The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and the Chautauqua Institution Leslie Allen Buhite

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE & DANCE

THE CHAUTAUQUA LAKE CAMP MEETING AND THE CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

LESLIE ALLEN BUHITE

A Dissertation submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2007

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Leslie Allen Buhite defended on April 17, 2007.

Carrie Sandahl Professor Directing Dissertation

Donna Marie Nudd Outside Committee Member

Mary Karen Dahl Committee Member

Approved:

C. Cameron Jackson, Director, School of Theatre

Sally E. McRorie, Dean, College of Visual Arts, Theatre & Dance

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved of the above named committee members.

For

Michelle and Ashera Donald and Nancy Mudge Harold and Ruth Buhite

As a foundation left to create the spiral aim A Movement regained and regarded both the same All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you

-- Jon Anderson

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My very special thanks and profound gratitude to Dr. Carrie Sandahl, whose unrelenting support and encouragement in the face of my procrastination and truculence made this document possible. My thanks and gratitude also to committee members Dr. Donna Marie Nudd and Dr. Mary Karen Dahl for their patient reading and kind and insightful criticism. Of my acquaintances at Florida State University, I also extend my appreciation to Dr. Laura Edmondson for her efforts and engaging conversations, to Dr. Anita Gonzalez and Xochi for their friendship to my family and me, and to Dr. Joe Karioth for his mentoring and many free lunches. This dissertation was prompted in part from the alternative Chautauqua history I first discovered in Norton Hall at Chautauqua Institution. For that entertaining record I am indebted to the institutional memory of IATSE Local #266, and to the specific recollections of Ed Mifsud, Jack Sherwood, John and Bill Samuelson, and others of a certain generation. Also at Chautauqua, my thanks to Jay Lesenger and Marty Merkly for obliging my many impertinent requests, and to Chez Robert for small favors and great friendship. A second inspiration for tracing an alternative history of Chautauqua grew from the work of Dr. Leonard Faulk, whose historical research on Rev. James Townsend revealed to me the first of many great holes in the received history of The Institution. My thanks to Len and other members of the Unitarian- Universalist Congregation of Jamestown for their continued interest and support. Of these, my special thanks also to Ms. B. Dolores Thompson, whose history of Chautauqua County was very influential in shaping this project in its earliest conceptions. For conversation, information, and many obscure references on the holiness movement I extend my appreciation to Dr. Kenneth O. Brown, and to Mr. Norman P. Carlson for sharing his social history of the exalted Chautauqua Lake.

I am indebted to the Prendergast Library in Jamestown for my use and abuse of the microfilm archives, the book collection, and occasionally the staff. I am also deeply indebted to the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford for enabling my research in its final stages, and especially to Dr. Bridgett Passauer for her encouragement and commiseration. Also at Pitt-Bradford, my thanks to the Han- ley Library staff for facilitating my odd and extensive interlibrary loan requests and many gentle reminders to return overdue books. And, as many before me have discovered, there is no other description for the staff at the Oliver Archives Center at Chautauqua than “delightful.” My particular thanks for their advice and for supplying several historic documents. My appreciation for generous encouragement and the occasional kick in the pants to Carl Seiple (and of course Joanne), my curious-but-patient siblings, and father Harold. Thanks also to Fred J. Behrendt for advice and assistance on the final formatting process as well as his decades of friendship, and to the Divine Michelle for chasing out truckloads of typos, misplaced words, wandering verb tenses and many an [ ; of for the .”.).). And for putting up with this very long process.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES Page vii

ABSTRACT Page ix7

INTRODUCTION: The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and

The Chautauqua Institution Page 1 Precis Page 3 Existing Scholarship and Resources Page 12 Personal Musings Page 18 Theoretical Musings Page 19 Chapter by Chapter Page 24 Summation Page 27

CHAPTER 1: The Pennsylvania Oil District and The Chautauqua Region Page 29 Oil and Water Page 29 Petrolia Page 32 Oil Fever Page 34 Gender Page 37 Tourists and Voyeurs Page 44 The Chautauqua Lake Region Page 46 Rhetoric and Reality Page 52 Suburban Development Page 57 Gender II Page 63 Heterotopium Chautauquans Page 67

CHAPTER 2: The Evolution of Camp Meetings Page 74 Space and Behavior Page 82 Gender Performance: Women Page 88 Gender Performance: Men Page 94 The Refinement of Behaviors Page 97 Salvation and Beyond Page 105 Embourgeoisement Page 109

CHAPTER 3: The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Page 112 Genesis Page 115 Reportage Page 117 Salvation and Sanctification at Chautauqua Page 120 Gender Page 123 Physical Improvements Page 127 Evocation Page 130 Summation Page 134

CHAPTER 4. The Fair Point Sunday School Assembly Page 140 “Not a Camp Meeting!” Page 141 Some Comparisons with Camp Meetings Page 147 The Chautauqua Movement Page 158 Summation Page 170

CONCLUSION Page 172 Revelation Page 176 For Further Study Page 178 Twilight Page 180

APPENDICES Appendix A: Methodist Denominations Page 182 Appendix B: “The Highest Navigable Water on the Globe” Page 184 Appendix C: The 1873 National Guard Encampment on Chautauqua Lake Page 186 Appendix D: Appalachian Plain-Folk Culture Page 188 Appendix E: CLCM Lease-holders – Notes and Commentary Page 189 Appendix F: The Chautauqua Movement Page 191 Appendix G: Permission Page 193

NOTES Page 194

WORKS CITED Page 230

NEWSPAPER REFERENCES,CITATIONS, NOTES AND COMMENTARIES Page 239

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Page 251

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE I: Regional map of Chautauqua and Petrolia Page 48 FIGURE II: The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Auditorium Page 84 FIGURE III: Plan of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Grounds Page 126

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ABSTRACT

This multidisciplinary dissertation progresses on several levels. The first cause is to examine the brief history of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting (1871-1875), a religious organization preceding the Chautauqua Institution at its site on Chautauqua Lake in western New York, and trace its organizational and social transition from a Methodist Episcopal camp meeting into the world famous “American Institution.” To accomplish this the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting is situated in its historical, regional, and national context in the 1870s, before narrowing the survey to the more immediate social milieu of Chautauqua County, New York, in that era. The contextualization will specifically consider the Chautauqua region’s relationship with the nearby oil-producing district of Pennsylvania, which is revealed to be both a social foil and an economic resource that enabled the development of religious and social tourism on Chautauqua Lake. A second level of contextualization will consider the evolution of the individual and group performance of evangelical Protestant religiosity across the nineteenth century, from the spectacular behaviors seen at early camp meetings in the trans-Appalachian American Southeast to the more refined behaviors at great holiness meetings in the North to the discrete performances that characterized behaviors within the Chautauqua Move- ment.

