What is Camp Sysonby?

 

Camp Sysonby was a Boy Scout camp located just south of the Appomattox River outside Petersburg, Virginia from 1965 until 1994. Used primarily by Troop 175 in what was then the Robert E. Lee Council (now Heart of Virginia Council), the camp was located on the property of the McIlwaine family.

Camp Sysonby served as a home for summer camp and monthly weekend campouts for 29 years, and came to be known as the Home of the Eagle given the many Eagle Scouts who were graced to know the joys of Scouting on that hallowed ground.

The camp was established in 1965, with a parachute for a dining hall and a dug-out latrine. At that time, Camp Shawondassee was requiring Scouts to cook their own meals. Mr. Al Ramsey, then Scoutmaster of Troop 175, saw how much time this took away from merit badge time and decided to start his own summer camp.

That first year, the troop had over 100 Scouts and was growing steadily. As time progressed, the camp did too. They built an archery range, rifle range, permanent latrine, dining hall, boat dock, swimming pool, and showers. All of this was within 100 yards or so of camp headquarters, which made it very conducive to the development of lifelong friendships and helped bolster the brotherhood of Scouting.

Around 1980, Troop 175 did not have enough Scouts to put on their own camp, but some of the former members had moved out of the immediate district and started their own troops by then. So Troop 175 invited other troops to join them at Sysonby, and each year more and more new Scouts would discover the wonders that Sysonby had to offer.

Most of the Scouters who ran Sysonby had once been Scouts at the camp, and they had gained so much that they continued giving back serving as the camp’s Staff each summer.

In 1993, Dr. McIlwaine sold the farm where Sysonby was built, and Camp Sysonby closed with its last campfire. The Council’s local camp, Camp T. Brady Saunders, invited the Sysonby troops to the spirit of Sysonby alive. So beginning in 1995, all the troops moved to Brady Saunders as a group. The camp offered them a lot of the things they had at their old camp to get them to come with a focus on keeping the troops together.

For the next 11 years, through 2006, the Sysonby tradition lived on at Brady Saunders. The troops used the Koch Lodge as their headquarters, and conducted their own merit badge program and campfires while participating in the Brady Saunders program. They also have a special patch made for them each year, as the word “Sysonby” was stitched on to the Brady Saunders patch to show the camp’s appreciation.

Even today, visitors to Camp T. Brady Saunders at the Heart of Virginia Scout Reservation are greeted by the Sysonby Eagle, which sits prominently next to the TBS Administrative Building, erected in honor of Scoutmaster Al Ramsey following his passing in 1998. This work of art was once mounted on the Sysonby Dining Hall and has a story of its own.

Visitors to the Heart of Virginia Scout Reservation can also stop by the Nawakwa Scouting Museum where a full collection of Sysonby patches remains on permanent display.

The Sysonby spirit continues to live on in Troop 175, of course, as well as in other troops and units founded and supported by the Eagles who once called Camp Sysonby home.