Guest Books and Scrap Books from Green Camp, Ringwood, New Jersey

Includes entries from 1941 to circa 1970.

Call Number:  C  5DG  Shelf P 

Provenance:   Books transferred to Cooper Union Library following the closing of Green Camp.

Biographical/Historical Note:

The Green Engineering Camp land was presented to The Cooper Union in 1940 by Norvin Hewitt Green, a great-grandson of Peter Cooper, in memory of his mother, Amy Hewitt Green.  Through the philanthropy of Mr. Green, ten farm buildings were converted into dormitories, work and recreation buildings.  Alumni contributions financed the construction of hard-surfaced playing courts in the recreational areas, and a dam across the Ringwood River that provided a swimming hole near the main area of the Camp. 

The Green Camp was used for student and staff activities, including landscape drawing and painting, and courses in surveying.  Due to financial constraints in the mid- 1970s, Cooper Union transferred Green Camp to the State of New Jersey, Division of Parks and Forestry.

The grounds of the Camp, once the “home farm” of the country estate of Peter Cooper and his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, are of historic importance.  General Robert Erskine, surveyor-general of the Continental Army, was director of the mine in pre-Revolutionary days. Nearby was extracted the iron that went into the musket and cannon for Colonial soldiers and for the huge chains used by the Americans to blockade the Hudson River during the Revolutionary War.  Also produced from the mines and forges of Ringwood were mortars and gun carriages for the Northern Army in the Civil War. 

Extent of Collection:  5 boxes ;  1.5 linear feet.

Finding Aid prepared by Mitsuko Brooks, June, 2010.