Camp Dark Waters is a camp for about ninety boys and girls under Friends (Quaker) leadership. Samuel R. Matlack, a friend who loved children, founded it in 1928 to provide a simple natural setting for their summer enjoyment.

Camp Dark Waters serves its community of campers and staff by running recreational activities that are fun and serve to nurture the spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional life of young Friends and others. Based on the Quaker testimonies of Peace, Education, Simplicity, Stewardship, Equality, and Integrity, our diverse community builds new friendships in a "family" atmosphere. We live and play together and learn to appreciate one another in our outdoor camp setting.

Samuel Matlack purchased the slightly over fifteen acres known as Camp Dark Waters in 1927. The camp was offered to the Friends First Day School Association for the use of boys and girls of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and their friends. The first year of camp, tuition was $20 for two weeks, and cost that went down to $15 in 1929!

At the end of the thirties Sam Matlack rented the camp to a Quaker family, John and Betty Parker. They were running another camp, Camp Onas at the time and organized a plan whereby boys started out the summer at Dark Waters while girls went to Onas. In the middle of the summer, they switched.