A circumstantial account of the selection of the site of the Martha’s Vineyard camp ground - which was the equivalent of the selection of the site for the town of Oak Bluffs - is contained in a communication which the Vineyard Gazette published in 1885. Jeremiah Pease of Edgartown was the prime mover; but the communication did not mention that the pastor in Edgartown a few years before this first meeting at the grove had been Rev. Frederick Upham. Mr. Upham was probably at the first camp meeting; he was certainly at the second.
The modern town of Oak Bluffs traces its origin to a camp meeting held at the site, then a paradise or a wilderness — most people thought the former — in 1835. Hebron Vincent of Edgartown made this record of the first camp meeting, in his history, published long ago:
The first camp meeting held in this beautiful grove was in the year 1835, and commenced on Monday, the 24th day of August. A meeting has been held here every year since, excepting that of 1845, when it was removed to Westport Point.
This religious encampment has become an Institution, there is nothing like it in this country, and it is greatly increasing from year to year. In accordance with the recommendation of the agent of the Grounds, in his annual report, important measures have been adopted at the business meetings. Among the things ordered were the digging of an additional well and the setting out of shade trees. The erection of a two and one half story house has just been completed, under the general supervision of the Agent. The building is in modern style, thoroughly finished and painted 24 feet by 40.
The readers of the Gazette will please bear with us this week for the lack of extended news of local affairs. We are publishing the Camp Meeting Herald, daily and it occupies so much of time and labor that we are unable to pay that degree of attention to the Gazette as is our custom. We reproduce a number of articles from the Herald, which are well worth reading.
This meeting was commenced on Wednesday, the 18th instant, at Wesleyan Grove, and was more numerously attended than on any previous year. The greatest number present was on Sunday, when it was estimated there were between four and five thousand persons on the ground. In Providence and the neighborhood the Methodists were disappointed in chartering a steamer for the occasion, and many (estimated at 1,500) were therefore prevented from coming; yet, so great was the increase, upon former years, from other places, that the decrease from this quarter was much far more than made up.
The whininess, contempt and partisanship with which the Vineyard Gazette reported this story over six years is journalism in its brightest rain-slicker yellow - all the more embarrassing and entertaining today because the paper lost the fight.
For many Islanders, the chairs and benches at the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle are synonymous with the place itself. Now the iconic 19th century seating will be restored.
The famous Pink House on the grounds of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association is once again for sale. It is the most photographed of all the many photogenic houses in the Camp Ground.
