Camp Chosatonga for Boys

Camp Chosatonga for Boys, 1979 to present

Location: Off Highway 215, Balsam Grove
Owners: Monty & Julia Oates, 1979-1985
            Bill Bailey & Tom Triplett, 1986
Current Owners: David & Anne Trufant

History;
Years went by until one day at a Camp Association meeting Monty Oates rose to an opportunity he couldn't refuse. The directors of the long running Camp Sequoia announced that they were closing. He graciously accepted the mailing list as he had tested out running a boy's camp within the girls camp on alternating schedules on the same property. Now he was ready to buy adjoining land and expand to include privacy for boys separated from the girls. 

Camp Sequoia staff came on board and operated at Kahdalea the first year in 1978. Bill Dyer was the expert on the Indian lore and ran that program which appeared to be the guiding light of the Sequoia spirit. We learned that the top award of Camp Sequoia was called the "Chosatonga" award. This word from native indian origin means something like "One who accepts and understands nature, fellow man and his spiritual self." Only 15 boys ever earned the award in the the 30 + years that Camp Sequoia was in operation. Chosantonga was the perfect name for the new boys camp so Monty & Julie Oates named this new camp after that award.

Chosantonga adjoins Kahdalea by way of a steep road and acres of land backing the national forest. By road the distance is far so no one would ever know that, as the crow flies, the two camps are only a couple of acres apart.

Submitted by Kathy O. McLeod, daughter of Monty & Julie Oates

Sources:

Ormand, Rev. Ben F.   A History and Some Tales of Camp Carolina.  Brevard, NC: Ben F. Ormand, 1990?

Ecusta Echo, June 1942

Box 5.  Camps.   Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library

MJM Box 26.  Camps.  Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library          

For additional information on Summer Camps of Transylvania County visit the
Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room on the second floor of the Transylvania County Library.