From Dreams To Dust - Editorial
Earlier this week, we were scrolling through the Bourne Archives’ Facebook page when a pair of up-close photos caught our eye. That weather-worn red clapboard siding, just begging for a fresh coat of paint, was instantly recognizable: the old Animal Rescue League summer camp buildings.
The caption on the photos was simple—it was a goodbye post.
“Saying goodbye to the last buildings of Animal Friends Camp,” it said. “Memories of a golden time, suddenly gone.”
After a relatively short process, which spanned only two hearings but felt far more arduous than that, the Bourne Historical Commission voted last month to allow demolition of three of the four buildings on the property—the recreation building, the stable, and the main house by the shoreline. This was much to the chagrin of Cataumet residents and local history lovers, many of whom attended the hearings to argue in favor of preservation.
Once we saw the photos, we asked our photographer to visit the property to snap some of our own. But by the time he got there on Wednesday morning, those three buildings were long gone—nothing left to show for them aside from a slab of pavement and some mounds of dirt gone muddy. We immediately knew we had to go see it ourselves.
We were shocked—we should not have been; in hindsight that was naive of us—to see the buildings reduced to dust so quickly. Today marks just one month since the historical commission’s vote was taken; it is surprising to us that action was taken so quickly, especially amid the fervor of the holidays and typical winter weather, but the writing was on the wall.
The property owner’s representative made it clear: there is absolutely no interest on their part to restore, repair, preserve, or otherwise maintain these buildings. He is quoted in the minutes of last month’s hearing as saying he “thinks the people who spoke at the first hearing have an emotional attachment to the camp property.”
Standing there on Megansett Road, on the gravel and mud path, we could imagine the youngsters packed into family cars, taking the turn down the driveway with wide eyes and that kind of excitement you only feel when you are still fresh and full of youth, with an entire carefree summer ahead of you. We imagined those memories that were most certainly made on those very grounds, and struggled to feel anything but a deep sadness for the loss of that history, those memories and that special piece of Bourne’s past.
So, maybe the owner’s representative is right. But even so, where is the harm in that? We would argue that the emotional connection is not to the buildings themselves, but to what they once meant and used to be, to the joy that lived in those walls and to the impact it left behind on those who felt it firsthand.
That camp was meant to be a legacy. Amrita Island was meant to be a legacy. The final wish of Thomas and Esther Baxendale—the couple who built up, nurtured and maintained all those acres—was for the land to be preserved, and for their trust to carry forth their lives’ work of learning, teaching, and loving all of nature’s creations.
But that dream is gone now, the idyllic sanctuary divvied up and sectioned off, save for 18 acres that the Bourne Conservation Trust fought tooth and nail to get ahold of. Amrita Island is a private but luxurious little neighborhood, comprising sprawling estates and McMansions, and a single, lonely building is all that is left of the neighboring summer camp. It is sad to look at, standing there dilapidated and all by itself.
Before leaving we took one last look at it, unable to shake the thought that we were looking at a living memory of a dying wish, one carefully commodified and deconstructed to be sold off as private lots. We wonder what Esther Baxendale would think.