Camp Mowglis was established in 1903,by Elizabeth Ford Holt,when she was traveling north from Boston to New Hampshire.Her dream was to establish a summer camp for young boys and teenagers.She bought the Barnard Farm on the shores of the Newfoundland,one of the cleanest lakes in North America, and founded Camp Mowglis. Elizabeth obtained the permission of Rudyard Kipling to borrow names from his Jungle Books. A lot of the actual buildings carry names inspired from this books,such as Toomai Baloo and Akela.

In 1925 Mrs. Holt passed the camp onto long time Assistant Col. Alcott Farrar Elwell, who ran Mowglis for 27 years.To insure the continuity of the program as a non-profit institution,Colonel Elwell established the Holt-Elwell Memorial Fundation in 1962.