INTRODUCTION: THE CHAUTAUQUA LAKE CAMP MEETING AND THE CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

“That man who is speaking is Dr. Vincent. Hasn’t he a ringing voice? It reminds me of a trumpet. He likes to use it, I know he does; he has learned to manage it so nicely, and with an eye to the effect. You will hear his voice often enough, and you just watch and see if you don’t learn the first echo of it from any other.” “Perhaps he won’t be here all the time to use his voice,” whispered back Flossy, without much idea of what she was saying. The novelty of the scene had stolen her senses. Marion laughed softly. “You blessed little idiot!” she said, “don’t you know he manufactured Chautauqua, root and branch? Or if he didn’t quite manufacture the trees he looked after their growth, I dare say. Why, this meeting is his darling, his idol, his best beloved. ‘Hear him speak?’ I guess you will. I should like to see a meeting of this kind that didn’t hear from him. It will have to be when he is out of the body.” -- Isabella Alden Four Girls at Chautauqua

Soon the Methodists will be shaking out their tents and packing their lunch-baskets for their camp meeting grounds … Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent, the silver-tongued trumpet of Sabbath Schoolism, is marshalling a meeting for the banks of Chautauqua Lake which will probably be the grandest religious picnic ever held since the five thousand sat down on the grass and had a surplus of

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provisions to take home to those who were too stupid to go. From the arrangements being made for that August meeting, we judge there will be so much concentrated enthusiasm that there may be danger that some morning, as the sun strikes gloriously through the ascending mist of Chautauqua Lake, our friends may all go up in a chariot of fire, leaving our Sunday-Schools in a bereft condition… Why not have all our churches and denominations take a summer airing? The breath of the pine woods or a whistle with the waters would put an end to everything like morbid religion. One reason why the apostle had such healthy theology was that they went a- fishing. We would like to see the day when, … forgetful of all our minor distinctions, we could have a Church Universal Camp Meeting. We would like to plant the tent-pole for such a convoca- tion. -- T. DeWitt Talmage

When I began exploring the subject, and discussing it with anyone who cared, an interesting pattern emerged. While nonaca- demic friends were quite familiar with Chautauqua, few of my academic colleagues had ever heard of it. The word itself produced quizzical stares. More than one mistook it for a “topic in Indian history.” Others asked for it to be spelled, as if visualizing the word might jog something loose from the synaptic archives. “How interesting – sounds French” -- Andrew C. Rieser The Chautauqua Moment 1

Precis This dissertation will progress on several levels. I will first examine the brief existence of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting (1871-1874), a religious organization preceding the Chautauqua Institution at its site on Chautauqua Lake in western New York, and trace the organizational and social transition from a Methodist Episcopal camp meeting into the world famous “American Institution.”2 To accomplish this the Chautau- qua Lake Camp Meeting (CLCM) must be situated in its historical, regional, and national context in the 1870s, before narrowing the survey to the more immediate social milieu of Chautauqua County in that era. I will finally consider the actors and activities that preceded and contributed to the highly influential Chautauqua Movement. In short, the first part of this study will concentrate on social and economic factors that enabled the Chautauqua region’s identity as a site for religious tourists; the latter half will consider in more detail the evolution of the individual and group performance of evangelical Protes- tant religiosity, particularly as practiced at Chautauqua. As a part of this process, I will expand the conventional understanding of performance studies from an examination of individuals and small groups to an interrogation of corporate bodies, and suggest that the establishment of a regional identity was in fact a deliberated performance. In this I follow Philip Auslander, who observes that performance studies takes performance in the expanded sense that subsumes aesthetic performances, ritual and religious observance, secular ceremonies, carnival, games, play, sports, and many other cultural forms as its object of inquiry and unites the tradition of theatre studies with techniques and approaches from anthropology, sociology, critical theory, cultural studies, art history, and other disciplines. (99-100) Performance studies accepts a broad array of descriptions and definitions, so much so that perhaps it should be considered a mode of apprehending and describing human interaction rather than a discipline with distinct boundaries of inquiry –just as melodrama is better described as a mode of apprehension than a genre.3 Much along these lines, Michal Kobialka observes that performance studies is the

topography of movement in space and in time; space and time which ceased to be the conditions by which to live and allow themselves to be understood as modes of thinking, which are always in flux. This topography describes activities that occur when a performative practice is pushed to its final limits where it loses its pre- assigned meanings but, maintaining its specificity, establishes its own identity in the relationship with other objects or subjects in that space.4

My approach generally follows Kobialka’s reasoning. A regional and local identity was essentially invented in western New York in the nineteenth century. As the region’s culture in “space and time” exceeded subsistence agriculture and local trade, the region became, in a sense, self-aware. A specific regional identity was cultivated relative to other regions in a dynamic and self-reflective process typical of American society in the era. As individuals developed this regional identity, they invented themselves as actors participating in a larger drama and, concurrently, as members of legally and socially recognized corporate bodies. Meanings were inscribed not only on individuals but on the entire region.5 These larger inscriptions did not occur spontaneously; they were consciously composed and performed– and continue to be performed – in the ongoing re- invention of Chautauqua Institution and the Chautauqua region. A traditional camp meeting (a mature social and religious form) on the Chautauqua Lake site was consciously and deliberately reshaped in such a manner that its conventional meaning fell away and a new entity emerged in its place. Following Kobialka, such corporate and regional inscriptions and transmutations fall under the rubric of performance studies. The origins of camp meetings are a matter of some dispute.6 For purposes of this study I will follow the generally accepted view that camp meetings took shape as a distinct entity about 1800 in Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas. In the broadest outlines, camp meetings are religious gatherings of several days duration – typically from four to fourteen days – held in rural places. They were usually scheduled to coincide with relatively slack times in the agricultural calendar, typically in mid-to-late summer or early autumn. Camp meetings were intended to support revival meetings, district meet-

ings, and the traditional Sunday ecclesiastical schedule held throughout the remainder of the year. Participants traveled from relatively distant locales to participate and usually stayed on site in tents or temporary shelters; thus the “camp” in camp meeting. As the movement formalized, the more enduring sites would develop permanent cottages and actual houses, though the conventions of tents and tent living often shaped the architectural expressions. Camp meetings may be distinguished from revival meetings, though the boundaries are by no means firm. The latter concern a single congregation or several congregations in a locale, and participants typically return to their homes at the close of the day’s services. Revivals may be held in the heart of cities as well as in smaller towns and rural churches; camp meetings almost by definition require a site isolated from the distractions of ordinary life and the larger world. Despite their seeking for isolation, some camp meetings had urban development grow up around them. John Brinckerhoff Jackson observes that in the Unites States a place name with “Grove” in its title almost invariably denotes the site of a camp meeting 7 Camp meetings throughout the nineteenth century were substantially an evangelical Protestant (and characteristically Methodist Episcopal) phenomenon in the United States, though they have never been an official rite or service of any denomination. Theologically, evangelical services at camp meetings and revivals are characterized by sensational preaching on sin and the fires of hell awaiting the unredeemed, accompanied by exhortations for repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ as savior though his atoning death and subsequent resurrection. A controversial second stage of the conversion experience, which would have much bearing on the development of camp meetings and the course of American religion at the end of the nineteenth century, concerned an experience variously known as “entire sanctification,” “holiness,” “full salvation,” “perfect love,” “second blessing,” “Christian perfection,” and similar terms. (The nomenclature has since generally stabilized as the “Holiness” or “Pentecostal” movement in the United States and the “Higher Life” Movement in Britain.) In the sanctified state, the redeemed sinner’s existence is wholly consecrated to Christianity’s triune God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Most controversially, a fully sanctified convert arguably

