Have you seen Juliette Marie Camp?

Dear Editor,

Have you seen Juliette Marie Camp? She has been missing for a year now and Owego was where she was last sighted. She disappeared sometime in November 2017 from her location on Front Street and she hasn’t been seen since. 

Juliette called Front Street home for 30 years when the Village of Owego officially placed her there in 1987 as part of Owego’s 200th year Bicentennial celebration. You see the Juliette Marie Camp we are looking for was a New York State Registered Historic Plaque, which proudly honored the real Juliette Marie Camp who was born in the Village of Owego in 1807. 

At age 21, Juliette became one of New York State’s pioneer woman educators opening the first all-female school in Owego in 1828, only one year after the Owego Free Academy was opened. During Owego’s Bicentennial only two historic plaques were created and installed in the Village and one was to recognize Owego’s own native daughter, Juliette, for her contributions to the education of young women at a time when the education of females was just beginning to be advocated for. Juliette was on the leading edge.

Despite losing her father in a steamship accident on the Susquehanna River in 1826, she persevered. By 1830, she had expanded her female school to become a children’s school for 40-50 Owego children and conducted this school until 1835. It is truly remarkable what she accomplished, but it really is not surprising given who her parents were. 

Juliette was one of the youngest of nine children of William and Abigail Whittlesey Camp, who first came to Owego from Connecticut in the early 1800s.  William, along with his brothers Nathan, Anson and Hermon, were one of the earliest pioneer settling families in Owego.
William and Nathan established one of the very first stores, Nathan also started the library, Anson was an officer in the War of 1812 and became a Brigadier General serving in local Owego government alongside William, and was one of the first trustees of Owego Free Academy.

Juliette came from extraordinary strong entrepreneurial stock and her mother Abigail was likely the strongest. Abigail was only 15 months old when she lost her own father at the Battle of Wyoming (valley) near present Wilkes-Barre, Pa. in 1778. In one of the two most tragic massacres of pioneer families, women and children during the American Revolution, young Abigail was placed on a raft with two other people and floated to safety down the Susquehanna River to Have de Gras, Maryland. She was eventually reunited with her grandparents.

Tragically, at least 300 patriots lost their lives to a combined force of British Tories and their allied Indians. Juliette’s parents were courageous role models who overcame great obstacles. 

The Camp family in Owego was, along with the Pumpelly and later Truman families, one of the greatest influences on the early growth and development of Owego.

Abigail later married Judge Stephen Strong after her first husband William died, and her portrait is prominently hanging just inside the entrance of the Tioga County Museum. One of Juliette’s older brothers, George Sidney Camp, was one of the first graduates of Owego Free Academy in 1832. He went on to attend Yale University at age 17 and distinguished himself as a great writer and thinker. Just before his junior year, he left Yale to study law and soon became one of New York State’s most illustrious attorneys in New York City and in Owego. 

In 1841 he wrote his famous book, Democracy, which is still being used to teach political science in colleges today. William, Abigail, George Sidney, Juliette and the rest of the Camp family were instrumental in building and shaping early Owego and its political, governmental and cultural institutions. To honor and remember Juliette Marie Camp is to honor and remember the entire Camp Family. 

We need to find the Juliette Marie Camp Bicentennial Historic Plaque and restore it to a prominent position in Owego. In somewhat perplexing circumstances, right after her historic plaque disappeared in November 2017, an entirely new plaque drawing attention to Belva Lockwood appeared in the exact same place the missing plaque stood. 

While Belva Lockwood was a celebrity and political female leader of the time, she only spent two years in Owego under her married name, was not born or raised here, and really just passed through Owego moving on the greater challenges. It is time to find Juliette Marie Camp and return her to her rightful place in the Village of Owego. It is the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

Robert Clarke Bassett

Owego, N.Y.