THE FIRST CAMP MEETING IN AMERICA
By Helen Harcourt
How and when did the now familiar camp meeting originate? Very few among us can answer that question. Very few know that this unique means of attracting the masses, especially those who, from necessity or choice, rarely enter a church door, took its rise in this country in the year 1799. Those were early days, and primitive customs, and quiet, rural simplicity were the rule, for the population of the young republic was still small and scattered, but for the most part, that very simplicity made the people all the more susceptible to any unusual religious influences.
In the eastern part of the country, in the last year of the eighteenth century, a remarkable revival spread from hamlet to hamlet, from town to town, but the tidal wave of religion was not long confined to that section. It quickly flowed westward and southward. Kentucky and Tennessee, which were then attracting many home seekers, were especially affected by the wave of religious enthusiasm that swept with resistless power all over the United States. Veritable cyclonic centers of religious forces appeared at the same time in many parts of the country, north, south, east and west. Everywhere the power was seen and felt. Escape from its overwhelming presence was impossible. “The great revival” was the universal subject of conversation, and of wonder. Wherever a few houses were clustered together, wherever a single pioneer’s hut arose in the wilderness, there would soon be tethered the horse of the itinerant preacher.
An apt illustration of this truth is given in an anecdote related by Dr. Abel Stevens, the historian of Methodism. An itinerant preacher once hailed one of these solitary pioneers, and asked permission to preach in his cabin.
“What,” exclaimed the astonished pioneer, “are you here, too? I lived in Virginia and a Methodist preacher came along and my wife got converted. I fled into North Carolina, where I had hardly got settled before another preacher came along and part of my family were converted. I went to Kentucky, and they followed me there, but I thought this time I would get beyond their reach. And now I have hardly got to this settlement till here comes another preacher, wanting to preach right in my cabin.”
“My friend,” said the itinerant, “I advise you to make terms of peace with the Methodist preachers, for you will find them everywhere you go in this world. And when you die, if you go to Heaven, you will find plenty of them there, and if you go to hell, as you will if you don’t repent, I fear you will find some of them there, too!”
The pioneer thought it best to surrender.
In this great religious outburst, strict denominationalism was swallowed up, and lost to sight. The discussion of mere creeds was forgotten in the deeper demonstration of true Christianity. In the Southern States, more particularly in Kentucky and Tennessee, the movement was particularly strong. The sturdy Scotch-Irish element which was there in force, came together at the meetings with skeptics, and non-professors of all shades and degrees. All-day services were held on week days as well as on Sundays. Throngs gathered from far and near, until their numbers became so great that no building could shelter them. Still there was no thought of camping on the spot. After the conclusion of each service, the people sought their respective stopping places remaining there until time for the next meeting.
It was late in the year 1799 that two brothers, John and William McGee, the first a local Methodist preacher, the other a Presbyterian, started on an evangelistic tour from Tennessee into Kentucky. On their way they attended a sacramental service held by a Presbyterian minister named McGreechy, on the Red river. The events that followed were a new experience to the brothers, and were never forgotten. William McGee, who was a personal friend of McGreechy’s, and, also, as we have noted, a Presbyterian, introduced his brother, John, and the latter was invited to “address the congregation from the pulpit.” He accepted the invitation.
“I do not know,” he writes of this incident, “that God ever favored me with more light and liberty than He did each day while I endeavored to convince the people that they were sinners, and urged the necessity of repentance, of a change of nature to one of grace, and held up to their view the greatness, freedom, and fullness of salvation which was in Christ Jesus, for lost, guilty, condemned sinners.”
There were five preachers present, taking part in the daily services by rotation. Four of these were Presbyterians, McGreechy, Rankin, Hodge and William McGee, the fifth being John McGee, the Methodist. The effect of their earnest exhortations was marked, and the frequent tears of their hearers gave evidence of their power in awakening sleeping consciences. On the last day of these revival meetings, during the “useful discourse of the Rev. Mr. Hodge a woman in the east end of the house got an uncommon blessing, broke through order and shouted for some time, then sat down in silence.” Thus writes the Rev. John McGee.
