Based in Montclair, a grassroots organization, Friends of Glen Gray, is raising money to purchase at least 200 of the more than 800 acres in a cooperative deal with The Trust for Public Land, which plans to turn the rest of the tract over to Bergen County for open space. Friends of Glen Gray hopes to keep its area as a camp, not only for the Boy Scouts, but for other parties such as Girl Scouts and school groups.

"We're trying to support a resolution that has a long-term solution for the camp," said John Hartinger, spokesperson for Friends of Glen Gray. If the group obtains the camp, then it will be maintained by an endowment fund and from usage fees.

There have been competing offers for the camp, according to Jon Brennan, assistant executive for the Northern New Jersey Council, most of which would also preserve the land as open space but would pay more than $4 million. Some de-velopers have made unsolicited offers, said Brennan, but the council has made it clear it wants to sell the tract for open space. The Trust for Public land is negotiating under an April deadline, he said, which is why there are some who feel the talks may soon conclude.

Three Montclair Scout troops have cabins at Glen Gray, which they use frequently. For those troops, the camp was established as a place of permanency, a stretch of the great outdoors to be used when they wanted and how they wanted.

But Brennan explained that, in the perception of the Northern New Jersey Council, the tract is now redundant.

Camp Glen Gray was acquired when the Essex Council merged with those from Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties to form the Northern New Jersey Council in 1998. The new council wound up with more than 10 camps. Brennan said the council could run its camp program for troop members with only half that number. Camp Glen Gray is one of five camps owned fully by the council, and since it isn't as handicapped-accessible as others, the council voted in January 2001 to sell it.

Brennan denied that the camp is being sold to help cover the costs of the council's new $3.8 million headquarters in Oakland, or to compensate for funding from the United Way that has been withdrawn from the council because of the national council's decision to ban gay Scout leaders. The latter point is definitely a concern though, Brennan acknowledged.

"I hope they're feeling some pressure," said Ken Cowing, co-Scoutmaster of Montclair's Cub Scout Pack 5. "Increasingly, I've heard a lot of parents say they're unwilling to donate, which forces us to just take care of our own local pack.

"The executives that are basically in power are apparently from the other coun-cil, so they don't have that attachment to history," said Cowing, of the sale of Camp Glen Gray. "What we're talking about is something related to the history and soul of our area. Camp Glen Gray was founded by people from our area."

That may be so, but Brennan said that there were members on the Northern New Jersey Council from Essex County who voted to sell the tract.

The camp's history is rooted in Montclair, entwined with the legacy of the man whose name the tract carries, Frank Fellows Gray.

Gray, called Uncle by many Scouts of his time, was a poet, a teacher, an enigma. He dedicated his life to the development of Scouting as some men dedicate their lives to evangelism, or missionary work, as though the act of offering direction to others was the only thing that filled his own desire for meaning.

Gray has been described as a man who was not very open about his history or personal life. As he forged a legacy in the early part of this century as one of the first American men to create a Boy Scout troop, Gray carried an air of mystery that left those who knew him best recounting their time together with an almost mythical tone, like some great campfire story.

As Luther Edmunds Price recounted in his book, "Thirty Years of Scout Camping," compiled in 1940, "Mr. Gray left too little in the way of memoirs. A research extending over many years has failed to disclose any record which will give a complete picture of Mr. Gray's life. Even as regards his age there was a mystery, an insoluble mystery."

As headmaster of a New York military academy, Gray suffered a personal tragedy, retired, and took up a short residence in the home of a Long Island clergyman and friend, Rev. Wilbur Schoonhoven, to recover.

"He never spoke freely of his parents," Schoonhoven stated of Gray in Price's book. "His father was unsympathetic with his boyhood aims, but his mother he adored. He always impressed me as having a great sorrow hidden away in his heart...He would ridicule the foibles of his pupils, but they would take it, realizing the great hearted, sympathetic manliness of his nature and admiring his sterling qualities of character."

Soon after, Gray moved to Montclair, and as Price stated, "established himself as an expert in the training of difficult boys in the public school system."

