interior with placement on the National Register of Historic Places for its key social role in Squam Lake's summer community and as a significant historic landscape with a rustic open-air chapel.

Church Island itself has two sections: the former site of Camp Chocorua, considered the first summer youth camp in the country, and the camp's open-air chapel, which faces Mt. Chocorua.

Camp Chocorua was founded by Dartmouth College student Ernest Berkeley Balch in 1881. Balch believed that outdoor activity built character, confidence, self-sufficiency and good health, and that introducing boys ages 8–15 to rustic, active life in the backwoods would help transition them into the world of men. Campers helped design the site using local, natural materials, minimally impacting the island.

Religious studies and services were an important part of daily living at Camp Chocorua. Virtually all of the chapel section's primary features; an altar and a lectern created from stones found on the island, crosses set in stone bases, wooden benches, a bell and bell tower, an organ encased in a shed, and a robing hut, were installed between 1881 and 1920 or are appropriate replacements of features that had existed there earlier.

Camp Chocorua launched the youth camp movement that spread across New England and beyond. By 1895, there were 11 camps in the United States; five were in New Hampshire and three were on Squam Lake. Today, summer camps are a rite of passage for many, and elements of Camp Chocorua, including rustic living, outdoor recreation and religious services, are still integral parts of the summer camp experience.

Although Camp Chocorua lasted only nine years, non-denominational services have remained open to the public and the site continues to be a social institution for generations of Squam's summer community. The chapel area, expanded to seat 100 in the early 1900s, can now accommodate 425. Since 1903, weekly collections have benefitted local non-profits, including Emily Balch Hospital (now Speare Memorial Hospital), food pantries and local churches.