In June of that year a proposition to establish a summer camp took shape and at a meeting a subscription paper was opened and $200 was pledged in about fifteen minutes. A site was selected on the east bank of the river in South Glastonbury and nearly opposite Two Piers. Volunteers cleared the land of brush, assisted in driving a well, hauled lumber and materials up the steep ascent of 115 feet, aided the carpenters, and helped to furnish and arrange camp. They sought and obtained practical experience in cooking and camp life. It was decided to name the camp after the first commander of the division; and to this day the building is known as Camp Parker. The spot was formally dedicated July 4th with speeches and an open-air dinner, at which the building committee in due and ancient form turned the institution over to the division. The house was equipped with hammocks and many a rooky has there learned how to pass a sailor’s night. Many a pleasant Sunday afternoon in midsummer has lured men of the division to the cool piazza with its noble view for many miles in three directions, south, west and north. ❦ COURSE SEVEN ❦ THE PANTHER In some respects the yearly cruise which started several weeks later was among the most memorable adventures of the division; and when some of the old hands are spinning yarns about what they did when they were young, they like to hark back to the “sham war” and a certain hike across Montauk Point. The most extensive land and sea maneuvers in many years were arranged in Washington for a force of several thousand of the army and for practically all of the fine North Atlantic squadron of that year, of which Admiral Higginson, the captain of the Massachusetts in the Spanish war, was in command. It was on the auxiliary cruiser Panther that the battalion served. The division boarded the ship in New London harbor. In the course of the service the Panther steamed as far east as Menemsha Bight and as far west as New London, the object of the maneuvers being to test in a practical way the defenses of the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound. At sundown of a Saturday the most powerful fleet to that time assembled in those waters was riding to anchor in the bight, awaiting the passage of the hours before midnight ’ere beginning maneuvers against the string of forts and signal stations scattered all the way from Woods Hole around to Montauk. As night shut down, the signal lamps began their Ardois work. At midnight hoarse orders came from the Panther’s bridge and the rattle of the steam winch and the heavy clank of the cable in the hawse pipe announced that the ship was getting under way.