Asbury Grove

Last updated

L. B. Bates Memorial Library L. B. Bates Memorial Library, Asbury Grove MA.jpg
L. B. Bates Memorial Library

Asbury Grove, located in Hamilton, Massachusetts, was formed during the camp meeting religious movement popular in the mid-19th century. Originally set on seventy-five acres of land, the camp was founded by the Methodist church in 1857. Ten of the original seventy-five acres were purchased from Joseph Dodge, a local farmer. This land included a farmhouse, which later became the Superintendent's Cottage. [1]

Contents

The camp grounds were used in the summer months by Methodist congregations from towns along the North Shore of Massachusetts (such as Lynn, Groveland, and Reading). The camp was named after Bishop Francis Asbury, a prominent member of the Methodist camp meeting circuit in the early 19th century.

The camp was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Asbury Grove Historic District in 2009.

Historical context

Camp meetings can be traced the back to Kentucky's "Great Revival" in 1800. The movement spread to the southern United States and other parts of the country thereafter. Meetings typically lasted several days and included intensive services, prayer, and bible study. [1] Although Asbury Grove is a Methodist community, other religious groups such as the Presbyterians and Baptists also joined this movement. [2]

Although Asbury Grove was not the first camp in Massachusetts (it was preceded by camps on Cape Cod and Wesleyan Grove on Martha's Vineyard) it was created specifically so that two dozen Methodist churches of the Lynn and Boston districts could have easier access to revival meetings. [3]

Early years

The first meeting at Asbury Grove was held in the third week of August, 1859, and attracted 2,000 people at its inception. Some reports state that by the end of that first week, the attendance had grown to nearly 12,000. As with other camp meetings in other towns, these were major events, often doubling or tripling (or, multiplying even further) a town's population during the gathering.

The Circle at Asbury Grove Asbury Grove Circle.jpg
The Circle at Asbury Grove

Reverend Gorham proposed that camp life should be modest, and most early camp meetings reflected this ideology by constructing only cloth tents (participants paid a small fee to rent a tent site) and wooden preaching stands. Gorham also encouraged the use of “society tents” where smaller groups could meet to hold bible study and prayer meetings. [4]

Asbury Grove's main preaching venue became The Circle, which was surrounded by 36 large tents (one for each of the member churches). These large tents had wood walls measuring six feet high, a canvas roof, and the ground inside was often covered in straw.

Peak years

A trolley at the Asbury Grove stop in the early 1900s Asbury Grove trolley station postcard.JPG
A trolley at the Asbury Grove stop in the early 1900s

The latter part of the 19th century saw the camp meeting movement gain momentum and vitality. The years from 1870 to 1879 marked the largest period of growth for the Asbury Grove camp. During this time, over 200 cottages were built. This was a marked change from the site's early years where the primary accommodations consisted of rough tents or open air campsites. The oldest surviving cottages were built closest to the prayer circle, with newer structures radiating outward from that point. Like other camps of the era, Asbury Grove slowly evolved to include permanent structures such as a dining hall, bakery, post office, and railroad ticket office. By 1875, the society tents were replaced by two story wood structures, five of which remain today. [1]

Camp participants came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. [5] A resident directory from the late 19th and early 20th century includes entries for a shoe manufacturer, teamster, oil dealer, carpenter, and a tin ware dealer. This kind of diversity was part of the philosophy that camp meetings were to be retreats from everyday life where participants focused on religious devotion and not worldly goods.

A typical day at Asbury Grove began at 5:30 a.m. followed by breakfast served promptly at 6:30 a.m. Preaching services were scheduled for 10:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., interrupted by lunch at noon, and the evening meal at 5:00 p.m. Each society also held a prayer meeting one half-hour after each meal. Curfew was at 10:00 p.m. each night, enforced by a policeman (and later, in the 1940s, by an Asbury Camp Meeting Association member) on patrol to look for people walking about or lights on inside cottages. [5]

Aside from a rigid structure to the day, personal activity was also regulated. No vehicles (wagons, automobiles, etc.) were permitted to enter during preaching services. Smoking was prohibited in the prayer circle at all times, and alcohol was strongly discouraged, even in private cottages and tents.

Decline

By the late 19th century, camp meetings were declining in popularity across the United States. This change had as much to do with society's movement away from the religious fervency of the 18th and 19th centuries as with the ease of travel caused by extensive railroad construction and the introduction of the automobile. [1] A fire in 1927 caused extensive damage to the camp and many of the cottages were marred or destroyed entirely.

