EARLY OHIO CAMP MEETINGS, 1801-1816
by CHARLES
A. JOHNSON
Instructor in American History,
University of Maryland
(On Military Leave)
As soon as we came upon the ground
[Mechanicsburg, Ohio], I felt
that God was with the meeting. Give
us a chimney, that we may have fire:
it was done. God was with us, and souls
were converted.--BISHOP FRANCIS
ASBURY.1
In challenging the lawlessness and
immorality of the frontier
the western churches forged new
religious weapons. Among the
most successful was the camp meeting.
To many denominations it
proved invaluable in gaining new
adherents, and to the isolated
settlers it provided spiritual and
social refreshment. This new tech-
nique was generated in the
pulse-quickening years of the Great
Revival when the Presbyterian preacher,
James McGready, was
attracting great crowds to his services
in Logan County, Kentucky.
At his Gasper River sacramental meeting
of July 1800 the newly
erected church building could not hold
one-tenth of the worshipers
who had traveled from miles around.
Undaunted, he moved the
meeting to the adjoining clearing,
where religious fervor prompted
many to improvise shelters and encamp
for several days. By this
spontaneous action, linking the
practice of camping out with the
continuous outdoor service, the camp
meeting institution was born.
Measured by the numbers converted, the
Gasper River sacrament
was a brilliant success, insuring the
staging of similar open-air
revivals by McGready's fellow ministers
and those of other faiths.
With its equalitarian appeal,
sociability, audience participation, and
emphasis on personalized religion, the
camp meeting found a ready
acceptance among many Presbyterian,
Methodist, and Baptist clergy-
men in the settled areas of Kentucky
and Tennessee. It was no small
factor in the widespread success of the
Second Great Awakening.
In many ways atypical, the Cane Ridge
camp meeting of Bourbon
1 Italics his. Francis Asbury, Journal
of Rev. Francis Asbury (3 vols., New York,
1852), III, 463, entry of August 26,
1815.
32
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 33
County, Kentucky, has been the model
many critics have used to
create their lurid pictures of the
frontier revival. Certainly scholars
of American Christianity would agree
that the Cane Ridge services,
if they can be dignified by that name,
represented the most dis-
orderly, the most hysterical, and the
largest ever held in America.
This "General Camp Meeting"
of August 1801 lasted six days and
nights. Attended by an estimated ten to
twenty-five thousand persons,
it was participated in by great numbers
of Presbyterian, Methodist,
and Baptist preachers. The Rev. Barton
W. Stone, its Presbyterian
sponsor, boasted that "many had
come from Ohio," probably from
the Miami River Valley, and some from
even greater distances.2
When the tumult of Cane Ridge had died
down, the Great Divide
in camp meeting history was reached.
With its "muscular Chris-
tianity," its bedlam and
confusion, that meeting helped fortify the
convictions of the more conservative
churchmen that such pro-
ceedings were a burlesque of religion.
Anti-revival and pro-revival
sentiment divided western
Presbyterianism into two feuding groups.3
Included among the woodland revival's
supporters were a number
of ministers and exhorters of little or
no education who viewed it as
a remarkably effective technique for
gaining converts. Visitors from
neighboring states returned home from
Kentucky to hold encamp-
ment after encampment. Early Ohio camp
meetings were marked
by the same rampant enthusiasm and
animal excitement that char-
acterized those in Kentucky, a
condition that is understandable,
since they were offshoots of that same
movement. Zealous Pres-
byterian preachers moved north of the
Ohio River and conducted a
camp meeting at Eagle Creek in
present-day Adams County be-
ginning on June 5, 1801--the first
encampment on record in the
Ohio Territory.4
2 Barton
W. Stone, The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone, Written by Himself
(Cincinnati, 1847), 38. Historian
MacLean reports visitors from the Eagle Creek
settlement in Ohio to Kentucky
encampments in late May. See John P. MacLean, "The
Kentucky Revival and Its Influence on
the Miami Valley," Ohio State Archaeological
and Historical Quarterly, XII (1903), 246.
3 The
story of the schisms in western Presbyterianism over the camp meeting's un-
bridled emotionalism and its
infringement on the Calvinistic creed is told in William
W. Sweet, Religion on the American
Frontier, Vol. II, The Presbyterians, 1783-1840:
A Collection of Source Materials (Chicago, 1936), 89-96.
4 This initial encampment lasted four
days and three nights. MacLean, "The
Kentucky Revival," 246.
34 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
The promoters of this forest revival
became the nuclei of a group
which shortly broke away from the
parent organization and in 1804
formed the "Christian
Church," also known as the "Stonite" or
"New Light Presbyterian"
Church. Richard McNemar, "New
Light" leader, has described a
phase of their spirited services:
Praying, shouting, jerking, barking, or
rolling; dreaming, prophesying,
and looking as through a glass, at the
infinite glories of mount Zion, just
about to break open upon the world
[occurred].... They practiced a mode
of prayer, which was as singular, as
the situation in which they stood, and the
faith by which they were actuated.
