Last summer, three reels of silent, Kodachrome color 16mm films were donated to MARMIA by Brian Markham. The films documented activities at Camp Poquaesak, which was an exclusive camp for boys near Wittman, Maryland from 1927-1942. We initially thought they were amateur films perhaps recorded by Brian’s father who attended the camp in the 1930s. We wrote this blog post hoping to get them digitized and in December we had two generous donors contribute to those efforts.

Thanks to research by James Dawson, we now think that these films were made as promotions for the camp. The illustrated booklets printed to advertise the camp (pictured below) note “moving pictures on request.” We believe these films accompanied those booklets. James Dawson additionally wrote an article about the camp which references the films. It was featured in the latest issue of the Tidewater Times.

Images: Courtesy James Dawson

The three films are now available for everyone to view on the Internet Archive.

Thank you to Brian Markham, James Dawson, Dan Somerville, and Mike Stetz for helping to preserve this piece of Maryland’s Eastern Shore history.

Published by avtechmarmia