At the turn of the last century, Elizabeth Ford Holt traveled north from Boston to New Hampshire with a dream to establish a summer camp for boys.. a place where boys could spend the summer learning, and growing. In 1903 she purchased the Barnard Farm on the shores of Newfound Lake and founded Mowglis for Boys.

Having obtained the permission of author Rudyard Kipling, she was able to borrow names from his Jungle Books, and to this day many of the buildings at Mowglis carry such names as Toomai, Baloo, and Akela. Throughout his life, Mr. Kipling maintained an active interest in the undertaking so influenced by his inspiring and exciting stories. 

Mr. Kipling also instructed Mrs. Holt on how to pronounce Mowglis ("Mow" sounds like cow, and "glee"), and how to pluralize the name of Mowgli the boy character in the Books, by adding a silent "s".

In the spring of 1925 Mrs. Holt passed the camp onto long-time Assistant Col. Alcott Farrar Elwell, who ran Mowglis for 27 years. In 1962, after Mr. Darwin P. Kingsley, and Mr. John C. Adams had taken over from Colonel Elwell for five years apiece, the Holt-Elwell Memorial Foundation was established and acquired the camp to insure the continuity of the program as a non-profit institution. To this day the Holt-Elwell Memorial Foundation carries on the traditions that were established in the early 1900's by the founder, Mrs. Holt.