According to their proper name of dis-
tinction, they stood separate and
divided, each one for one; and in this
capacity, they offered up each their
separate cries to God, in one united
harmony of sound; by which, the
doubtful footsteps of those who were in
search of the meeting, might be
directed, sometimes to the distance of miles.5
That same year "the ministry"
of the Shaker community, located
at New Lebanon, New York, some
twenty-five miles east of Albany,
decided to send missionaries to the
West. The glowing reports of
revivals in Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Ohio printed in the eastern
religious press matched the prophecy of
Mother Ann Lee, founder of
the celibate society. On New Year's
Day, 1805, Benjamin Seth
Youngs, Issachar Bates, and John
Meacham set out on foot to create
a new moral order in the western
country. After a sixty-day journey
they reached the scene of religious
excitement-Bourbon County,
Kentucky. At various encampments the
"Three Witnesses," as they
were called, presented unusual
"testimony" whenever they were
granted the right to use the rostrum
after the formal services had
ended. From the outset, the Shaker
missionaries complained that
they were not accorded the usual
preaching privileges during the
meetings.
Moving northward to sparsely populated
Ohio the next year,
the Shaker churchmen continued to use
the "Stonite" encampments
as sounding boards. Stopping at the
Turtle Creek settlement in
southwestern Ohio in March, they made
it a point to appear at all
5 Italics his. Richard McNemar, The
Kentucky Revival; or a Short History of the
Late Extraordinary Outpouring of the
Spirit of God in the Western States of America
(New York, 1846), 73. In 1812 Barton W.
Stone ceased reporting camp meetings
held by the various autonomous church
organizations, thus ending even this meager
source of information on Stonite
encampments.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 35
of Richard McNemar's revivals and to
gain converts through their
preaching.6 Such tactics
naturally aroused the ire of the "New
Lights," who considered their
hospitality rudely imposed upon. So
aroused was Barton W. Stone that he
denounced the Shakers as
believers in "an old woman's
fables." They were "wolves in sheep's
clothing, [who] have smelt us from
afar, and have come to tear, rend
and devour."7 Not
content with luring laymen to their millennial
cause, the Shakers concentrated on
winning over a number of Stonite
ministers. Preacher Malcolm Worley
enthusiastically gave the society
an estate of five thousand acres when
he joined.8 This tract formed
the basis of the main Shaker community
west of the Alleghenies--
Union Village--which was founded near
Lebanon, Ohio, in 1805.9
Five other Stonite clergymen succumbed.10
Of these, Richard
McNemar's defection on April 23 was
possibly the most significant.
His congregation, like many others,
also transferred their allegiance.
Thus camp meeting revivalism is
inextricably connected with the
beginnings of Shakerism on the western
frontier.
McNemar waited but five days to hold
his first encampment under
new auspices. A group of Stonites
journeyed from Springfield to
the Turtle Creek church to show the
erring members their folly.
The invaders soon made the camp ground
a lively place. By no
stretch of the imagination could the
meeting be said to have con-
tributed to denominational love and
understanding. Issachar Bates,
Shaker missionary, described the hectic
scene:
A great body of blazing hot New Lights
with John Thompson . . . a
6
Turtle Creek is now Union Village, Warren County. Consult Calvin Green
and
Seth Wells, A Summary View of the
Millennial Church, or United Society of Be-
lievers, Commonly Called Shakers (2d ed., Albany, 1848), 79-82; McNemar, The
Kentucky Revival, 79-115.
7 Introduction to his "Letters on
Atonement," cited in McNemar, The Kentucky
Revival, 102.
8 Levi
Purviance, The Biography of Elder David Purviance, with His Memoirs
(Dayton, Ohio, 1848), 287.
9 The first year Union Village was
composed of one hundred and twenty-six
"believers," but by April 30,
1810, there was a complement of three hundred persons.
See Green and Wells, Summary View, 80;
also consult John P. MacLean, Shakers of
Ohio: Fugitive Papers Concerning the
Shakers of Ohio, with Unpublished Manuscripts
(Columbus, 1907), 11, 60. "North
Union Village," founded in 1822, is present-day
Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland.
For other Shaker communities founded in the
West, see Green and Wells, Summary
View, 75-76.
10 Specifically, John Stewart, John
Patterson, John Dunlavy, Matthew Houston, and
Richard McNemar. See MacLean, Shakers
of Ohio, 190-194.
36 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
preacher at their head determined to
break down all before them. Thompson
mounted the stand and began his
preachment and undertook to show how
much they had been imposed on by
deceivers . . . and now these Eastern
men had come to tell us that Christ had
made his second appearance,
(pause), but they are liars, they are
liars, they are liars. . . . For about
half an hour it was one steady cry
glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory
to Jesus, and almost every other
noise.... I was ordered back to hell from
whence I came and called all the bad
names they could think of, after the
noise began to cease I stepped off the
log and passed through the multitude
and as I passed they cried out, see how
his conscience is seared as with a
hot iron, he does not regard it [at]
all.11
Although a few other camp meetings were
held by the Shakers
during 1805, once their new community
at Union Village was firmly
established they saw little need for
more of them.
While the Presbyterians and Baptists
were discontinuing the
camp meeting, the Methodists were
coming to view it as their own
peculiar institution.12 By
1805. only the left-wing elements of Pres-
byterianism continued its use, as
already noted. Although never an
"official" practice of the
Methodists, this supplementary technique
of revivalism became an integral part
of their system. Bishop
Francis Asbury, general superintendent
of the Methodist Church in
America, was one of the camp meeting's
greatest advocates; under
his church's sponsorship the pioneer
revival reached its harvest time.