A series of other fires and severe weather in the first half of the 20th century also damaged many of the cottages and the camp's property. Thereafter, a portion of the damaged structures were rebuilt, but some were left as empty lots or allowed to fall into disrepair.

The Asbury Camp Meeting Association introduced more social activities in the late 19th and early 20th century. Though Methodist preaching was still a strong influence, programs for children and youths, bible conferences, patriotic rallies, and recreational activities such as baseball and tennis began to be offered. [5]

Present day

Wesley House, one of the original Asbury Grove dormitories Wesley House, Asbury Grove.jpg
Wesley House, one of the original Asbury Grove dormitories

Still active today, Asbury Grove now covers 83 forested acres, set out in much the same pattern as the initial design. Historians believe this layout was heavily influenced by the Camp Meeting Manual [6] as it adheres to a circular plan which was popular for camp meetings at the time. Although the land is owned by the Methodist church, many of the cottages are held as private residences and 100 of the remaining 153 adhere to their original design. About 30 of the structures are small modern homes or cottages that have been altered enough that they no longer retain their historical characteristics. Overall, the cottages are still used as summer residences, but 60 have been winterized for year-round use.

2009 marked the 150th anniversary of continuous annual camp meetings at Asbury Grove. In preparation, the Asbury Camp Meeting Association renovated many of the common buildings, including the tabernacle, kitchen, and dining hall. The camp has also hosted a number of worship services, social gatherings, cottage tours, theater productions, and sporting events in observance of this occasion. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christian tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley were also significant early leaders in the movement. They were named Methodists for "the methodical way in which they carried out their Christian faith". Methodism originated as a revival movement within Anglicanism originating out of the Church of England in the 18th century and became a separate denomination after Wesley's death. The movement spread throughout the British Empire, the United States and beyond because of vigorous missionary work, and today has about 80 million adherents worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Great Awakening</span> Protestant religious revival in the early 19th-century United States

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean Grove, New Jersey</span> Place in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States

Ocean Grove is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) that is part of Neptune Township, in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It had a population of 3,057 at the 2020 United States census. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean's Jersey Shore, between Asbury Park to The north and Bradley Beach to the south. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Ocean Grove is noted for its abundant examples of Victorian architecture and the Great Auditorium, acclaimed as "the state’s most wondrous wooden structure, soaring and sweeping, alive with the sound of music".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Asbury</span> Methodist minister and bishop in America

Francis Asbury was a British-American Methodist minister who became one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback and by carriage thousands of miles to those living on the frontier.

The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself nationally. In 1939, the MEC reunited with two breakaway Methodist denominations to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.

The Holiness movement is a Christian movement that emerged chiefly within 19th-century Methodism, and to a lesser extent influenced other traditions such as Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism. The movement is historically distinguished by its emphasis on the doctrine of a second work of grace, which is called entire sanctification or Christian perfection. Churches aligned with the holiness movement additionally teach that the Christian life should be free of sin. For the Holiness movement, "the term 'perfection' signifies completeness of Christian character; its freedom from all sin, and possession of all the graces of the Spirit, complete in kind." A number of evangelical Christian denominations, parachurch organizations, and movements emphasize those beliefs as central doctrine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camp meeting</span> Christian gathering which originated in 19th-century America

The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in England and Scotland as an evangelical event in association with the communion season. It was held for worship, preaching and communion on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Revivals and camp meetings continued to be held by various denominations, and in some areas of the mid-Atlantic, led to the development of seasonal cottages for meetings.

The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination within the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Bourne</span>

Hugh Bourne along with William Clowes was the joint founder of Primitive Methodism, the largest offshoot of Wesleyan Methodism and, in the mid-19th century, an influential Protestant Christian movement in its own right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Tabor, New Jersey</span> Populated place in Morris County, New Jersey, US

Mount Tabor is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) established as a self-governing Methodist camp meeting in what is now Parsippany–Troy Hills, in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Coke (bishop)</span> Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Thomas Coke was the first Methodist bishop. Born in Brecon, Wales, he was ordained as a priest in 1772, but expelled from his Anglican pulpit of South Petherton for being a Methodist. Coke met John Wesley in 1776. He later co-founded Methodism in America and then established the Methodist missions overseas, which in the 19th century spread around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesleyan Grove</span> United States historic place

