From the summer of 1929 through 1931, the camp was located on Bailey Island in Casco Bay, Maine. According to Ditte Frederiksen McNeil, founder Josh Lieberman's granddaughter, "The camp was on a peninsula. The very tip of the peninsula was only accessible at low tide. At high tide the tip of the peninsula became a very small island that the campers named Robinson Crusoe Island." That gave the camp its name.

Ditte, who has many of Josh's photo albums, scanned the pictures below from one of those summers.

Josh was able to buy the land in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, in time for the camp to operate there in the summer of 1932. That site became the camp's permanent home, and the name "Robinson Crusoe" was retained.