Methodism's rapid progress in the
Northwest Territory can be
charted in the multiplication of
circuits and the rapid increase in
church membership. When the Western
Conference, comprising
all the circuits west of the
Alleghenies, was created in 1800, only
three circuits existed in the Ohio
Territory. Then the total member-
ship in the entire Northwest Territory
was 364 whites and 2 colored.13
11 Manuscript Autobiography of Issachar
Bates, quoted in MacLean, "The Kentucky
Revival," 269-270.
12 The third schism in western
Presbyterianism, growing out of the controversy
over camp meeting revivalism, produced
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. This
group apparently did not reach Ohio
until the year 1829, when they conducted their
first outdoor revival there. See B. W.
McDonnald, History of the Cumberland Church
(Nashville, 1888), 294-295. The Baptist
Church generally limited its use of en-
campments to the annual meetings of the
local "Baptist Associations."
13 Minutes of the Annual
Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New
York, 1840-45), I, 98. Asbury noted in
1812 that "Ohio will give six thousand for
her increase of members in one new
district." Journal, III, 396, entry of October 10,
1812.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 37
By 1811, the year before the Western
Conference was divided into
the Ohio and Tennessee conferences, the
situation was entirely
changed. The denomination's enrollment
had then grown to include
10,028 white and 76 colored
communicants.14 Explanation for this
phenomenal growth lay in the tireless
activities of the itinerant who
delivered the word of God at his
preaching appointments, class
meetings, and two-day meetings (lasting
from Saturday afternoon
to Sunday evening). Nor was the circuit
rider averse to utilizing
the camp meeting in extending Methodist
influence to the remotest
edges of settlement.15
Apparently the first Methodist
encampment in Ohio was held
near Marietta in 1804 under the leadership
of itinerant George
Askins. To put it softly, it met with
less than moderate success. The
year following, another was arranged
there by traveling preachers
Jacob Young and George C. Light. This
time "blessed results"
were obtained, and the ground was
broken for the organization of
the customary class meeting.16 In
succeeding years some of the giants
of early Methodism, including John
Sale, James B. Finley, Peter
Cartwright, James Quinn, John Strange,
John Collins, Henry Boehm,
and William McKendree, rode the
far-flung circuits of the Ohio
settlements and faithfully recorded the
number of camp meetings.
Although fragmentary, their reports are
a rich mine of revival lore;
in fact, the Ohio camp meeting record
appears the most complete
of all the states.
Bishop Asbury, moreover, rendered an
accounting of nationwide
encampments in scattered years, listing
the number per circuit, total
attendance, and persons professing
grace. His Journal and letters
offer irrefutable proof of the
popularity of camp meetings. In 1809
14 Minutes, I, 209.
15 Indicative of the spare
settlement were the comments of William Burke, pre-
siding elder of the Ohio District, in
1803. He reported that a circuit rider in the
Miami Circuit would travel "between
forty and fifty miles without [encountering] a
house," and that it took six weeks
to complete the circuit with two saddlebag
preachers joining forces.
"Autobiography of Rev. William Burke," in James B.
Finley, Sketches of Western
Methodism: Biographical, Historical, and Miscellaneous,
Illustrative of Pioneer Life (Cincinnati, 1854), 85-86.
16 In the Hockhocking Circuit. Nathan
Bangs, A History of the Methodist Episcopal
Church (3d ed., 2 vols., New York, 1845), II, 163-165.
38 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
the father of American Methodism rode
the Ohio circuits during
the mild months of August and September
and recorded four camp
meetings in the Muskingum District and
seventeen in the Miami.
He joyously commented: "It appears
that the bishops [elders]
will hold a camp-meeting in every
district; we are encouraged so
to do: great power was manifested here,
and much good was done.
I will not say how I felt, nor how near
heaven."17 The harvest
season for the open-air revival in Ohio
and the nation at large con-
tinued until the outbreak of the War of
1812. At least fifty-nine
encampments were held in Ohio between
1804 and 1816, the year
of Asbury's death.18
By the time the adherents of John
Wesley introduced their version
of the forest revival in the new state
of Ohio, the camp meeting
was becoming systematized. Here it was
entering its second phase,
the institutional stage of development,
in which encampments were
distinguished by elaborate advance
planning, smaller crowds (at-
tendance declining from thousands to
hundreds), and more effective
audience management.19 The
notable decline in bodily excitement
was in stark contrast to the earlier
Kentucky and Tennessee camp
meetings in which it was common for
hundreds to fall prostrate or
become nervously affected. The
"jerks," the "holy laugh," and
"falling" exercises still
appeared in conjunction with the altar serv-
ices, but available reports of Ohio
encampments held from 1804 to
1815 reveal that such manifestations
were a rarity. It is evident that
while the religious fervor of the
Cumberland Revival still con-
17 Journal, III, 317, 321, entries of August 13 and October 24,
1809. The same
year the presiding elders of the Western
Conference reported over seventy camp meet-
ings; "the work is spreading
gloriously in the Illinois and Michigan settlements."
See Henry Boehm to the Rev. Jacob
Gruber, Granger County, Tennessee, October 22,
1809. Asbury Manuscripts, Methodist
Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland.
