Every summer
since
1893.
The Cambridge Gun and Rod Club is one of America's oldest Black sportsmen's clubs. Camp Monroe is its home on the water. We have kept the camp open one hundred and thirty seasons.
A club. Not a resort.
In 1893 a group of Black and Jewish men in Boston were shut out of the city's hunting and fishing clubs. So they built one of their own — on a lake in Maine. They named it the Cambridge Gun and Rod Club. We have opened it every August since.
By the 1920s the camp drew lawyers, judges, and scholars. W.E.B. Du Bois was a member, not a founder. He came back summer after summer and treated the camp like his Walden Pond. Joe Louis came as a guest. The men's chapter still takes the first full week of August. In 2026 a women's chapter joins.
Read the history
Cambridge Gun and Rod Club, Lake Cobbosseecontee, August 1897
What’s here.
The Camp
Five thousand five hundred acres of water. One of the best bass lakes in the Northeast.
Lake Cobbosseecontee
Membership
By sponsorship. By application.
Request an invitation
History
A hundred and thirty years on the lake.
Read the history
The W.E.B. Files
Du Bois at camp, 1920–1947.
See the Files
Visit
Private events. Retreats. Whole-camp buyouts.
Plan a stay“I have a box at the Cambridge Gun and Rod Club. Will you please have it sent to me by railway express?”W.E.B. Du Bois · 21 August 1947
Another century to put in.
Request an invitation. Or follow the 2026 season from the road.
The next chapter of the club.
Leave an email and we’ll send a quiet note when there’s something to share.