We were walking along a paved path bordered by petunias near our hotel, leaving behind momentarily the white wooden rocking chairs overlooking a lovely view of Oak Bluffs Harbor and anchored boats.
It was mid-morning and early summer, so Martha’s Vineyard was still a tad quiet. I was there with friends, and we were headed to the Martha Vineyard Camp Meeting Association grounds. When we entered this sanctuary bathed in history, it was even more placid.
Only a few people were out and about, tourists like us who wanted to see the place that Methodists had built in the early 19th century. We walked in near the church on a slight rise, and had a good view of the layout. Cookie-cutter gingerbread houses encircled a huge outdoor arena – the tabernacle – that descended in the center directly in front of us.
The houses were painted pastel and natural colors – pinks and purples and beige and browns. On their fronts were listed the year they were built in the 1800s. Many had been passed down through families, we learned, and others were privately owned (the houses, not the land), with strict rules governing them.
The camp meeting site was formerly called Wesleyan Grove, after the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley. It was founded in 1835 and was originally set up like many other such camps at the time, a concept first started by Presbyterians, according to the camp’s history. The first meetings were temporary and held in various locations, with worshippers sleeping in tents and bringing food that had been made the week before.
The camp’s aim was simple and singular: “dedicated to the salvation of human souls.” Then the Methodists realized that they could not only tend to their souls here, but also enjoy the sea air and fellowship with each other. This expansion of mind carried over to the structure of the camp itself: buildings were built and service businesses sprang up.
Then permanent housing was constructed during the middle of the 19th century, and a new type of architecture called “Martha’s Vineyard Cottages” was born. They were small because they had, in fact, replaced tents. Over the years, some were combined into two, others were moved (which is now forbidden), and some fell into disrepair and were torn down.
President Ulysses S. Grant helped popularize the camp when he visited the area for three days in 1874, staying at the cottage of Methodist Bishop Gilbert Haven on Clinton Avenue (now Bishop Haven House).
The original houses had no porches; those were added in the late 1880s. The wrought iron tabernacle at the heart of the camp was erected in 1879. The camp meeting site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The houses were very close to each other, so close that the woman at the Cottage Museum noted that one person’s kitchen was close to another’s bathroom. We could see for ourselves that some almost touched each other.
After walking around the site and admiring the houses at eye level, I began to look upward and was wowed by the filigree molding on the balconies. Some of them were different, and some were the same with paint giving them their own distinct feel.
Here’s what captivated me about those facades, which had also moved a local professional photographer named Michael Johnson who was selling a print he’d taken of one of them, along with other architecture in the Vineyard.