18 Computed by the writer from available sources. Asbury, armed with letter
reports
of encampments, estimated in 1811 that
Methodist camp meetings across the young
nation "amount to between four and
five hundred annually, some of which continue
for the space of six or eight
days." See Francis Asbury to Dr. Thomas Coke, September
2, 1811, printed in the Methodist
Magazine (London), XXXV (1812), 316.
19 Ohio
attendance figures seldom reached the one thousand mark of previous
Kentucky and Tennessee encampments. Some
random sampling of Ohio camp meetings
after 1805: Marietta meeting, summer of
1806, two hundred converts; at Hockhocking,
August 1807, eight hundred reported
present; at Brush Creek, August 1808, one
thousand reported present.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 39
tinued in the Methodist camp meetings
it was channeled into more
acceptable modes of behavior. Wherever
the outdoor revival spread,
the same evolutionary pattern can be
noted.20
Four-day encampments, usually beginning
on Friday and con-
tinuing until Monday noon, became the
rule. They were scheduled
and advertised weeks and even months in
advance on some Ohio
circuits. The religious press carried
the announcements;21 meeting
notices and copies of camp meeting
rules were tacked to trees along
the route to the camp ground. Most
frequently, the word was spread
by the itinerant as he went from cabin
to cabin on his rounds, and
through his correspondence.
The number staged each year on any
circuit depended largely
upon the itinerant himself, the density
of population, and the
degree of enthusiasm among the
settlers. Individual preachers would
cooperate in union-circuit meetings,
and within a particular circuit.
By 1806 it became a fixed custom for
the last quarterly conference
(the "Quarter Meeting") to be
held as an encampment. This
"yearly camp meeting," at
which circuit business was handled, was
always attended by the presiding elder
of the district.22 Just as
popular was the annual conference camp
meeting which likewise
augmented the purely local ones.
Mother Nature, to some extent, fixed
the limits of the camp
meeting season. In the Old Northwest
its flowering time came in
the late summer and early autumn when
the weather was mild and
20 This study is primarily concerned
with Ohio revivals held before 1816 under
Bishop Asbury's inspiring direction, for
by that date the camp meeting pattern was
firmly established for decades to come.
Actually, the backwoods camp meeting was an
ever-evolving institution. Its three
phases of development--boisterous infancy, maturity,
and gradual decline by the 1840's--are
treated in Charles A. Johnson, "The Frontier
Camp Meeting: Contemporary and
Historical Appraisals, 1805-1840," Mississippi
Valley Historical Review, XXXVII (1950-51), 91-110.
21 For
a rare notice in the secular press, see advertisement in the Weekly Recorder
(Chillicothe), September 26, 1814. Also consult
Ernest L. Carter, The Early Camp-
Meeting Movement in the Ohio Valley
(unpublished master's thesis, Ohio Wesleyan
University, 1922), 66.
22 By
1809-10 both circuit riders Benjamin Lakin and Peter Cartwright talked of
their "yearly camp meetings."
Journal of Rev. Benjamin Lakin (1794-1820), entry
of August 31, 1810, Divinity School,
University of Chicago; Autobiography of Peter
Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher (New York, 1857), 45. James B. Finley, pre-
siding elder of the Ohio District in
1816, stated that "the last round of quarterly
meetings for the year were camp
meetings, with few exceptions." Autobiography of
Rev. James B. Finley; or, Pioneer
Life in the West (Cincinnati, 1853),
289.
40 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
sunny. By late July, encampments were
increasing in frequency,
reaching their peak in August and
September. This period of popu-
larity coincided with the completion of
the wheat and hay harvest
and was the free interval before corn
cutting time. Freed from the
demands of the soil, the farmer could
put his family aboard the
wagon and head for the old camp ground.23
Little was left to chance at the
outdoor revival; duties were care-
fully apportioned among the camp
leaders to achieve maximum
effectiveness. More orderly proceedings
were assured at Ohio encamp-
ments when a system of worship and camp
regulations were adopted
possibly as early as 1806. The meeting
schedule was usually an-
nounced from the preacher's stand at
the opening session. There-
after from sun-up to retiring time, the
trumpet's call guided the
worshiper from one service to another.
There were customarily
four religious convocations-at eight
o'clock, eleven, three, and at
candle-lighting time-exclusive of the
sunrise prayer service and
mourners' meetings in the tents.24
When an ordained elder was
present to officiate, the Lord's Supper
was administered either on
the Sabbath or on Monday morning.
On Sunday, a banner day, the camp
grounds were crowded with
persons who came to spend the day in
worship and companionship.
If the "spirit ran high" the
leaders sometimes deviated from the
announced schedule. Night-long
services, however, which had con-
tributed so much to the disorder and
frenzy of the Great Revival
encampments, were the exception, not
the rule, being contrary to
many camp regulations, which provided
for a ten o'clock curfew.
Thus through elaborate planning, the
itinerants sought to establish
23 Shortly
after the Cumberland Revival, adherents of Methodism in the Midwest
began the practice of donating their
acreage for the use of the campers. As a result,
permanent and semi-permanent camp
installations developed in the more settled
areas; encampments soon bore the name of
benefactors, such as "Windell's Camp
Ground" and "Turner's Camp
Ground" in Ohio. See Finley, Autobiography, passim.
