Methodist+Park

//by Kate Quinn// May 31, 2007

As early as 1787, camp meetings were held in the area of Moundsville known as the “Flats of Grave Creek”. The Methodist Society was formed in 1820 and built a meetinghouse in 1825 on the site of what is now the First Street Cemetery. From 1824, the Moundsville Camp Grounds began to attract people from all over the district. The Wheeling District of the M.E. Church held a ten-day conference with folks arriving by steamboat and wagon.

Many pioneer families were members of the Association including the Alexanders, Bells, Bodleys, Riggs, Tomlinsons, Lancasters, Jepsens, Boohers, Schellhases, Roberts, Smiths, and Hoods.

Attendees slept in their wagons while the town folk used Muslim tents. “Old Wolf Springs”, near Parrs Run, supplied the water for the crowd. This spring was later drained by the nearby coal mine.

During the Civil War, the campground served as a drill field for the famous Mulligan’s Brigade who placed cannons on top of the Mound to thwart Confederates supposedly coming from the East.

In 1874, the Wheeling District Camp Meeting Association was incorporated and leased 28 acres from William and Ellen Alexander. They bought the campground in 1882. Worship was conducted in the open under the shady trees with straw under foot and logs or boards for seats. Numerous summer cottages began to spring up around the lake in 1856.

Special trains and steamboats were arranged for the huge crowds who attended. In 1886, James Bodley built an auditorium for worship which seated 2500 people and later another for meetings of the Prohibitionists which could accommodate 5500. A two-story, 20-room hotel was built in 1896 and a trolley line from Benwood ran directly to the hotel.

Leah Hubbs Fish recalled that on a hot, summer afternoon her father took her to the campgrounds to see the famous political orator William Jennings Bryan who “played to a packed house”. She reported that

“The camp ground was a safe and delightful haven for children. We roamed all over the place and knew every cottage and tree. We explored the hotel, the store, the spring with its rustic covering, the two very primitive white rest rooms, and the parks. There were three of these –open spaces shaded by fine old trees. The main one ran east and west; at the head stood the Bodley Cottage on Wheeling Avenue, with rows of cottages down each side – rather like a village green. At the eastern end were the pump and store.”

A tabernacle stood at the northern end of Wheeling Avenue, across from the hotel. There, special services were held for the children each day at 1:30. Though the building smelled musty, the kids were rewarded with cookies or treats for attending. The southern tip of Wheeling Avenue was called “the Point”. Hubbs also recalled the Saints’ cottages on Oak Avenue. These were the owners/employees of the Gospel Trumpet Publishing Company.

On Sundays, families would come to the campground with their picnic lunches and spend the whole day. Musicians from Wheeling would perform and the churches of Moundsville provided choirs. On the final Sunday of the season, attendees would march around the Auditorium singing, “We’re Marching to Zion”.

The Moundsville Echo of August 2, 1895 carried the following:

“The camp meeting this year promises to be an old time affair which means crowds of people from every corner of this part of the United States and preachers who can enthuse the people after they get here. On the program are two of the brightest lights of the Methodist church, besides the best talent in the West Virginia conference. The directors have decided to leave the price of admission at fifty cents for the season, although the standard of the program would seem to demand a fee of a dollar to bring the income up to expenses. But they trust to such an increase in attendance as to balance the two accounts.”

Many of the performances were Chautauqua acts. Named after a lake in New York State, the Chautauqua circuit was begun by Methodists leaders who felt that edification was the right of everyone. They began a series of lectures. The popularity of these spawned a nationwide movement that included entertainment and culture for whole communities with speakers, teachers, preachers, and performers of every kind. The summer session of 1910 included lectures on Robert E. Lee, moving pictures, and classes in Esperanto, touted to become an international language.

They also provided political speakers on the “hot” topics of the day - woman suffrage and temperance. Teddy Roosevelt called the movement “the most American thing in America”. By the 1920’s the movement, affected by the popularity and availability of radio and movies, declined although there are still “Chautauquas’ to this day.

After World War II, the lots, previously leased to the cottage owners were sold to them and the Camp Meeting Association was disbanded in 1950. Various children’s camps including those of the House of the Carpenter then used the property.

Today, all that remains of the campgrounds are a few street signs and some lovely little cottages still occupied today. The lake created by damming the creek has been built over and charming low-income housing and spacious private homes take the place of one of Moundsville’s most popular, historic gathering places.

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