6 could not (or at least would not) sin in the sense of deliberately undertaking an action that would be contrary to the will of God.8 Camp meetings in the United States had a first flowering in the early nineteenth century. They offered individuals and families in far-flung rural areas an opportunity to meet, socialize, and generate a congregational sensibility in a chaotic, sometimes lawless, frontier environment. Camp meetings in the trans-Appalachian region served in the development of a regional “self-awareness” mentioned above. The largest meetings, particularly the meeting at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801, saw thousands “afflicted” by the Holy Ghost, writhing or partially paralyzed, screaming, moaning, speaking in tongues, barking, etc. Hannah Whitall Smith, no friend of camp meetings in her later life, observed of these events that …men, women and small children fell down in convulsions, foaming at the mouth and uttering strange cries under the influence of their excitement. “They lie as though they were dead for some time without pulse or breath ….” wrote an eyewitness. “To prevent their being trodden under- foot by the multitudes they are collected together and laid out in order in two squares of the meeting house, where, like so many dead corpses, they cover a considerable part of the floor.… No sex or colour, class or description were exempt from the pervading influence of the Spirit; even from the age of eight months to sixty years….” Groanings, shoutings and speaking with tongues were constant occurrences, and the preachers would at times creep along the ground, crying out that they were “the old serpent who had tempted Eve,” and exhorting their hearers to “agonise” and be saved. Smith provides a widely accepted explanation for these behaviors: “Amid all this turmoil the people of the lonely country places found some of the emotional outlet, and even some of the intellectual interest which they lacked in the ordinary course of their lives, and they ‘agonised’ and ‘repented’ with a will.” (Strachey 50; internal citation of Bangs 108) Hundreds, if not thousands, declared themselves saved at these meetings, and

more than a few claimed to be sanctified. Some individuals no doubt did find enduring spiritual value at these events, though critics then and now scoff at the probity and depth of religion found in such an emotionally charged environment. By the outbreak of the Civil War camp meetings had fallen into general disrepute due to the extremes of emo- tionalism (and even lawlessness) that liminal spaces invite when permitted to reign unchecked.9 These meetings were by no means extinct, however, and rural America remains home to an impressive number of camps and revivals. The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting was part of a less-recognized second generation camp meeting movement that flowered in the United States after the Civil War. This movement, in contrast to the pre-war meetings, substantially served an urban clientele through a more sophisticated theology and a tighter hand on the range of acceptable behaviors. These later camp meetings were a study in contrasts: they were progressive on social issues such as temperance and women’s rights, yet proclaimed a conservative agenda that conjured a putative “primitive” Christian church as their paradigm. This assertion masked a sentimental regard for a more recent, highly idealized rural past, and reflected the anxieties and preoccupations of an urbanizing society trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world. Many of these camp meeting patrons were migrants from rural areas into the cities after the Civil War; thus the term “urbanizing.” In addition to the usual evils of urban culture, these migrants contacted – often for the first time – an array of influences wholly foreign to their provincial experience. Roman Catholics were considered particular sources of religious menace; Jews and southern Europeans, Ortho- dox Christians, freethinkers, intellectuals, socialists, and free Blacks in large numbers were troubling also. From a performance studies standpoint, the ecstatic emotional outbursts that characterized “manifestations of the Holy Ghost” in the early camp meetings gave way to a more genteel, though no less profound, expression of spirituality in the second generation camp meetings. Repentance and salvation were the focus of the early camp meetings; the experience of sanctification (a secondary, post-salvation experience) dominated the later meetings. Both salvation and sanctification were visible in distinct performance behaviors displayed by individuals for the benefit of their co-religionists and society at large.

The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting’s transition to the Chautauqua Institution marked yet another change in performance strategies among the patrons, as the public prayers and exhortations of the “saved and sanctified” were sublimated into a more refined, studious performance of holiness manifested in quiet acts and attitudes. The Social Gospel movement – a religiosity grounded in acts of benefaction to the public – would soon emerge as an outgrowth and reaction to the conversion-sanctification continuum. The Chautauqua Institution would be a premier locus for the development of the Social Gospel. The Chautauqua Institution, founded as a “Sunday School Assembly” on the site of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting in 1874, is a world-famous center for religion and the arts. It began specifically as a summer normal school session for Protestant Sunday school teachers, though it quickly outgrew its original mission. The Chautauqua Move- ment that followed was a nationwide, then worldwide, course of personal improvement through guided reading, study, and discussion. Chautauqua Institution became a laboratory for an array of progressive movements that shaped modern America. An independent Chautauqua circuit of tent attractions featuring lectures, music, and light dramatic entertainments became an undisputed phenomenon, annually serving over 10 million patrons in the United States at its peak in the 1920s. Earnestness, not ecstasy, became the new hallmark of the Christian seeker at Chautauqua after 1874. Despite the obvious popularity and success of the second-generation of camp meetings, many resisted sermon-and-exhortation as the means of church growth on theological, political, and experiential grounds. Critics of sanctification correctly predicted that the movement would be quite divisive to general congregations and, ultimately, to the greater Methodist denomination. The conservative Christian movement that dominates religious discourse in the United States at this writing can be traced to groups that left their established evangelical Protestant congregations over the issue of sanctification, and to the perceived “worldliness” of those established bodies – Methodist bodies in particular – as they grew into social acceptance and prominence. As suggested above, education (with a strong dose of temperance) was the order of the day at the new Fair Point Sunday School Assembly in 1874, held on the grounds of the Chau- tauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association. Though the religious element remained strong,