In 1907, Gray traveled to Great Britain and returned the follow-ing year, having studied a developing method of Scouting for boys based on the wartime survival manuals of Robert Baden-Powell, the future father of Boy Scouts.

By 1909, Gray had formed his own group of boys from Montclair that he and other counselors would take hiking and camping trips. Price hinted in his book that it may have been the first troop in the United States trained in the Baden-Powell method but later acknowledged that even Gray admitted he didn't know for sure.

However, the troop, later to be known as Troop 4, received a visit from Baden-Powell himself in 1912, and the leader bestowed his own name exclusively on the group. The following year, Gray was made commissioner of the Montclair Scout Coun-cil.

Price stated that the period between 1910 and 1917 was the "nomadic" period for Scouts in the Montclair area. Gray's group camped at several places during that time frame, including Dudley Island on Lake Wawayanda and at Forge Pond on the Wanaque River. Gray took several Scouts to tour Great Britain and Ireland in 1912 and to Bermuda in 1913. Scouts were also taken on educational trips to historic battlefields such as Bunker Hill and Gettysburg.

But it soon became apparent that the Scouts needed a camp space to call their own, a place they could be sure would always be available. The council formed a search committee in 1916, and after narrowing down five choice spots, decided that an area in the Ramapo Mountains, just 20 miles from Montclair, would be best.

The tract was ideal for the adventurous young person, with American Indian trails that still held the promise of finding Native American relics, and a history steeped in the American Revolution.

The council bought the 820-acre tract piece by piece, and Camp Glen Gray, named for Frank Fellows Gray, was dedicated in 1917.

"I was very involved (with the camp)," said John McMullen, Montclair resident and former owner of the New Jersey Devils. McMullen was named to a coveted position of The Old Guard, a select group of Scouts whose charge it is to protect and maintain Camp Glen Gray.

Some of McMullen's favorite memories are of working together with his father, a strong supporter of the Scouts, at the camp on such projects as building a cabin.

"Quite a number of fathers went to Glen Gray," said Cowing. They'd send their sons to the camp, who would in turn send their sons.

"It has a tremendous history, and has been used by generations of Scouts," said Hartinger. "When Scouts go out and sit by that campfire, they're participating in that tradition."

"My dad was one of the founders of Camp Glen Gray," said Irving Porter, who grew up in Montclair but now lives in Maine. "He used to help 'Uncle' out before I was old enough to be a Scout."

Irving Porter said his father, Henry Porter, met Gray at the YMCA shortly after moving to Montclair in 1911. The two became friends, Irving said, and the elder Porter started accompanying Gray to the Montclair schools to encourage boys to become Scouts.

"My dad would roll over in his grave if he knew that [Glen Gray was being sold]," said Irving.

McMullen agreed, saying he didn't really like the idea of the camp being sold, though he admitted he didn't know the details enough to comment further. McMullen has, however, given his support to Friends of Glen Gray, as have many Scout alumni, according to Hartinger.

"A number of people who know each other from Scouts and who used camp Glen Gray got together to come up with ideas of what we could do," said Hartinger.

Many have donated money to Friends of Glen Gray, while others are volunteering their time spreading the word of the organization's efforts to buy the land. Anyone interested in contributing time or money to the campaign can visit www.glengray.org on the Internet.

In the meantime, Hartinger is approaching another session of negotiations with the Northern New Jersey Council's subcommittee, which will soon release its recommendation to the council. Because of the sensitivity of the talks, Hartinger was cautious about saying how much money has been raised, or whether he even thought Friends of Glen Gray had a chance of securing the land from the council.

For Cowing, the notion that there will now be newer camps with better facilities for his Cub Scouts rather than the rugged outdoor slopes of Camp Glen Gray seems like a weak trade-off.

Cowing said that the quarter-mile hike from the Glen Gray parking lot to the camping facilities is part of what an outdoor weekend is supposed to be about.

"It's like saying we can make plenty of reproductions of the Liberty Bell, so we don't need this one," said Cowing.