Wesleyan Grove is a 34-acre (14 ha) National Historic Landmark District in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Named after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. Also known as the Martha's Vineyard Campmeeting Association (MVCMA) or the Campgrounds, it was the first summer religious camp established in the United States. It is famous for its approximately 300 colourful cottages in a style now described as Carpenter Gothic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Fields Methodist Campground</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

Indian Field Methodist Campground is a camp meeting site for the Methodist Church in Dorchester County, South Carolina. It is on SC Route S-18-73, off US Route 15, about 5 mi (8 km) north of Saint George. Indian Field was built in 1848 and has been a site for religious gatherings for over 160 years. It is associated with the Indian Field United Methodist Church located on U.S. Highway 15 about 2 miles (3 km) north of the campground and just south of U.S. Highway 178. It was named a historic district of the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Protestantism in the United States</span>

Christianity was introduced with the first European settlers beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Colonists from Northern Europe introduced Protestantism in its Anglican and Reformed forms to Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Netherland, Virginia Colony, and Carolina Colony. The first arrivals were adherents to Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, the Baptist Church, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Quakerism, Anabaptism and the Moravian Church from British, German, Dutch, and Nordic stock. America began as a significant Protestant majority nation. Significant minorities of Roman Catholics and Jews did not arise until the period between 1880 and 1910.

Christian revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a Christian church, congregation or society with a local, national or global effect. This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings. Proponents view revivals as the restoration of the church to a vital and fervent relationship with God after a period of moral decline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Methodism in the United States</span>

The history of Methodism in the United States dates back to the mid-18th century with the ministries of early Methodist preachers such as Laurence Coughlan and Robert Strawbridge. Following the American Revolution most of the Anglican clergy who had been in America came back to England. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, sent Thomas Coke to America where he and Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was to later establish itself as the largest denomination in America during the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mountain Grove Campground</span> Campground in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

The Mountain Grove Campground was a campground, active between 1872 and 1901, that formed part of the 19th- to early 20th-century camp meeting movement, where camping was combined with worshiping and listening to preachers. These meetings were often held by Protestants, in this case, Methodists. Mountain Grove Campground was a site and resort on the Danville, Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre Railroad in Black Creek Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It existed for approximately 30 years and was run by the Mountain Grove Camp Meeting Association. A businessman named G.M. Shoop was the original owner of the campground's land. Many prominent citizens of the surrounding area were in the association. During the campground's operation between 1872 and 1901, it was renovated and expanded several times. While the camp meetings that were held there were intended for Methodists, non-Methodists occasionally attended them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Wells Knapp</span> American Methodist minister (1853–1901)

Martin Wells Knapp (1853–1901) was an American Methodist minister who founded several institutions including the magazine God’s Revivalist in 1888, the International Holiness Union and Prayer League in 1897, and God's Bible School, later known as God's Bible School and College, in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1900. He was a central figure of the more radical wing of the Holiness movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tabernacle (Methodist)</span> Center of a camp meeting In Methodism

In Methodism, a tabernacle is the center of a camp meeting, where revival services occur. Tabernacles may be constructed in a cruciform-shaped fashion and are most often made of wood. Like the interior of many Methodist churches, in the center of the tabernacle is an altar upon which the Eucharist is consecrated; a pulpit stands near it and is used by preachers to deliver sermons. The area of the tabernacle housing the altar and pulpit is delimited by the mourner's bench. Surrounding the tabernacle itself are usually several cabins and/or tents, where people stay while attending the camp meeting.

The Sterling Camp Meeting Grounds, also known at the Worcester Methodist District Camp was a Methodist camp ground founded in 1852 that was located south of the East and West Waushacum Ponds and two miles south of Sterling, Massachusetts. The 14-mile Fitchburg and Worcester Rail Line brought visitors to Sterling Junction, which was a short walk to the Sterling Camp Meeting Grounds. The Boston and Maine Railroad brought people from Boston, Lowell, and Cambridge for the one week to 10-day retreats. More than 1,000 people attended the summer revivals from all over the state of Massachusetts. The site had a number of amenities for lodging, meals, and services.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Weiss, 1998
  2. ↑ Forney, 1914
  3. ↑ Vincent, 1858
  4. ↑ Gorham, 1854
  5. 1 2 3 4 Beard, 2009
  6. ↑ Rev. B. W. Gorham, 1854

42°37′29.0″N70°53′14.7″W / 42.624722°N 70.887417°W / 42.624722; -70.887417

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.