spectacular manifestations of the Holy Ghost displayed in noisy performances were strongly discouraged, and spontaneous exhortations to repent were quickly silenced. Chautauqua founder John Heyl Vincent was known to personally break up unscheduled sermons and singspiels on the Chautauqua grounds, much to the disgruntlement of seekers of that old time religion. Jesse L. Hurlbut, a patron of Chautauqua Institution’s earliest days, recalls: There was to be a definite and carefully prepared program of a distinctly educational cast, with no opening for spontaneous, go-as- you-please meetings to be started at any moment. This was arranged to keep a quietus on both the religious enthusiast and the wandering Sunday School orator who expected to make a speech on every occasion. On my first visit to Fair Point – which was not in ’74 but in ’75 – I found a prominent Sunday School talker from my own State, gripsack in hand, leaving the ground. He explained, “This is no place for me. They have a cut-and-dried program, and a fellow can’t get a word in anywhere. I’m going home. Give me a convention where a man can speak if he wants to.”10 Clearly, cheerful spiritual sobriety and attention to the order of events was more befitting of the new Chautauquan after 1874. For the individual, the liminality of camps and chautauquas11 provided opportunity for the refiguring of social (and particularly gender) roles, important first steps toward the larger social changes that would follow. The “old-fashioned” camp meeting movement, particularly as it re-invented itself at the great holiness camps in the late 1860s, laid the foundation for the explosion of progressive causes that would create the modern world, though credit for these advances usually goes to the Chautauqua Move- ment. Ironically, progressive causes and “liberals” in general are the great enemy of conservative Christianity, though both liberal secular culture (what Rieser terms “civic religion”) and modern neo-conservatism are branches of socio-religious movements that took root on the old camp meeting grounds. The CLCM’s regional success as a social and economic entity, along with the

evolving holiness camp meeting movement, laid the groundwork for the national and international Chautauqua Movement that would follow. The many histories of the Chau- tauqua Institution begin with the arrival of Rev. John Heyl Vincent (1832-1920) and inventor and industrialist Lewis Miller (1828-1899) at the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Grounds at Fair Point on Chautauqua Lake in the summer of 1873. They arrived to find a thriving annual camp meeting of several years duration – a “small city” in Vincent’s terms. The area was a popular regional destination well served by rail lines and well-funded by the petro-dollars flowing north from Pennsylvania. Chautauqua Institu- tion histories have minimized the CLCM and ignored the social and economic milieu in which it grew. These histories have privileged instead the success of Vincent and Miller’s Chautauqua Institution, in the most naïve iterations portraying it as a sui generis eruption on the shore of Chautauqua Lake. Vincent and Miller’s success was due in no small measure to the important work done by the predecessor organization, the wider camp meeting movement, and the individuals who made them happen. As has been generally recognized, both the CLCM and Chautauqua Institution were an outgrowth of and response to the religious fervor which swept America, and particularly the “scorched ground” of upstate New York, throughout the nineteenth century.12 The Chautauqua region, Camp Meeting, and Institution benefited as well from an emerging tourist class restlessly seeking the next “watering hole” and the renewed interest in religious camp meetings in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Few recognize that Pennsylvania oil money bankrolled the Chautauqua region as a tourist destination in the latter part of the 1800s, and was an essential financial and social resource for the emerging Camp Meeting and Institution. This circulation of capital and social energy between the Chautauqua region and the Pennsylvania oil district has never been explored. Their relationship provided important, though often indirect, human and economic capital for the development of the Chautauqua region – as it indeed still does. It also provided a critical polarity for the Chautauqua region’s early self-definition as both a popular resort and spiritual retreat. Pennsylvania’s oil district (“Petrolia”) was flush with money as a result of the extraction of petroleum; filth, pollution, a population explosion, and attendant social ills accompanied this new wealth. As a convenient nearby tourist

11 resort, Chautauqua offered an escape from the ills of Petrolia, and provided the intangible benefits of social status that comes with a cottage on a lake in an up-and-coming vacation spot. The flush of oil money destroyed the oil region’s original status markers; a place on Chautauqua Lake emerged as a trophy for Petrolia’s nouveau riche in the 1870s. Vincent and Miller’s Chautauqua Institution expanded on CLCM’s defining polarity – already in decline as the petroleum industry expanded out of its original seedbed on Oil Creek – and generated new ones as it gained stature and recognition in the nation’s popular consciousness. Chautauqua Institution became a theatre of national concerns in quite a real sense; it created meaning by virtue of its geographical location in the context of other geographical and economic forces. Quite distinctive geographical elements on the American landscape made the Chautauqua region an attractive, convenient, and socially significant tourist destination – a symbolic and physically real geographical center of the American populace. In travel time via the railroads, Chautauqua lay almost equidistant between urban centers of New York City and Chicago, and nearer still to major industrial centers of America in the late nineteenth century. The bucolic setting of Chautauqua Lake was overdetermined in contemporary literature and advertising as the antithesis of urban and industrial noise, pollution, and corruption. Chautauqua Institution became a place in which the contrasts and polarities of an urbanizing, industrializing nation – one that retained strong sentimental ties to a rural past – could be expressed and mediated. A number of overlapping and interpenetrating discourses of religion, education, entertainment, transportation, manufacture, and commerce played out in the Chautauqua Lake region during the last decades of the nineteenth century. These discourses engaged in an interplay that was often constructive – or at least financially profitable – rather than merely contentious. Like all social acts, the roots may be traced to a complex of personal and professional motives, conscious and unconscious imitative modeling, social and economic pressures, and deliberate, consciously performative behaviors. This dissertation will substantially address the deliberate and conscious aspects of regional, local, and personal performances in the era.

Existing Scholarship and Resources So far as I can determine, the history of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting has never been rigorously and systematically traced. Outside of contemporary newspaper accounts, the little documentation that exists is seldom more than a few introductory paragraphs to a more substantial history of the Chautauqua Institution. These histories more often than not offer invidious comparisons for the benefit of the latter. Chautauqua Institution has been almost overwhelmingly the author of its own history. Indeed, until quite recently, use of materials from the extensive Chautauqua archives was – at least in Chautauqua lore – only granted upon approval of the finished work, which needed to reflect the official image of the Institution. While referring to the standard histories, I will also draw from some wider sources of information relating to the Chautauqua region. These most specifically include local newspapers, which provide a rich account of events and, equally important, attitudes and arguments toward development of the Chautauqua Lake region as a tourist destination. Both the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and the Chautauqua Institution had no official organs for the first three years of their respective existence; the various James- town, New York, papers (Jamestown Journal, Daily Journal, Evening Journal, and Post- Journal) provided in-depth coverage of many of the issues and events from the first conception of a camp meeting on Chautauqua to the present day. These are the primary sources for the “Doings at Fair Point” in the era in question; their notes and comments on triumphs and, more often, the travails of Petrolia also significantly shaped this dissertation. (Perceptions, rather than facts, were at the heart of the creation of Chautauqua as a site for religious tourism, and these perceptions were substantially shaped by periodical reporting in the era.) Though quite informative and often entertaining, the reports and accounts found in the papers hardly constitute models of objective reporting. The anonymous camp meeting reporters and the editor for the Jamestown Daily Journal (hereafter JDJ) were clearly partisans in the tendentious Jamestown ecclesiastical politics. Like many of their male contemporaries, they typically overlooked efforts and activities of women, and rarely mentioned them in daily accounts except in the most patronizing terms.

