The camp meeting movement in the United States began in Kentucky and Appalachia before the 1820s as religious vehicles that were also important as social gatherings. They were held annually in a particular district where participants would travel 50-100 miles to attend. Camp meetings were first introduced by Presbyterians but soon after included Baptists and Methodists newly converted by the teachings of John Wesley. In no time at all Methodists of New England began to hold their own camp meetings. The first camp meeting in Cottage City
was held in 1835 and the gatherings grew as steamboats brought companies from New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. The development of Cottage City is credited to its success as having the largest Methodist Camp Meeting Association in the world. For that one week in August of 1835, nine men from nearby Edgartown decided to separate themselves from the comforts of the town to head into the woods to find a place where they could pray. This place, the headland of East Chop, full of tall oak trees and overlooking Nantucket Sound, is where they pitched their tents. They found that the event was so "invigorating" to the spirit that they returned the next year. Soon a few mainlanders joined them, and some fell in love with the beauty of the land and water, and the healthful saltiness of the air. They too began to come back year after year.
was held in 1835 and the gatherings grew as steamboats brought companies from New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. The development of Cottage City is credited to its success as having the largest Methodist Camp Meeting Association in the world. For that one week in August of 1835, nine men from nearby Edgartown decided to separate themselves from the comforts of the town to head into the woods to find a place where they could pray. This place, the headland of East Chop, full of tall oak trees and overlooking Nantucket Sound, is where they pitched their tents. They found that the event was so "invigorating" to the spirit that they returned the next year. Soon a few mainlanders joined them, and some fell in love with the beauty of the land and water, and the healthful saltiness of the air. They too began to come back year after year.
Within a generation, the annual Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting was the most famous Methodist revival meeting in the country, and gingerbread cottages were rising up on the wooden platforms where the participants first used tents during the meetings. Visitors arrived by the thousands from all over New England to watch the religious spectacle in what was coming to be known as the 'Cottage City' of America. In the summer of 1863, it was still possible to wander through this wilderness of oak and meadow on the old Camp Ground and see not a single permanent building. Ten years later the oak and meadow were gone and soon, a village would have to be built in order to house the faithful.
Around 1872 the town today known as Oak Bluffs was built. The town encircled the original Camp Ground where the cottages now stood as the main street around the grounds was called Circuit Avenue. Contrary to the spiritual pursuits of the original members, the town around the Camp Grounds was quickly becoming a bustling, commercial place. The participants of the Camp Ground attempted to separate themselves by building a picket fence between them and the expanding town, and the interior remains today a place of peace and tranquility.
Before the town of
Cottage City was incorporated in 1880, it was still considered a part of Edgartown but the inhabitants were trying to separate themselves legally from Edgartown, which it felt was taking tax money and offering little or nothing in the way of services in return. Finally, in 1880, Cottage City became official but eventually, the name would be changed again, this time to Oak Bluffs in 1907.
Cottage City was incorporated in 1880, it was still considered a part of Edgartown but the inhabitants were trying to separate themselves legally from Edgartown, which it felt was taking tax money and offering little or nothing in the way of services in return. Finally, in 1880, Cottage City became official but eventually, the name would be changed again, this time to Oak Bluffs in 1907.
