An undated campfire story found in the Camp Fairmarsh archives, told on the second night of the annual campout, July 14, 2003

It’s said that while Bess Danaher Raddish lived, she always wore a brass key on a long velvet ribbon around her neck. When asked what it went to, she would tell the questioner “a door.” But she was never more specific than that.

After Bess’s death, the key disappeared for a while. When Anthony Raddish’s cousin, Eloise, came to Camp Fairmarsh after Anthony’s death in 1925, the key was among the items left to her as Anthony’s heir. It’s said that she tried the key in every lock on the Camp Fairmarsh grounds during her first summer as director. By the end of that first summer, she had taken to wearing the key, now on a length...

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