The Archway

Pond Street Entry

In 1916, the first year of the Pollyanna Club created to promote sociability and good cheer, Mattie Coy wrote a poem promising to "...build an archway for our camp...to make the way so very clear that everyone can see." Records show that it was erected in 1919 at a cost of $616.85 and dedicated to all the Spiritualists who have gone before us.

The Archway that marks the entrance to our beloved Camp Etna began as an idea conceived by the Pollyanna Club. Mattie Coy composed a poem for the Pollyannas on December 3, 1916:

I will not grope in darkness

There is beauty all around;

For in the deepest sorrow

There’s a lesson that is found.

There’s music in the raindrops

And purity in the snow,

There’s beauty in this gray old world

No matter where we roam.

There’s kindness hid in every heart

We’ve love for all mankind,

We. The Pollyannas of Etna

Will make the campground shine.

We’ll build an archway for our camp

And that is SURE to be

We’ll make the way so very clear

That every one can see.

On the front of the 1932 program, under a photograph of the archway, it says;

This Archway at the entrance to Camp Etna was erected by the Pollyanna Club under the personal direction and supervision of Mrs. Caroline E. Spollett.

Here is a photo from a page of one of Mary Drake Jenne’s journals. At the top is the detailed list of the cost of the archway.

We found the letter pictured below written by Mary Drake Jenne in 1928 to the Bangor Cast Company explaining the concrete blocks they had used in constructing the Archway were beginning to crumble. It seems Bangor Cast Company must not have warrantied their product as we have not had concrete blocks around the base for nearly 100 years.

The archway still welcomes people from around the world to enjoy our peaceful, serene grounds.