This woman, whose name has not been recorded, thus has the doubtful honor of being the pioneer shouter at an American revival meeting. As we all know in these days, she was but the first of thousands. But at that time it was altogether so new and out of order that during the interim that soon followed, after which it was John McGee’s turn to preach, McGreechy, Rankin and Hodge went out of the house, their sense of ecclesiastical propriety having suffered a severe shock at the violent demonstrations during the services. They felt compelled to withdraw their countenance from what they considered an exhibition of irreverence.
The two McGees were thus left alone to address and guide the aroused congregation. For a time they sat in perplexed silence, the people remaining in their seats. All over the house there was a subdued sound of moaning and weeping. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something more to happen, though no one knew what the something might be. William McGee, who, as we have noted, was a Presbyterian, presently quitted his seat on the platform, and deliberately seated himself on the floor, evidently too absorbed in thought to be conscious of this odd proceeding. Yet no one smiled, or seemed to wonder at his act. The strain of waiting was too severe, too intense, for smaller matters to intervene.
As for John McGee himself, he tells us that “a power which caused me to tremble was upon me.” He told the story of that unique experience in a letter written on June 23d, 1820, to the Rev. Thomas L. Douglas, presiding elder of the Nashville district of the Tennessee conference of the Methodist Episcopal church.
“Having a wish to preach,” he says, “I strove against my feelings. At length I rose up and told the people that I was appointed to preach, but that there was a greater than I preaching.” Then followed, instead of the usual form of sermon, a recital of experiences effected by the power of the spirit. McGee’s words were so earnest and impassioned that of his hearers many broke silence. “The woman at the east end of the house again shouted tremendously. I left the pulpit to go to her, and as I went along through the people it was suggested to me ‘You know these people are much for order. They will not bear this confusion. Go back and be quiet.’ I turned to go back and was near falling. The power of God was strong upon me. I turned again, and losing sight of the fear of man, I went through the house shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain. Their screams for mercy pierced the Heavens and mercy came down. Some found forgiveness and many went away from that meeting feeling unutterable agonies of soul for redemption in the blood of Jesus. This,” concludes the letter of the Rev. John McGee, “was the beginning of that glorious revival of religion in this country which was so great a blessing to thousands, and from this meeting the camp meetings took their rise.”
In this quaint narrative, therefore, we see the inauguration of the great revival meetings which soon came to be so largely attended that it was necessary to build open arbors to accommodate the attendance. The movement gathered strength as it spread north, south, east and west, and camping on the spot followed as a natural result of the sustained enthusiasm. From its first inception the plan and idea of camp meeting life was to lift the mind for a season out of, and beyond all worldly cares, and thus to permit the soul to feast on things spiritual. The idea appealed at once to the primitive people of the rural communities even more than to those of the cities. The simple life of the camp was something they could understand and were used to. It was a mode of life that they loved as well. Its popularity was such from the very outset that it was no uncommon thing for the farmer who could not provide for the attendance of all his family at the meetings, to load his big wagon with cots, bedding, provisions and his family, and live in it, and under it on the camp grounds, if he could not procure a tent, contented with any sort of a shelter, so long as the meetings continued, which was sometimes for several weeks.
The early camp grounds were attractive, yet very simple in their arrangements. A thickly wooded site was always chosen, preferably on the banks of a river or lake. Always, of necessity, there was water near by, even if the camp could not be directly on its shores. Willing hands cleared away the underbrush, made rude benches of logs, the ground under them being strewn with new mown hay, fresh straw or pine needles. Other willing workers marked off the boundaries for the circle of tents and prepared the place for the preachers, building a platform and a rustic pulpit. Then there was the “mourners’ bench”. This was an important point, and was never omitted. It was a big log supported by stout forked branches driven into the ground in front of the pulpit.