A fund of detail on Ohio encampments
occurring prior to 1822 can be found in this
work.
24 For
similar orders of service at an 1806 Baltimore Circuit meeting, Maryland,
and an 1816 Pickaway Circuit, Ohio, see
an extract of a letter by Henry Smith, dated
Baltimore Circuit, November 11, 1806,
copied in Benjamin Lakin's Extracts and
Commonplaces, Benjamin Lakin
Manuscripts, Divinity Library, University of Chicago;
and a letter by the Rev: William Swayze,
undated, printed in the Western Christian
Monitor (Chillicothe), October 1816, 471-473.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 41
an orderly system of worship within a
revivalistic framework.25
Yet with this change in character the
frontier camp meeting lost
none of its magical allure.
"Camp meetin' time" was a
holiday occasion as well as a
time of devotion for the Ohio pioneer.
Supplying the need
of group association to overcome the
seclusion and monotony of a
rural existence, it offered relief from
farm drudgery and a chance
for four whole days of preaching,
praying, and singing together.
The settlers' enthusiasm for this
significant social experience was
indicated in the distances of forty,
fifty, and even one hundred
miles they traveled to attend. Here was
a chance to make new
friends and meet with old ones. Within
and without the camp
grounds, youths engaged in
"sparking" as best they could when
confronted with the event-packed
service schedule. In addition,
camping out was a pleasurable pastime
for all Americans. This
feature of the forest revival certainly
goes far to explain its popu-
larity with the residents of the
populous East.
The backwoods camp meeting has been
described as "the most
mammoth picnic possible," where
hospitality abounded. Actually,
the lure of "good eats"
created a real problem to Ohio campers.
"Spongers" became so numerous
in 1814 that the leaders urged
prospective worshipers to refuse to
support hangers-on.26 In a
pioneer region when tent cities sprung
up in a forest clearing as if by
magic, many were attracted by the
spectacle which had all the
glamour, excitement, and pageantry of
the later-day circus. The
woodland meeting with its row on row of
tents surrounding the
speakers' platform, its banners, and
campfires was something to
behold. Curious youths who wandered
about the encampment fre-
quently ended up as converted penitents
in "the circle of brotherly
love." A great many persons who
had come for a lark "had an
interest awakened in their hearts"
under the spell of revival preach-
ing. The more flamboyant camp meeting
personalities were great
25 The custom developed of
tallying in the converts during the camp meeting either
at the altar services or at the campers'
tents. The lists were then turned over to the
appropriate circuit rider or to the
class leaders to present to the next itinerant who
took charge of that circuit. See Finley,
Autobiography, 253.
26 Advertisement,
Weekly Recorder, September 26, 1814.
42 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
drawing cards and their appearances
were well advertised. Cer-
tainly Peter Cartwright, famed for his
combativeness and lively
speaking style, Ralph Lotspiech, the
"weeping prophet," and
"Father" John Collins, gospel
spellbinder, ranked as major at-
tractions.
Many other than the religious-minded
attended. Participants were
sometimes classified by the day of
their arrival. As one proverb put
it: "The good people go to camp
meetings Friday, backsliders
Saturday, rowdies Saturday night, and
gentleman and lady sinners
Sunday."27 The worst as
well as the best people of the community
were drawn there, and they brought
their morals with them. Ap-
parently, the immoral and irreligious
were always in approximately
equal numbers with the professing
Christians and the serious-
minded. Numerous spectators, not
content with entertaining them-
selves in the intervals between the
services, sought amusement
during the proceedings. As often as
not, the ladies' side of the
auditorium was invaded by convivial
pioneers, bringing the worship
to an abrupt halt. Regulations drawn up
in the interest of main-
taining proper religious decorum
specifically forbade persons from
"walking to and fro, talking,
smoking, or otherwise disturbing the
solemnities of the meeting." Yet,
in the eyes of many, laws were
simply rules to be broken. The problem
was publicly aired in the
Ohio press in 1822.28
Whiskey and whiskey sellers presented a
real menace to the camp
meeting.29 Liquor
consumption inevitably spelled disturbances, pos-
sibly sexual irregularities, and not
infrequently free-for-all fights.
Neighborhood toughs often tried to
break up the services and
send the campers packing. Saturday
nights and Sundays were the
times of greatest danger; it was then
that the camp guard and par-
27 Western Christian Advocate (Cincinnati),
September 17, 1873.
28 Bangs, History of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, II, 266-267; and Ohio Monitor
and Patron of Industry (Columbus), July 20, 1822.
29 Ohio
and certain other states, acting in part under church pressure, enacted
laws prohibiting the sale of
intoxicating beverages within a radius of one and
sometimes two miles of a camp ground.
For requests to strengthen Ohio's statute
of 1831, see the Western Christian
Advocate (Cincinnati), April 15, 1834, and
August 13, 1841.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 43
ticularly the night watch remained on
the double alert.30 Some
persons sought to punish attendants at
these "Methodist pow-wows"
(as they were styled by the critics) by
stealing horses and wagons
or by committing acts of vandalism.31
A combination of human psy-
chology (making a rowdy a guard
captain), and fistic ability by the
leaders saved many a backwoods revival
from disaster. Indeed, the
success or failure of an encampment in
the last analysis was often
solely dependent upon the ingenuity of
the saddlebag preacher.