I have had little opportunity to directly peruse the newspapers of the oil region. The Titusville Herald on 24 Aug. 1959 (100.155.D) printed a “Centennial Edition” with facsimiles and extracts of entries associated with the oil boom. This edition, along with abstracts of events in Petrolia that appeared in the Jamestown papers and some archival material from the Corry, Pennsylvania, historical society is substantially my source of information on Petrolia. A few headlines provide the tone of the reportage: References drawn from this source will be noted as Herald Facsimile. As a consequence of the era’s gender bias, one must (with more than a note of irony) turn to fictional sources to discover what women – the most substantial body of participants at religious camps and meetings – were doing, saying, and thinking. In the earliest days of Chautauqua Institution, several popular books were published that have become valuable source documents on practices and attitudes at the emerging Assembly – so much so that these novels should be viewed as behavioral manuals for visitors in the era. Chief among these are a series of novels by Isabella Alden (“Pansy”). For this study, the first of the series, Four Girls at Chautauqua, is the most useful. Nominally set in the second year of the Chautauqua Assembly (1875), the novel provides a good bit of local color and historical information on the actions and attitudes of the attendees. As the title suggests, four young women, close friends though of widely differing temperaments and backgrounds, make the pilgrimage from an unnamed eastern city to Chautauqua Institution’s 1875 season. Their spiritual journeys from curious onlookers to budding evangelists make up the plot. The record the novel and its sequels present of the earliest Chautauqua seasons, and the range of behaviors modeled by the young protago- nists in their interactions with other Chautauquans and their private circles as they return home, served equally to publicize the young Chautauqua movement and to provide a script for appropriate behaviors among its participants. A second fictional source of historical interest is H. H. Moore’s Ida Norton, or Life at Chautauqua (1878). Moore was a preacher at the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meet- ing, a participant in the transition to Vincent and Miller’s Chautauqua Assembly, and in later years an unofficial historian of the Institution. Moore was also a local pulpit minister, amateur historian, and (in his own mind, at least) a man of letters. Ida Norton, the

14 heroine of his deliciously terrible Victorian novel, was orphaned as a girl; as a young woman she could confound the theologians with her religious insights and whip all comers on the croquet grounds. Whereas Alden’s intent was to provide, in the guise of fiction, behavioral manuals for young would-be Chautauquans, Moore attempts to create a mythic history of Chautauqua. In so doing, he collapses Biblical archaeology, Native American history, and early European-American history onto the Assembly site on Chautauqua Lake. Moore’s novel produces, in Foucault’s terms, a heterotopia.13 The “official” history of the Chautauqua Institution is rich, fragmented, and romanticized. Though there have been a number of book-length popular histories and countless articles and essays in the popular press, no comprehensive critical scholarly treatment of the Chautauqua Institution was attempted before Andrew C. Rieser offered The Chautauqua Moment: Protestants, Progressives, and the Rise of Modern Liberalism (2003). Rieser’s is a thorough examination of Chautauqua as a social movement, tracing the Institution’s progress from a training ground for Protestant (particularly Methodist Episcopal) Sunday school teachers into a laboratory for the secular religion that has become modern liberal democracy in America. Rieser draws together extensive documents and scholarly works relating to the original Chautauqua, along with complementary material related to the circuit chautauquas that flourished in the early 20th century. For purposes of this study, Rieser’s work, which substantially documents the failure of the Chautauqua Movement’s many social promises, provides a starting place from which one may work backward in tracing the strands that would create the fabric of Chautau- qua. There are few sustained critical commentaries on Chautauqua prior to Rieser, though Jeffrey Simpson’s Chautauqua: An American Utopia (1999) provides an excellent “warts and all” introduction for the general reader. A few examples of the Institution’s celebratory tradition include Theodore Morrison’s Chautauqua: A Center for Education, Religion, and the Arts in America (1974). This is a very accessible history – perhaps “novelization” might be the better term – for the casual reader. Though clearly well researched and drawing on a considerable body of historical information, Morrison’s lack of citations is frustrating. This author displays occasional factual lapses and is often far

15 too busy celebrating Chautauqua to take a deeper look at the received history. A historical text remarkable for both its influence and misdirection is Jesse Lyman Hurlbut’s The Story of Chautauqua (1921). For over 50 years Hurlbut was a leader in Chautauqua’s Department of Education and an influential presence in the Chautauqua Scientific and Literary Circle. (The United Methodist Church on the Chau- tauqua grounds is named in his honor.) Writing nearly five decades after the founding of Chautauqua, Hurlbut’s narrative is unabashedly chauvinistic toward the Institution at the expense of the Camp Meeting. The half-centenary of the founding of Chautauqua Assembly apparently provoked several biographies of interest to this study. Ellwood Henderick’s Lewis Miller: A Bio- graphical Essay (1925) traces the family history of the co-founder, first president, and financial resource of the Chautauqua Assembly. Henderick’s hagiography of Miller is nearly a textbook example of unreliable narration. His chronology of the CLCM is clearly erroneous; his conclusions regarding Miller’s “distaste” for camp meetings – given Miller’s regular attendance and support of such affairs – is unsupported by external evidence and must be viewed with suspicion. On the other hand, Henderick offers information on Miller not found elsewhere. Like Hurlbut, the misinformation found in Henderick has influenced many subsequent works. John Heyl Vincent: A Biographical Sketch (1925), by the co-founder’s son Leon Vincent, is in my estimation a more trustworthy document. Though many later biogra- phers and historians imply that John Heyl Vincent stood in radical opposition to camp meetings, Leon Vincent, who certainly had access to his father’s off-the-record views, offers a portrait of the founder who, though “out of sympathy” with the camps, was spiritually aligned with his contemporary holiness advocates. Thus Leon Vincent’s often- overlooked work offers an important corrective to other writers. Alfreda I. Irwin’s Three Taps of the Gavel: The Chautauqua Story (1970, 1977, 1987) exemplifies Chautauqua Institution’s long tradition of image-making. This is a gossipy amalgam of fact and occasional folklore by the Institution’s long-time librarian, filled with lists of data and photos along with a celebratory text. As much a travelogue as history, this slim volume (now in its third edition) has influenced every treatment of the

