Two years of the Civil War and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 193 years, those are the only times that the Salem Campmeeting (sometimes written as two words) has not been held in person.
Last year, the religious revival was held virtually, but this year, the “tents” will be full again.
On Wednesday, Joe Cook, who lives in Rome and works at the Georgia River Network, and other family members arrived early to spruce up his family’s tent — a tan one with red trim — in preparation for the large, interdenominational outdoor religious revival, which runs July 9-16.
By the weekend, it will be a packed house with seven bedrooms full of family. A wooden communal dining table sits ready for meals that might range from fried chicken, creamed corn and peas to lasagna to fried fish or Indian food.
Camp meetings like Salem are a big part of summer for many Protestants.
It will be a week of free worship services, Bible study and activities for youths and adults.
“I think for anybody who has ever attended Salem or any camp meeting, it’s like sacred ground,” said Cook, a member of the Salem board of directors. “I think of it as our ancestry and spiritual roots and it has strong traditions. This is where we belong.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
These camp meetings were a way for Protestant denominations to reach farmers and townspeople in the U.S. frontier. From those camp meetings, new churches were birthed, and the spread of Christian evangelicalism ignited.
“These were great evangelistic meetings and social gatherings as well,” said Darrell Huckaby, a member of the board and historian. “It was a call for America to come back to godly values.”
Elesha J. Coffman, an associate professor of history at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said camp meetings grew out of the Second Great Awakening in the United States and were a big influence in American religion.
“In the 1800s, camp meetings helped to counter the isolation of living on the frontier,” said Coffman. “We’ve felt isolation again in the last year, although for a very different reason. But there’s a similar longing for community and continuity, for a time and a place that feel safe.”
Cook said the Salem Campmeeting provides a sense of place and in a world today “where we move around a lot and families change, there aren’t many things in our lives that remain the same where we can return year after year.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
One of the highlights of the summer gathering will be a “Tour of the Tents,” which will be held 1:30-3:30 p.m. Saturday at the campgrounds, 3940 Salem Road in Newton County. The tour is sponsored in cooperation with the Rockdale and Newton County historical societies.
The event is free and visitors can come to the campground and look for tour signs on the tents.
Among this year’s speakers are the Rev. Steven Barnes, interim pastor at Oconee Presbyterian Church in Watkinsville; the Rev Don Martin, retired senior pastor of Alpharetta First United Methodist Church; and the Rev. Byron Thomas, new superintendent of the Central South District of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Cook, 54, attended his first camp meeting when he was in diapers and has never missed a year.
His grandmother, who lived to be 100, attended the outdoor event — her entire life. His mother grew up a mile down the road and attended.
The youngest person in his family to come this year is 3 years old; the oldest is 88.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
All around the campground are signs of activity. A pickup truck tows a trailer overflowing with tree branches. A couple is erecting a white tent in front of their cabin. Others are busy cleaning walls, dishes and other items around the tent.
Walking through the campground is like stepping back in time.
The “tents” are rustic, with some floors and front porches layered with fresh wood shavings. The oldest one — the Cunningham-Ramsey tent — was built in the 1840s.
The tents are actually cabins.
The term tents, and those who stay in them “tenters,” hearken back to the old days when Christian devotees would load up wagons coming from all over and pitch temporary tents during the annual summer spiritual revival. Eventually, tenters decided to make the dwellings more permanent. Some have cabins; some come in RVs or stay in the 22-room hotel.
One of the few concessions Cook has made over the years was to add an air conditioning unit to make what could be a sweltering July manageable in his family’s wood-frame cabin. It was an idea strongly suggested by his wife.
“It’s almost heresy,” he said, laughing. “And much to my consternation.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
In 1998, Salem Camp Ground was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Couples met and wed at the Salem Campmeeting. Families expanded with some moving out of state, but always coming back. At one time, there were about 75 tents, said Cook. Today there are about 27.
In the 1850s, a fire destroyed two-thirds of the tents.
Family names are prominent on some of the tents: Jenkins & Milton, Plunkett and Howington, Ingle, Cowan and Ogletree.
“It’s kind of like Christmas and your birthday and every family reunion rolled into one,” said Laura Ramsey Kemp of Covington, whose parents brought her to her first camp meeting when she was a week old.
“It’s hard to think of a place where you can sit and watch people — little kids doing the same thing you did and the same thing my mother did when she was little and what my grandmother did when she was a little girl,” said Kemp.
Featured prominently on the campground is a white wooden tabernacle — or arbor — built in 1854, with its wooden pews and the floor filled with wood shavings. It’s been rare, but a couple of times, said Cook, a black snake has fallen from the rafters in the midst of a service.
“That created quite a stir, but no preachers have ever handled any snakes down there,” he said jokingly.
Former President Jimmy Carter, then Georgia’s governor, once led the morning prayer. Another well-known name who once attended was crooner Tony Fontane, a popular performer-turned-gospel singer and evangelist, who was one of the preachers for the week one year in the early 1960s, said Huckaby.
These camp meetings were a way for Protestant denominations to reach farmers and townsmen in rural areas. From those camp meetings, new churches were birthed, and the spread of Christian evangelicalism ignited.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Salem was not the first camp meeting in the nation. Others have been held in places like Kentucky, Indiana and the Carolinas.
And there are several this summer in Georgia.
Indian Springs Holiness Camp Meeting in Flovilla, southeast of Atlanta, which started 131 years ago, is expecting thousands to attend during the course of the 10-day revival, which will be held July 8-18.
Matthew Gambill, who serves on the board of trustees for the Indian Springs camp meeting, said his uncle, former Gov. Joe Frank Harris, regularly attends the camp meeting.
“The really great thing about camp meetings and Indian Springs is that we have a slower pace of life and you don’t have those distractions,” Gambill said. “We can really focus on the preaching and reflect on our faith. People have found it to be enriching and a blessing.”
SALEM CAMPMEETING
The Salem Campmeeting is an annual summer religious revival and gathering that began in 1828. Families have attended for generations to hear preaching and music and to see family and friends. This year’s event runs July 9-16.
One of the highlights of the summer gathering will be a “Tour of the Tents,” which will be held 1:30-3:30 p.m. Saturday at the campgrounds, 3940 Salem Road in Newton County near Covington. The tour is sponsored in cooperation with the Rockdale and Newton County historical societies.
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