George Atwater Inscription

As a follow up to yesterday's entry, here is a letter and a book inscription by the author of the Young Crusaders Series.

The letter would seem to indicate that Atwater was unhappy with the conditions at his camp.

George Parkin Atwater (1874-1932) was born in Lisbon, Ohio. He attended Kenyon College and was ordained a Deacon in 1898 and the Priesthood in 1909. He was not only active in the Episcopal Church but also an avid advocate for scouting. In the Northern Ohio area he founded the Young Crusaders Camp in 1903-1904. This camp was still active (under other names) into at least the 1960's.

Although Atwater never wrote any other juvenile series books , he did write a number of books about or related to his Episcopal religion. Some titles are:

The Episcopal Church -Parish Publishers 1917
The A-A Method for the Cumulative Endowment of Churches-Parish Publishers 1924
A Word- Map of the Old Testament- Parish Publishers 1923
National Administration for the Episcopal Church- Parish Publishers 1919
Annals of a Parish-Privately printed in 1928

He moved from his native Akron to Brooklyn after serving as rector for 29 years at the Church of Our Savior. After two years in Brooklyn he was elected the Suffragan Bishop of the Protestant Diocese of Long Island

Young Crusaders Series with Rare Boxed First Book

Here is an example of a 20th century juvenile series book that came individually boxed. Very unusual.

The Young Crusaders Series is a two book series written by the Reverend George P. Atwater. Active in scouting in the Akron, Ohio area and the founder of The Young Crusader's Camp in 1903, Atwater had the first of these two books published by a local publisher, Parish Publishers of Akron, Ohio in 1911.
It was entitled The Young Crusaders. The story involved a boys' camp and the adventures there with a mix of morality thrown in.

I am unable to find evidence that the Parish Publishers published any other juvenile series books. It would seem it printed mostly local religious types of books.




















Subsequently the series second book was published in 1912. It was The Young Crusaders at Washington. At that time Little Brown reprinted the first book. The second book was about a group of scouts going to meet the President in Washington and their subsequent adventures.

The blue covered book here is the Parish Publishers Book from 1911.
This green book is the Little, Brown and Co. book.


The very special first book published by Parish originally came dust jacketed in a box. This is one of the only juvenile series books of the 20th century (that I know of) that came in an individual box. The box which is pictured here has the same picture as the underlying jacket and book cover. The Little, Brown edition has the same cover picture as the Parish edition but is green not blue. Also the Little Brown edition dropped one of the photographs. There are 13 photographic illustrations in the Parish book in addition to numerous sketches throughout the book.

I have not seen a copy of the 1912 second book in this series.