Institution since its first appearance. Several recent scholarly works, though only peripheral to the Chautauqua story, bear mention for their influence on this dissertation. Jon Sterngass’s First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport and Coney Island (2001) provides a valuable history of the resort and “watering hole” phenomenon that dominated the leisure industry for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Though mention of Chautauqua Institution is not found in this book, it nevertheless illuminates the phenomenon of vacationing among a newly mobile middle and upper classes in the era. In these pages one may discover, indeed, the very qualities of leisure that the emerging watering hole on Chautauqua Lake was at once attempting to emulate and avoid in its early years. Troy Messenger’s Holy Leisure: Recreation and Religion in God’s Square Mile (1999) provides a treatment of New Jersey’s Ocean Grove in much the same terms as I will attempt in this study. Ocean Grove was founded as a religious camp meeting only a few years prior to the Chautauqua Camp Meeting; both were, indeed, part of that same second-generation revival movement. Messenger, a product of the Tisch School of the Arts, reveals some compelling intersections between the two locales and their inhabitants, and provides as well a solid theoretical foundation for an analysis of individual participants from a performance studies perspective. I am particularly indebted to Melvin Easterday Dieter’s The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (1980) for a richly researched discussion of the revival meeting phenomenon of the 1800s. Dieter’s sympathetic discussion of the various theological branches of America’s Second Great Awakening enlightened me to an entire theological movement that has never, to my knowledge, been traced relative to the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and Institution. My review of Dieter’s works led me to Raymond O. Brown, possibly the foremost historian of the camp meeting movement today. Virtually everything I have gleaned of the sanctification movement – though I was raised in the United Methodist Church I was wholly ignorant of this chapter of its ecclesiastical history – may be traced to the influence and recommendations of Dieter and Brown. Amy G. Richter, in Home on the Rails: Women, the Railroad, and the Rise of Public Domesticity (2005) thoughtfully develops the gender issues that informed Ameri-

can society in the late Victorian era, and illumines in particular the phenomenon of women travelers and the negotiations required for their movement through the public sphere. Chautauqua Camp and Institution were both highly dependent on both railroads and female patrons; the intersection of Richter’s work and this one is obvious – so much so that one might at times scratch out “railroad” and insert “Chautauqua” in Richter’s text. Charles Johnson’s The Frontier Camp Meeting: Religion's Harvest Time (1955) is still the standard reference on the early camp meeting phenomenon as well as a rich source for secondary references. Another useful general text is David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989). This work is particularly valuable in limning the society in which the camp meetings first emerged; Fischer’s reading of the southeastern plain-folk culture additionally serves to illuminate the culture of Appalachia’s northern cousins in the oil fields of western Pennsylvania and, to a lesser degree, the Connecticut Yankee culture that influenced the settling of Chautauqua Country, New York. Concerning Pennsylvania’s oil district and its relationship to Chautauqua, Brian Black’s Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom (2000) offers a view of the Pennsylvania oil district in many of the same terms as I propose for the Chautauqua region: a social history along side of a more traditional economic history of the region. Black’s American studies perspective dovetails well with contemporary performance studies concepts. In 1947 the Drake Well Museum in Titusville, Pennsylvania, published Pennsyl- vania Petroleum 1750-1872 (edited by Paul Giddens), a collection of primary source materials and commentaries related to the original oil boom. For this study, among the most important works in the collection include selections from J. H. A. Bone’s Petroleum and Petroleum Wells, an anonymous contributor to The Nation in the 1860s, and many personal letters, recollections, and newspaper clippings. Other important primary sources are John J. McLaurin’s Sketches in Crude Oil (1896), and Petrolia: A Brief History of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Region by Andrew Cone and Walter R. Johns (1870). This latter text provides an encyclopedic description of active and exhausted wells in the first

decade of the oil boom, as well as an informative and occasionally trenchant commentary on business and businessmen of the region.

Personal Musings In the summer of 1991 I stopped in at Norton Hall at Chautauqua Institution to pick up my paycheck. (I am a stagehand and, depending on the needs of the moment, may be found at any of the several Chautauqua performance venues during the summer.) It was a Wednesday and most of the opera stage crew wasn’t working, only the late Orison Bedell, the master carpenter, and master electrician Jack Sherwood, sitting through the zitzprobe. I had taken my daughter, then a toddler, along for the ride. While talking to Ori – a talking-to was always the price of extracting one’s paycheck from him – a late middle-aged woman glided up and, without a word, took my daughter from my arms. I surrendered her to the stranger without question and continued with my conversation. The females disappeared into the bowels of the building, to re-appear almost an hour later. No explanation was offered; I can’t recall if any words were even spoken. I was vaguely familiar with the woman; a few years later I even learned her first name, and we may have exchanged greetings a half-dozen times since then. What is remarkable about the incident is how unremarkable such an occurrence is at Chautauqua. In Alden’s Four Girls at Chautauqua one of the heroines volunteers to care for an unknown woman’s infant so that the mother might attend a lecture, and the young mother relents with little hesitation. In the context of the novel, this is one cloying moment among many others; in the context of Chautauqua, it is one tradition among many. This trust in the temporary extended religious family seems as old as camp meetings themselves. At the encampment on Martha’s Vineyard, Ellen Weiss notes, toddlers had their addresses pinned to their clothing; free to wander throughout the day, they were invariably safely returned by nightfall. Though I don’t encourage first-time visitors to hand off their children to strangers on the Chautauqua grounds, in very short order one becomes comfortable with nodding acquaintances, with the social leveling that takes place and the trust it inspires there. In this day, Mennonite housekeepers might converse with a country and western backup singer in full tart regalia after a concert at the Chautauqua Amphitheater, or a

musician from Julliard and a Supreme Court justice and housewife from Jamestown might chat together, waiting in line for the astonishingly slow service at one of the restaurants on the grounds.

Theoretical Musings Buffalo Gals, won't you come out tonight, Come out tonight, come out tonight. Buffalo Gals, won't you come out tonight And dance by the light of the moon. (Traditional) I have been employed at Chautauqua Institution since 1987; several personal conversations I engaged in at Chautauqua during and after the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy of the early 1990s crystallized some free-floating observations I had made over the years that would have some bearing on this study. I became aware that Cincinnati, Ohio, at the center of the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy of that era, was employing a strategy used long before in the early days of Chautauqua Camp and Institution – a rhetorical “positioning” of corporate bodies relative to another in the American landscape. Politicos in Cincinnati, it will be remembered, objected to the display of Mapple- thorpe’s homoerotic photographs in grounds of obscenity. As these works and their display had been assembled through the largess of the National Council of the Arts, a tax- funded governmental agency, a political firestorm erupted. Though the Mapplethorpe controversy played out in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Washington D.C., the rhetoric involved was little changed from what was more subtly deployed at Chautauqua, New York in the 1870s. The polarizing regional self-definitions aired in Cincinnati in 1990 implied that it was a place of (relative) virtue in contrast to other locales. Cincinnati’s readiness to protect its citizens from the immoral and disreputable art had, in veiled form, analogous expression Chautauqua County, New York over a century earlier, as the Chautauqua region rhetorically positioned itself as a “place of virtue” relative to the scandal and corruption of the Petrolia to its immediate south. (“South” as a relative term still carried significant moral implications in that region in the post-Civil War era.)

