How the Property Became a Scout Camp
Today, Seven Mountains Scout Camp encompasses more than 200 acres in the mountains of Centre County, just west of Spring Mills. It is a familiar place to generations of Scouts and Scouters—a place of summer campfires, waterfront activities, merit badges, Order of the Arrow ceremonies, campouts and countless memories.
But Seven Mountains did not begin as a Scout camp.
Its story begins with a piece of private property in the mountains and a Lewistown Scouter who believed that young people needed a place where they could experience the outdoors.
Before Seven Mountains Was a Summer Camp
The Juniata Valley Council was formed in the late 1920s through the consolidation of several county-based Scout councils, including councils serving Huntingdon, Mifflin-Juniata and Centre counties. In its early years, the new council did not have a permanent Scout camp.
Instead, Scouts attended summer camps at various locations throughout the council’s territory. Historical research published by the International Scouting Collectors Association records that these early summer camps were known as Camp Aquanuschioni, and the Scouts attending them were referred to as the Aquanuschioni Tribe.
Meanwhile, there was already a piece of property in the Seven Mountains area that had a connection to Scouting.
It was known as 7MTS Hunting Camp—a private hunting club or private-property camp that had been made available to Scouts for camping as far back as the late 1910s and through the 1920s and early 1930s. Importantly, it was not originally a Scout summer camp. Scouts were simply being permitted to use the property for camping.
That distinction is important. Seven Mountains Scout Camp was not created from scratch on an untouched piece of land. There was already a tradition of Scouts coming into these mountains and enjoying this particular property before the Juniata Valley Council became its owner.
William P. Woods and the Gift That Changed Everything
The man connected to the donation was William P. Woods of Lewistown.
The history of Lewistown Presbyterian Church’s Boy Scout Troop 4 identifies Woods as the founder of the troop and states that William Woods donated the land for Seven Mountains Scout Camp.
That connection between Woods, Troop 4 and Seven Mountains is particularly fitting.
Woods was deeply committed to Scouting and to giving young people opportunities to develop into responsible citizens. His connection with the property and with local Scouts predated the establishment of the permanent council camp.
According to historical research published in the ISCA Journal, the Juniata Valley Council received the Seven Mountains property as a gift in 1933. The property then became the council’s first permanent camp and was developed into its summer camping facility.
Another historical source identifies 1934 as the year the Juniata Valley Council acquired the present Seven Mountains Camp.
The difference may reflect the distinction between the year the gift was made and the year the council formally completed the acquisition or began operating the property as its permanent camp. The surviving online sources do not provide enough documentation to establish the exact legal date of transfer without consulting the original property records.
What is clear, however, is the larger story:
A private mountain property used by Scouts was given to the Juniata Valley Council in the early 1930s, allowing the council to establish a permanent Scout camp in the Seven Mountains.
From Hunting Camp to Scout Camp
The transformation was significant.
The property that had previously been used as a private hunting and camping area became the foundation for a permanent Scout camping program. The council developed the property into its principal summer camp, giving Scouts throughout the Juniata Valley Council a place they could return to year after year.
For the first several years, the camp carried another name.
Although the property itself was known as Seven Mountains, the new Scout camp was called Camp Aquanuschioni from approximately 1933 through 1936. The name reflected the council’s earlier summer-camping tradition and was associated with the Aquanuschioni Tribe. Historical research indicates that the name referred to the idea of a gathering or meeting of tribes.
In 1937, the camp adopted the name Seven Mountains Scout Camp, the name it has carried ever since.
A Gift That Outlasted Its Donor
William P. Woods could not have known what his gift would eventually become.
The property he helped place in the hands of Scouting would go on to serve generations of young people. Roads, buildings, campsites, program areas, a lake, cabins, lodges and other facilities would gradually transform the property into the camp familiar to alumni today.
One surviving piece of that early history is particularly remarkable.
The Troop 4 Cabin at Seven Mountains has its own connection to Woods. According to a 2024 account in The Lewistown Sentinel, Woods built a larger cabin for Lewistown’s Troop 4 during the development of the Seven Mountains Scout Camp. When Woods died in 1948, another parcel associated with the troop was deeded to the council and subsequently became part of the summer camp’s development.
The Troop 4 story demonstrates just how intertwined Woods’ legacy was with both local Scouting and the development of Seven Mountains.
More Than Ninety Years of Memories
The property that once served as a private hunting camp is now a year-round Scout facility operated by the Juniata Valley Council.
Modern Seven Mountains offers camping, hiking, swimming, boating, shooting sports, cabins, dining facilities and numerous program areas. The council describes the camp as a year-round outdoor educational facility, while generations of alumni remember it more simply: as the place where they spent some of the most memorable weeks of their youth.
The camp’s history is therefore about more than a real-estate transaction.
It is a story about someone making land available to Scouts, a council recognizing the opportunity, and generations of volunteers turning that gift into something lasting.
The next time you drive through the entrance to Seven Mountains Scout Camp, it is worth remembering that the road began nearly a century ago—not with a modern Scout reservation, but with a private mountain property, a tradition of allowing Scouts to camp there, and the generosity of a Lewistown Scouter named William P. Woods.
His gift became a camp.
And the camp became part of the lives of generations of Scouts.