Enacted against such a tumultuous
background, is it so surprising
that camp meeting religion partook of
certain volatile characteristics?
The natural setting also shaped the
religious character of the
forest revival. Laid out on a sloping
green near a spring or creek,
the woodland auditorium helped
neutralize secular forces. The
accomodations were simplicity itself,
with the seats merely felled
logs cross-laid or planks supported by
tree stumps. At night the
forest sanctuary took on an
awe-inspiring quality. Flickering lamps,
candles attached to the trees, elevated
fire stands, and smoking
campfires helped illuminate the scene.
This evening atmosphere
affected preacher and worshipers alike.
He was impelled to oratorical
heights, while they were moved to a
deeper meaning of reverence
which sometimes manifested itself in
great physical movement,
noise, and song.
In the afternoon and evening altar services,
religious enthusiasm
reached its peak. Then the penitent
seekers at the altar were appealed
to through crude but electrifying
speeches, tearful testimonials, and
moving hymns. Group singing
"fanned the sacred flame" during the
emotional crises of the altar services.
Climaxing hours of preaching
and exhorting, these songs which were
echoed from all parts of
the clearing opened the way for a show
of great feeling.32 Some
30 A Marietta camp meeting of
1806 became the scene of a free-for-all fight, de-
scribed by Cartwright, Autobiography,
90-92. At a Bush Creek camp meeting of
August 7, 1808, Asbury noted: "Some
waggoners attempted to sell whiskey on the
camp-grounds: we stopped our
preaching--the people soon knew how deeply we
felt the insult, and they were driven
away." Journal, III, 285, entry of Sunday, August
7, 1808.
31 See
Finley, Autobiography, 350-351.
32
The editors of the early Methodist hymnals pointed up the Biblical
injunction
in their introductory pages: "I
will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the
understanding also." I Cor. 14:15.
See, for example, The Methodist Pocket Hymn
Book, Revised and Improved (New York, 1803), 3.
44
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
people jumped and screamed, clapped
their hands, thumped and
patted the ground, and agitated their
bodies.33 Indeed, worship at
the altar was as much a product of the
people as of the earnest
minister in the pulpit. On the camp
ground women often abandoned
their role as silent participants and
joined the men in stirring in-
dividual exhortations. Yet the aim of
the leaders was not mere
emotionalism; it was believed that once
the senses were awakened,
reason would be appealed to. While the
extemporaneous sermons of
the self-educated evangels were
delivered in such a manner as to
keep the emotional fires burning, they
had a definite pattern.
The needs of the individual rather than
of society were the point
of focus. The pietistic theme of the
salvation of man was as wide as
all humanity in its appeal. The West
needed a doctrine of per-
sonalized religion that would appeal to
the emotions, relieve the
element of danger inherent in pioneer
living, and emphasize the
direct relationship between a loving
God and man. Itinerants
stressed that the Creator was
ever-present, ever-watchful over his
flock, and all-powerful in the face of
adversity. To a fighting popu-
lation in constant peril from ruthless
nature, Indian attack, law-
lessness, starvation, and illness
without medical aid, these were
comforting thoughts. The possibility of
sudden extinction must
certainly have made the question of
one's immortality a matter of
great concern.
The age-old problem of man's relation
to an unseen God and
the hereafter was resolved by the
techniques of the backwoods
evangelists who personalized
supernatural forces. They extolled
the beauty of the Supreme Being, but at
the same time stressed his
awesomeness, believing that fear would
act as a flash of light to
show the indifferent that they were in
immediate danger of falling
into the pits of hell. To the
unschooled backwoodsman the invisible
was absolutely credible.
"Soul-melting preachers," who knew the
Book of Nature as well as they knew the
Bible, could array Hades
before the wicked so that the strongest
would tremble and quake
33 Yet
altar services were often solemn, prayerful occasions. Such was the case of a
Portsmouth, Ohio, open-air assembly of
August 1818. See a letter from John Collins,
dated Chillicothe, Ohio, April 22, 1819,
printed in the Methodist Magazine (New
York), II (1819), 234-235.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 45
"imagining a lake of fire and
brimstone yawning to overwhelm them
and the hand of the Almighty thrusting
them down the horrible
abyss." Bishop Asbury's sermon
notes for an address at a Zanesville
encampment of 1815 underscored this
theme: "Knowing the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men."34
Believing that the pathway to
the intellect was through the feelings,
these "Brush College"
graduates used every weapon at their
disposal to insure that no
hearer would be unmoved.
While the sermons were generally
doctrinal in character, dealing
with the fall of man, general
atonement, and the concepts of in-
dividual conversion and simultaneous
regeneration, the itinerants
were not socially myopic. In uncompromising
language they fear-
lessly denounced the evils that
flourished in these ribald, primitive
communities: immorality, intemperance,
blasphemy, eye-gouging
brawls, card playing, and horse racing.
James B. Finley, Ohio circuit
rider, ignoring the counsel to
"preach the gospel and let people's
private business alone,"
constituted a veritable one-man temperance
crusade.35
The Ohio camp meeting record richly
illustrates the social character
of the frontier revival; it was a part
of community life, shaped by
the social forces at work. For example,
a contemporary church
chronicler of the Mad River settlements
described the years 1803-
1807 as difficult ones for settlement.