About the same time as the Mapplethorpe hearings, Buffalo, New York, endured similar controversies, though without the national audience. Cincinnati and Buffalo both grew to prominence as notorious, rough-and-ready frontier towns. (Though the song “Buffalo Gals” is now considered a children’s classic, its oblique lyrics describe the prostitutes that once haunted the western end of the Erie Canal.) Clearly, at various points an effort was made to “clean up” these cities, much as New York City’s Times Square district has been sanitized more recently. In purely economic terms, it is logical that proscribed businesses, driven from a community, should set up shop outside the reach of the law but within commuting distance of its clientele. But I began to suspect another level was also involved. To my mind, the very effort of one corporate body to identify itself as a “place of virtue” calls into being a twin city – a corporate “shadow” in the Jungian sense – in which the proscribed vice is tolerated. A chicken-and-egg argument emerges: which comes first, the vice-ridden place, or the virtuous? I concluded that from a structuralist standpoint one creates the other, precedence notwithstanding. The history of the Chautauqua Camp and Institution supports this structuralist alternative to the merely economic approach of the “twin-city / sin-city” phenomenon. The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting emerged in part as the polar opposite to the moral vacuum of the Petrolia, which clearly came first. In limning the oil district as an anoma- lous moral swamp whose rise and fall illustrated the dangers of quick wealth, the Chau- tauqua region asserted its own status as “normal,” and indeed positively “virtuous.” Pithole City and Petroleum Centre, Pennsylvania, to name two of the more notorious towns of the first oil boom, did not “drive” the churches out of town, as proscribed businesses might now be driven from a community through zoning ordinances. Petroleum Centre, by all accounts the most lawless of the oil towns, had at least three churches and “a very creditable school building.” (George Brown, Oildom 16; Jamestown Journal 25 Jan., 8 Feb. 1867). In response to the oil district’s excesses – unmanageable growth, pollution, fire and explosion, disease, prostitution, robbery, murder, gang warfare, extremes of wealth and poverty – a particularly “sacred” site was located at a remote point on Chautauqua Lake which became home of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and later the Chautauqua Institution. Though the first descriptions of the site as the “holy

21 land” had a tongue-in-cheek quality, the rhetoric of the meeting grounds as a sacred space grew in seriousness over the years. The Chautauqua region was (and is) a good agricultural district, and some significant manufacturing still takes place there. But in pure capital economics it could not compete with the wealth of neighboring Pennsylvania, whose coal, oil, and industrial might built the nation during and after the Civil War. If the Chautauqua region was to remain economically viable, it needed to create a value beyond simple resource exploitation. As economist Ray Hudson notes, “Value is always culturally constituted and defined. What counts as ‘the economy’ is, therefore, always cultural, constituted in and distributed over space, linked by flows of values, monies, things and people that conjoin a diverse heterogeneity of people and things.” (2) The Chautauqua region simply did not have an excess of human and economic capital. The region’s easily harvested natural resource – timber – was nearing exhaustion by the 1870s; its slight advantage as a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi basin had long been lost to railroads and canals. The loss of population to wealthier regions was a real problem; there was a danger of the region simply “going out of business.”14 To stave off bankruptcy the region created value by articulating distinct polarities between Chautauqua and the Pennsylvania oil district. A number of local and regional concerns – as well as some of the wider social concerns of a changing nation – were expressed in the discourses that made up these polarities. The establishment of the Chautauqua grounds as an idealized, “sacred” space to which other places relate is possibly the single most important aspects of these discourses. To again quote Hudson: “… in order to be(come) a particular kind of economic institution, a market must also be a certain kind of culturally defined domain, dependent on the social categorization of things as (dis)similar.” (10) Therefore, beyond simple capital economics, “market” polarities, which – in the case of a tourist destination, comprise social polarities – must be articulated and promoted. In the case of the Chau- tauqua region in the 1870s, the intent was clearly to define itself as a clean, wholesome, moral place in contradistinction to filthy, immoral Petrolia. My conceptual approach has been strongly influenced by popular writer William Least Heat-Moon’s “deep map” methodology of describing a landscape and its peoples –

a process with strong affinities to Gilbert Ryle’s “thick description,” as further developed by Clifford Geertz.15 As deployed by Heat-Moon in PrairieErth: A Deep Map, this descriptive strategy combines social and even geological history with standard geography to provide a rich narrative of a specific locale. Place names on a map grow in meaning as a tapestry of large- and small-scale histories and natural forces are interwoven in an expanding pattern. I shall attempt a comparable approach to the Chautauqua region, tracing the relationship of the Chautauqua Camp and Institution in its early social context, and most specifically as the Chautauqua Lake region related to the Pennsylvania Oil District to its immediate south. With the growth of the Chautauqua Institution, an expanding matrix of urban and industrial centers in the eastern United States and Canada were drawn into a web of discourses and associated with the dichotomies of moral- immoral, rural-urban, healthful-unhealthful, high-low, etc. For firmer theoretical ground, I resort to the New Historical / Cultural Materialist schools. My discussion on the circulation of social energy and capital between Chautau- qua Institution and its regional and national matrices directly follows Stephen Greenblatt and his associates. As I shall be particularly dependent on contemporary news reportage for source material, I may occasionally pause, in new historical fashion, to consider the underlying assumptions and attitudes of the correspondents. Any conversation about discourse must eventually return to Michel Foucault. Compelling though the success of the Chautauqua Institution may be as a narrative, I shall argue that it represents no foucauldian discontinuity. Rather, the Chautauqua Movement was a logical outgrowth of a number of discourses already underway in the U.S. The Movement’s rapid acceptance indicates the power of an idea whose time had come; had it not been first put into practice at the Chautauqua Assembly it certainly would have soon emerged elsewhere. However, I shall argue that the location and particular geographical circumstances of Chautauqua Lake favored its emergence as the ideal place from which a nascent social movement could take root and expand throughout the nation. Foucault never much developed the concept of “heterotopias” – its only appearance seems to be in "Des espaces autres," an article released into the public domain in

