Joel T. Boone, Hoover's physician, was exploring trails in the surrounding mountains and came upon an eleven-year-old boy named Ray Buracker. Boone learned that Buracker and his eight brothers and sisters had never attended school. The area in which they lived, known as Dark Hollow, had no school. When the President heard of Buracker, he said "Tell that boy if he will bring me an opossum down here I'll give him five dollars." Boone delivered the message, but nothing happened until August 10, the President's birthday, when Boone visited Dark Hollow again on horseback. The boy said he had caught an opossum for the President. With the inducement of riding to camp, the shy boy was persuaded to present his opossum directly to the President and his guest, Charles Lindbergh. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was amused to hear that Buracker and his friends had never heard of her famous husband. The President raised money to build a small schoolhouse that included an apartment for Christine Vest, the teacher they hired. Vest had been trained in the special needs of education in remote mountain communities. The first year's class of twenty-two students ranged from 6 to 20 years of age. The story of the backwoods mountain schoolhouse was publicized nationally, resulting in donations including schoolbooks, furniture, and a piano. The President took a personal interest in the school, and welcomed its students to the White House on numerous occasions. After Hoover left office, the student body dwindled as the surrounding population was forced via a blanket condemnation law to leave the area for the establishment of Shenandoah National Park in 1935. The school building was transported to Big Meadows on Skyline Drive and used as a ranger station and residence. Cabinet Members' Camp In 1930, Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur, Attorney General William D. Mitchell, and Secretary of Agriculture Arthur M. Hyde arranged for the Marines to construct a separate camp for members of Hoover's cabinet, downriver from the President's camp. The Cabinet Camp was built on land planned for incorporation into Shenandoah National Park, but still privately owned by the Madison Timber Corporation. No lease was signed, and a dispute arose about whether the Cabinet members had an oral contract with Madison Timber to construct the camp. Marines escorted timbermen off the property "by the seat of the pants," and Madison Timber was assessed property taxes for road and