Gleaming through the dark, flickering shadows of the dense foliage overhead, were seen the white-tented temporary homes of the people, while behind them rose the blue smoke of the many outdoor kitchen fires, where green branches and twigs served for fuel. Iron kettles on rustic cranes hung over the fires, and in the hot ashes the savory odor of roasting potatoes or apples rose on the air, mingling with the aroma of coffee, the smell of roasting or stewing or frying meats and fish.
The program for each day was varied, although almost continuous. First came a sunrise prayer service, at which the young people were most in evidence, as also at the vesper service, which preceded the regular evening sermon. At 9 o’clock were held “tent meetings,” preparatory to the general service and morning sermon at 10:30. At 2 o’clock was held the second service of the day, with a sermon. Before the evening service began family prayers were held in the tents, while out of the twilight, from tent and woods, resounded various hymns blending in a wild harmony of praise. Then came a short period of restful silence, while the call of the horn, or a voice from the pulpit, was awaited. At the sound tent doors were thrown open and the eager throngs hurried to the place of “the preaching.”
The night scenes at these camp meetings were really awe-inspiring. The congregation was literally surrounded by a circle of fire. Even the trees back in the shadows were festooned with candles, while small fires, the remains of the supper-getting, smouldered in their midst. On each side, and to the rear of the seated throng, were half a dozen or more large platforms, eight or ten feet high, supported on heavy tree trunks. They were covered a foot deep with damp earth, and on this roaring fires were built of full length logs. The fierce crackle and thunder of the flames, the clouds of sparks that flew up to be lost in the overhanging foliage, the dense smoke that mounted to the skies, and the weird, uncanny shadows that seemed to be instinct with life as they crept out of the inky darkness beyond the flickering circle of light, united to make the scene eloquent of awe.
After each of the three sermons of the day, the preachers “exhorted” and urged the penitent, sin-convicted soul to kneel at the altar, and to seek the mourner’s bench. These “after meetings,” as they were called, were really the most strikingly characteristic features of the camp. So mighty was the power at work in individual hearts, so great the effect of mental and physical exhaustion, that many fell prostrate in the straw before the mourners’ bench, and lay there as if dead. Others, again, were differently affected, and uttered wild shouts of “hallelujah” and “amen,” which, so far from disturbing the preacher, seemed rather to urge him on to use yet more force in the delivery of his message of salvation for the penitent sinner.
The singing at these camp meetings was in charge of a regular chorister, but he was often unable to guide the great volume of sound that broke out again and again from the hearts of the excited people, who sang with more spirit than knowledge or rhythm. The leaders who guided and supported the meetings were sincere and devout, and many of them were of social and political prominence. Men and women of the first respectability were constant in attendance, and many of them joined in the work as earnestly as the preachers themselves. The peculiar manifestations of the “after-meetings” are thus referred to by John McGee in the letter previously mentioned to his Presiding Elder:
“The nights were truly awful. The people were differently exercised, some exhorting, some shouting, some weeping, some praying, and some crying for mercy, while others lay as if dead on the ground. Some of the spiritually wounded fled to the woods, and their groans could be heard all through the grounds, like the groans of dying men. From thence many came into the camp rejoicing and praising God.”
Such scenes prevailed wherever camp meetings were held, the people, ministers, laity, saints and sinners yielding miraculously, as it seemed, to the sway of some strong spiritual influence. That many wild and eccentric things were done and said, and that the borderland of fanaticism was often overstepped, cannot be denied. But, in spite of these extravagances of speech and action, which were certainly hindrances rather than the opposite, the good effects of the camp meeting were almost universally acknowledged. The moral transformations that followed it in many communities were conspicuous, although, alas! such is human nature, they were not always permanent in all cases of sudden and violent “conversion.” But, in spite of backslidings, many and often, the camp meetings of early days, as well as those of the present, were, and are, productive of good, and serve their purpose of awakening the slumbering conscience. The eccentric manifestations of feeling so characteristic of the earlier meetings have, as a rule, toned down in these modern and more repressive times, but they are not yet wholly subdued.
