One hundred fifty years ago this year, by an act of the Massachusetts legislature, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association was incorporated to manage what had become one of the largest camp meetings in New England.
Each year the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association holds a Gingerbread Cottage Tour, taking guests inside the privately owned cottages to get a look past the porches. This year’s tour is Wednesday, August 8 and includes six cottages. The tour runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., beginning at the Tabernacle. The cost is $30, which includes the tour and admission to the Cottage Museum and refreshments.
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association the association is hosting History Week beginning on Sunday, July 29.
On a recent Wednesday evening over 200 people followed the winding paths of the Camp Ground to the Trinity Park Tabernacle for the Community Sing, a tradition for more than 100 years.
The Oak Bluffers will soon have to compete with the undertaking by the Vineyard Grove Company, who owns the delightful grove on the “other side of Jordon.” This association is composed of gentlemen of excellent standing, and we learn that it is their intention to conduct the affairs of the same in a manner that cannot fail to be appreciated by visitors and must prove profitable to all concerned. Lots have been sold for building purposes, and we expect to see ere many years, a thriving settlement here.
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 rain will stop. The clouds will clear. And the historic circle of gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs will become a fairyland of lights. The Night of the Grand Illumination is here.
The 132nd Illumination Night will be held tomorrow night.
