Reflections on the 1874 Dedication of the Lakeside Camp Meeting

On February 9, 2025, Lakesider Dave Boling wrote this piece documenting the very earliest days and activities that served as the foundation of Lakeside Chautauqua.

As winter slowly winds towards spring and a new  Lakeside season, we often find ourselves comparing the promise of the coming summer to the experience of the past.

In the winter of 1875, our Lakeside ancestors must have done the same, dedicating themselves to building upon the season of 1874. They understood that history does not stop with comparisons to the past, but it is also a bright light to shine in the darkness towards tomorrow.

What happened that previous summer that captured the Lakeside imagination?

We’re fortunate to have a written account of the 1874 Dedication Camp Meeting, written by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Pearne in the Western Christian Advocate, August 1874. Dr. Pearne was a well-known figure in his day, both in the Methodist Episcopal Church and in the federal government. He served as a missionary to Oregon and later as United States Counsel to the British West Indies. After his appearance at Lakeside, he served churches in southwestern Ohio and came again and again to Lakeside.

Dr. Pearne writes in his article:

The second camp-meeting held on the Lakeside ground ran from July 28 until August 4. I cannot forbear to speak of the great beauty of these grounds. They are certainly unsurpassed by anything I have seen. They gently ascend from the lakeshore to a height of perhaps 75 feet or more.  The natural features of the place are fully equal to those of Put-In-Bay and Kelley’s Island; and when it is considered that not only no temptations to vice and dissipation are connected with it, it is thus seen as a most desirable place of resort, especially for families.

There are about 100 tents and cottages built since last year. These were all occupied, and twenty or thirty more could have been had. Attendance was greatest on Saturday and Sabbath, numbering on those days, it is supposed, four thousand or more. On no day was the attendance small. There were about seventy travelling preachers present and laypeople from Memphis, Massachusetts, Iowa and Ohio.

The opening service was conducted by the writer. His subject was “Effectual Prayer” in which the aim was to lead Christians to ask largely and in faith for such great things as God has promised to bestow. The spirit of grace rested upon the people, and they were wonderfully drawn together. Almost all were agreed as to the desirability and necessity of holiness.

Dr. and Mrs. (Phoebe) Palmer were present during nearly all the meeting. A marked feature of the meeting was the presence of several German preachers, including Rev. Dr. William Nast and a goodly company of German laypeople.

After a couple day delay because of rain, the grounds were dedicated on Saturday, August 1, 1874, by Rev. Dr. Thomas M. Eddy, his text was Psalms 132, verse 6 – “We have found it in the fields of the wood.” The doctor showed the utility of the present camp-meeting system, a system in marked contrast to the past. He instanced a fresher, more effective pulpit, a more liberal appeal and a larger aim and effort – a diviner power of song.

There were other sermons that weekend, with speakers like William Nast, the founder of the German speaking Methodist Conference who were equally well known as Dr. Eddy in their day. Methodist Bishops, Civil War Chaplains, temperance leaders, college presidents, and former conductors of the Underground Railroad made up the Camp Meeting Association Board and had planned the program.

Topics such as the missionary work of the church, temperance, the important social ministry leadership role of women, education for the formerly enslaved and always prayers for the gift of holiness, of perfect love, (a truly Methodist approach to faith) in each of their lives. And in turn they were building a new community. The uniqueness of German immigrants being invited to participate and preach would become a Lakeside tradition for nearly a century.

The Lakeside camp-meeting grounds signaled to the world that Lakeside was a place to seek a deeper personal relationship with God and with each other. It challenged them to actively use that relationship to make the love of God real in their world.

How do we do that? Was that the question they were asking themselves that winter of 1875 with an upcoming Lakeside summer on their minds. They figured it out in ways that worked for their generation, and generations to come . . . now it’s our turn.