Not until 1808 did the pioneers
there have "an opportunity to spend
their time profitably together,
and camp meetings began." At one
of these early encampments
General Simon Kenton, celebrated
fighter, hunter, and traveling
companion of Daniel Boone, was
"caught in the Gospel net" after
praying at the altar the whole night
through.36
Feverish camp meeting activity went on
during the following
year in Ohio and other settled portions
of the Old Northwest.
34
Frederick M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals (New
York,
1905), 67; Asbury, Journal, III,
460-461, entry of August 11, 1815.
35 "The only temperance
society that then existed [about 1812], and, consequently,
the only standard raised against the
overflowing scourage of intemperance, was the
Methodist Church." Finley, Autobiography,
248.
36 Theophilus Arminius, "Short
Sketches of Revivals of Religion in the Western
Country," Methodist Magazine, V
(1822), 352; and Bangs, History of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, II, 245-247.
46 Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Almost all encampments held in 1809
were well attended. This was
especially true when Bishop Asbury put
in an appearance while
making the rounds of his episcopal
tour. A Sunday crowd of one
thousand persons warmed the hearts of
the sponsors of a Xenia
encampment. Twenty-two traveling and
"located" preachers took
turns addressing the campers. One
participant remarked that it was
"a very large Congregation in
general for our part of the Country."37
Unusual events in nature such as fierce
storms and earthquakes
influenced many to join the Methodist
fold. The superstitious
pioneers believed that these strange
occurrences were not the result
of natural forces but the machinations
of either a wrathful God or
the Devil. When a hurricane struck as a
Chillicothe camp meeting
was being held in May 1809, the
presiding elder of the Miami Dis-
trict, John Sale, found his dire
predictions for the sinners being
reinforced. As the storm raged on he
preached about the evils of
horse racing, with the result that many
were eager to confess
Christ. "The young converts
exhorted, shouted and sung the praises
of their Redeemer amidst the raging
elements, and the tumbling
forests! whilst darkness and horror
were on the brow of the enemies
of the cross of Christ."38
The earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 were a
"time of great terror
to sinners." During almost four
months, the central Mississippi
River region was subjected to over a
thousand shocks. As brick houses
cracked, chimneys toppled, and yawning
chasms developed, settlers
turned to religion to atone for this
visitation from God that had most
certainly come as a punishment for
their sins. In Ohio there flocked
to church meetings scores of people who
had previously paid no
attention to the subject of religion.39
Methodist membership in the
Miami District doubled within the year
of 1812. The Baptists like-
wise reaped a harvest in members, even
if the conversions were short-
lived. Under such conditions camp
meeting orators, influenced by
37 Letter, Peter Pelham, dated Green[e] County, Ohio, September 8, 1809,
printed
in Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier, Vol.
IV, The Methodists: A Collection
of Source Materials (Chicago, 1946), 183.
38 Theophilus
Arminius, "Short Sketches of Revivals of Religion," 352.
39 Finley, Autobiography, 239-240.
The earthquakes were felt particularly in Missouri
and Louisiana, according to Bangs, History of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, II, 292.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 47
millenarianism, could more effectively
exhort sinners to repent before
it was too late. Terror and fear may
have been the precipitants,
for this work began and ended with
earthquakes, in those counties; and
the whole strain of preaching by the
Baptists and Methodists was, that the
end of all things was at hand, and if
the people were not baptized, or did
not join societies, there was no hope
for them.... It is also a fact that
many, who had joined their societies,
have already left them. Some have
been excluded from communion, and
others are under censure.40
In fact, an Indiana preacher sadly
noted that after the return to
normalcy, "half as many as our
present membership" had become
backsliders.41
Conversely, religious ardor was
considerably diminished by the
more tangible "agents of the
Devil," the Indians and the British.
From 1795 to 1812 Ohio settlers lived
in comparative peace with the
partly dispossessed Indian tribes, yet
talk of war councils sometimes
kept them on edge. Bishop Asbury
commented in 1807 that the
rumor of an expected attack by the
redmen had caused many in-
habitants of that state to flee. Again,
while itinerant Benjamin Lakin
visited the Wyandots in Upper Sandusky
town on a missionary tour
in 1810, he learned there was
"considerable alarum [sic] in con-
sequence of the Sinneca [sic] Indians
and others, holding councils
in the night ... [showing] an
inclination to go to war with the
Winedotts
[sic]."42
The camp meeting did not escape the
devastating impact of the
War of 1812. Attendance fell off so
sharply that few were held. For
two years the Maumee River Valley in
Ohio was the scene of hos-
tilities, and war hysteria gripped many
circuit riders as well as the
Methodist faithful. Lakin complained at
the 1812 session of the
Ohio Conference: "I felt my mind
pained at the spirit of war that
appeared in some of the preachers[.]
Three had left their circuits
40 John
F. Schermerhorn and Samuel J. Mills, A Correct View of That Part of the
United States Which Lies West of the
Alleghany Mountains, with Regard to Religion
and Morals (Hartford, 1814), 16-17.
41 Allen Wiley, "Methodism in
Southeastern Indiana," Western Christian Ad-
vocate, 1845-46. Reprinted in Indiana Magazine of History, XXIII
(1927), 151.
