Farm & Wilderness Blog

Rock of Ages - Farm & Wilderness

Written by Jeff Bounds | January 07, 2020

Before SAM Lodge was SAM Lodge, it was the site of a cabin for Clarence and Maggie Davis and their children and grandchildren, who stayed there in the summers throughout the 1950s. Back then, Bruce Stryhar was a young boy, and he spent his days running about in the Ninevah woods.

One summer, the family decided to lay down a large marble stone step outside the cabin door as a gift for Bruce’s grandmother, Maggie. They scoured the marble from one of the many houses that had been left vacant in the Ninevah area (since overgrown, with cellar holes and apple orchards as the only evidence of their existence), lugged it back to their cabin, and carefully dug a place for it to rest.

This summer, Bruce returned to camp for a visit and shared the history of this large marble slab, which we all know as the sturdy step up into SAM Lodge. Decades later, it remains, worn smooth by the hundreds of feet that have crossed its threshold over the years.

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