In 1928, the Boy Scouts of America purchased 287 acres from the estate of Edward Pierson for $10,000 to establish the summer headquarters of the Watchung Area Council of Plainfield, New Jersey, serving Union and Somerset Counties and Piscataway Township in Middlesex County. Within the first two years, $28,000 was spent to build a woodland chapel, council ring, handicraft lodge, nature lodge, first aid cottage, and dining hall with a camp trading post. A 362-foot man-made pond on Spruce Run Creek, completed in 1929 and named Craig Pond after the late son of Raymond Smith, became the camp's first swimming area; in 1971, a concrete swimming pool was added and the pond was extended in the shape of an arrowhead for boating and canoeing. The oldest structure on the property, a stone farmhouse built after 1850 by Thomas Bowmnan, served as the main office throughout the camp's existence. Myron Geddes was the first camp director, Franklin Nelson the first camp clerk, and William Barnhurst introduced Scouts to fishing, boating, handicrafts, target shooting, nature ecology, conservation projects, and sportsmanship; in 1932, James Boyer replaced Geddes and in 1934 brought the Order of the Arrow to the camp, while Miquin Lodge #68 was chartered in 1939, taking its Lenape name for feather and the eagle feather as its totem. About 1,300 Boy Scouts from the Watchung Area Council attended each year. J. Harold Eilert of New York City served as camp physician, overseeing a first aid cottage with four beds and requiring weekly "soap bath" pond bathing and twice-daily swimming lessons, which William Letson and Robert McLaughlin, the first water safety instructors, taught. William Cross, the camp chef, ran a well-stocked kitchen in a rustic dining hall that seated 150 beneath a massive elk's head above a stone quarried fireplace. Under Edward Dalby, the nature lodge taught natural science with snakes, live fish, turtles, plaster casts of leaves and animal footprints, and labeled tree trails. Older Scouts also took part in a tribal village supervised by Robert Smith, where they learned customs of Native American heritage in decorated teepees through making bows and arrows, holding powwows, creating costumes, and performing Saturday night ceremonies for parents and the public before camp honors were awarded. Through the dedication of the Watchung Area Council, the camp expanded to include fifteen campsites, three lean-to villages, a canoeing waterfront, outdoor skills pavilions, an archery range, a rifle range, shower and restroom facilities, staff housing, and storage buildings. After several Boy Scout councils merged, Camp Watchung closed in 1986, passed into private ownership, and was acquired as open space by the County of Hunterdon in 2003.