42 Journal, entry of September 8, 1810.
48 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
and gone--volunteers for thirty days in
the army--But the Con-
ference thought proper to give them
[back] their stations."43
When encampments were held, a spirit of
patriotism rather than
devotion often prevailed. At Lakin's
camp meeting on Strait Creek
in July 1812, after the close of the
first sessions,
a man came to call the people together
to see who would volunteer to carry
relief to De Troit to our Army who were
in distressing circumstances[.]
All that ensued was comotion [sic]....
[The next day] We had but few
to preach too [sic], and not more than 20 or 30 to attend the sacrament.
Two days later he lamented that
"at my last camp and quarterly
meeting, we were frequently interrupted
by the returning volunteers:
Yet some souls were converted."44
On occasion company commanders
would mount the rostrum and order the
soldiers to comply with the
camp meeting rules. Elsewhere in the
nation sermons were delivered
to volunteer troops who were marched in
a body to camp grounds.45
War might drastically alter the outdoor
revival, but it did not change
its primary goal--the saving of souls.
By the year 1815, lean times for the
camp meeting were over.
Summer encampments were again a normal
feature of Methodism
in Ohio. Asbury reported that he
personally attended five there that
year. By the time of the Methodist
Church leader's death in 1816,
no less than six hundred camp meetings
were held throughout the
nation. Thus by the first year of peace
the forest revival was again
all-powerful in the young republic.46
43 Ibid., entry of July 24, 1812.
44 Ibid., entry of July 22, 1812.
45 For Bishop Asbury's sermons to
soldiers, see Journal, III, 393, entry of September
1, 1812. Bilingual itinerants, such as
Henry Boehm, gave camp sermons to German
worshipers throughout the year 1812.
Henry Boehm, Reminiscences, Historical and
Biographical of Sixty-four Years in
the Ministry (New York, 1865), 210;
Asbury,
Journal, III, 395-396, entries of September 8 and September 20,
1812. Henry Boehm
was the son of John Philip Boehm, one of
the founders of the German Reformed
Church in America.
46 Sweet, The Methodists, 68-69.
Contemporaries of the forties and fifties noted
that the midwestern camp meeting was not
only changing in character-with elaborate
physical appointments now the
distinguishing feature-but was also being supplanted
by the indoor "protracted
meeting" in the settled areas. For an 1840 view, consult
John F. Wright, Sketches of the Life
and Labors of James Quinn (Cincinnati, 1851),
106, 121.
Early Ohio Camp Meetings,
1801-1816 49
The high regard of the Ohio circuit
riders for the camp meeting
is mirrored in all their writings. One
minister informed the editor
of the Western Christian Monitor in
1816 that he doubted the
propriety of camp meetings but
"still loved them" for their many
conversions which were the
"strongest evidences . . . that the in-
stitution is owned and blessed of
heaven."47 Peter Cartwright gave
it his unqualified endorsement when he
declared: "I am very certain
that the most successful part of my
ministry has been on the camp-
ground." James B. Finley was no
less favorably impressed: "Much
may be said about camp meetings, but,
take them all in all, for
practical exhibition of religion, for
unbounded hospitality to
strangers, for unfeigned and fervent
spirituality, give me a country
camp meeting against the world."48
Even the revival's severest critics
have not challenged its in-
calculable role in winning adherents.
Allen Wiley, circuit preacher
of neighboring Indiana, asserted in the
1840's that "no human being
can correctly estimate the amount of
good which this country has
realized from camp meetings. Perhaps
nearly one-half of the members
of the Methodist Episcopal church are
the fruits of camp meetings,
directly or remotely."49 Many
of the greatest names in early
Methodism owed their youthful
conversion or religious awakening
directly or indirectly to the pioneer
camp meeting. Other spiritual
results included the quickening of
religious life and the raising of
the moral tone of a community. A
successful encampment frequently
set off a chain reaction in which
revivals spread to neighboring
towns and sometimes lasted throughout
the winter. Hundreds of
people visited the tent cities in Ohio,
attracted by the social novelty,
who seldom or never attended other
church activities. For the travel-
ing preacher the camp meeting was an
invaluable aid in keeping in
touch with the ever-advancing frontier,
as a few could do the work
of many. And when half-peopled regions
became settled communi-
ties, the woodland revival still had an
important role to play in the
47 Undated letter, M. Lindsey,
printed in the Western Christian Monitor (Chilli-
cothe), I (1816), 424-425.
48 Cartwright, Autobiography, 523; Finley, Autobiography, 315.
49 Wiley, "Methodism in
Southeastern Indiana," 179.
50
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
West. By virtue of its length and
natural setting, it was singularly
adapted to the conversion of sinners
and the social refreshment of
the campers.
Although it was rough, crude, and
imperfect, the backwoods camp
meeting was an expression of the times.
Clearly it arose in response
to a need: the spiritual poverty of the
isolated frontiersmen. In
spite of the forest revival's basic
weaknesses-the noisy, unchurch-
like atmosphere, spurious and
short-lived conversions, excessively
emotional services, contribution to the
spirit of denominational in-
tolerance, and apparent prolongation
beyond a point of usefulness
in the populous regions-the fact still
remains it was a vital socio-
religious institution that helped tame
backwoods America.