1967 but unpublished until 1984. Heterotopias may be succinctly described as actualized utopias, creations of distinct physical spaces that at once contain and reflect the cultural patterns of the society that created them. Heterotopias therefore stand in a dynamic relationship with their larger society; though they have a precise and determined function, this function is not stable, it changes along with society over time. Heterotopias additionally tend to contain otherwise incompatible and flatly contradictory spaces. (As noted above, author H. H. Moore attempted to capture and superimpose on the Chautauqua Institution grounds the middle-eastern Holy Land, a semi-fictional Native American history, and a contemporary fictional history of his protagonist, Ida Norton. A patient reader can also detect references to Chautauqua Assembly personalities and an ongoing Biblical commentary. Moore’s could be the quintessential heterotopian project.) Some further thoughts on the Chautauqua heterotopia: in its early days as a resort area, Chau- tauqua defined itself in opposition to Pennsylvania’s oil district while benefiting from its largess. It therefore created a foil-relationship with Petrolia – their mutual reflections magnified their differences. As the Chautauqua Movement took hold, the site at once contained and reflected the issues that accompanied urban living; its “city in the woods” qualities were often expressed in utopian terms. Foucault’s heterotopia shades into Victor Turner’s investigations of liminal spaces so easily that I will scarcely trouble to articulate theoretical differences. (I draw particularly on Turner’s 1969 The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure.) Turner built his reputation on liminality; Foucault’s heterotopia was very nearly an afterthought to a wide-ranging intellectual career. I usually resort to Turner for analysis of individual actors and actions, as well as the behavior of small groups, and look to Foucault for describing larger social concepts and literary conceits. I also occasionally resort to the structuralist dichotomies as articulated by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Some explanations: the perceptible universe is, in the structuralist view, composed of dichotomies and polarities which are mediated by myth. Myths explore polarities: youth and age, death and life, raw and cooked, savage and civilized. The structuralist method is particularly useful for its predictive capabilities, as even a most rudimentary fragment of a myth is founded on a polarity of some sort. Having discovered

a rudimentary myth, one can predict that its polarity is out there somewhere, to be discovered through the patient sifting of variants, transformations, and inversions. (The danger of such archeological approaches is, of course, that one tends to find what one is looking for, with a concomitant loss of objectivity.) At the level of social discourse I intend to investigate, the assertions and self-definitions of the early Chautauquans must, according to structuralist principals, be made in opposition to a contrary of some kind somewhere. As suggested above, the Chautauqua region first defined itself as a resort area in opposition to the Pennsylvania oil district.16 Finally, several disclaimers: this document by no means offers a rigorous theological exploration of evangelical Protestantism as it developed over the nineteenth century. I occasionally offer bare-bones descriptions of the contending theological discourses that troubled evangelicals in the nineteenth century, but performance behaviors, rather than beliefs, are my salient concern. Neither will this document consider the active lyceum circuit of the late nineteenth century, whose contribution to the Chautau- qua Movement has been explored by others.

Chapter by Chapter As in most historical studies, the truly difficult question is one of where to begin. As I researched this topic I became increasingly convinced that the background for a portrait of the early days of the Chautauqua region as a religious retreat – possibly the gesso on which the background is painted – lay in northwestern Pennsylvania’s oil district. Both the Chautauqua region and The Valley that Changed the World have been subjected to a wealth of historical treatments over the years, yet the economic and social dialogue between the two regions in the late 1800s has apparently not been investigated from a performance studies perspective. Before an understanding of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and Chautauqua Institution can be undertaken, this larger regional dialogue must be articulated. I will open this study by contrasting Pennsylvania’s oil region in the 1860s-1870s with the Chautauqua, New York, region in that era, and follow with a more considered view of the promises and performances the Chautauqua region made in response to its southern

25 neighbor. I will next examine in some detail the performance of religiosity at general camp meetings as it developed across the nineteenth century, and merge the two perspectives into an examination of The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting. In this effort I will specifically attempt to reconstruct and analyze the atmosphere, the events, and the actions of the CLCM patrons from a performance studies perspective. I will finally consider the evolution of religious performance as it would unfold at the nascent Chautauqua Institu- tion. The opening chapters are admittedly the most difficult sections to justify under traditional theater history or performance tropes. However, the rather lengthy exposition – a historical and social review in addition to the requisite literary review – is to my thinking necessary to provide a context for the analysis of the individual and corporate actors that will follow. Chapter 1: The Pennsylvania Oil District and the Chautauqua Region. The Chau- tauqua Lake Camp Meeting first defined itself in opposition to the horrors of western Pennsylvania’s oil country in the latter half of the 1800s. In a performance studies view, the “oil fever” that gripped the Petrolia in the 1860s paralleled the “war fever” that gripped the nation in the same era. Both “fevers” were characterized by an overvaluation and overdetermination of masculinity at the expense of the feminine. All things not men were typically feminized and rendered targets for masculine aggression. In war, the enemy is feminized; in the oil region, the gendered earth itself was the enemy. The first section will briefly trace some social aspects of Petrolia’s androcentric culture. The chapter’s second half will consider the response of the Chautauqua region, spectator to the social and ecological disaster to its south. In light of the ambiguous lessons of unchecked capitalism and sudden wealth, Chautauqua positioned itself as the wholesome alternative to the transience of rampant resource exploitation. The Chautau- qua Lake Camp Meeting became the nexus for the northern region’s image-making – the anti-Pithole City – though its encampments were in truth even more transient than the gushers of the oil district. Chapter 2: A History of American Camp Meetings. This second chapter devoted to historical background concentrates on the personal and group behaviors that informed

the early camp meetings, and traces their progress into the later holiness camps. From wildly ecstatic performances of religiosity in the trans-Appalachian southeast, camp meeting spirituality was progressively tamed and sublimated into an internalized experience; public salvation became private prayer; the poor, rural camp meeting participants became middle-class urbanites; bare-bones salvation theology grew into the more complex and nuanced holiness movement. Chapter 3: The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting. As the history of the CLCM has seldom been systematically traced; the intent of this chapter is to at least partially remedy that circumstance. The chapter will also offer a more considered view of the performance of religiosity by individuals in the context of the holiness camp meetings, with a particular view toward the changes that would soon follow with the emergence of the Chautau- qua Institution. Chapter 4: The Chautauqua Institution. A revised history of Chautauqua Camp and Institution, particularly when set in context with its regional and historical matrix, enriches the understanding and appreciation of the present Institution. As a cultural phenomenon the Chautauqua Institution, the region, and the predecessor organizations quite consciously invented and performed themselves, quite aware of the necessity of creating and maintaining a distinct identity in contrast and opposition to other entities, and actively creating and maintaining their own history. The ramifications of masculinity-gone-wild in Petrolia set the stage for the Chautauqua region to invent itself as a spiritual retreat and place of mediation; a place, indeed, where an early feminist perspective dominated within a few decades. Chapter 5: Conclusion: Some summary statements in review of the arguments that have gone before, some thoughts and avenues for further exploration, and a glance at the perpetual twilight that is Chautauqua.

Summation Chautauqua Institution’s histories have tended to be about that place, with little or no reference to the region and the social matrix in which it first took root and prospered. Indeed, the nascent Institution sought to minimize its social and regional context and

27 distance itself from the earlier camp meeting on its site. The Institution’s approach to its history had a function in its first years as it was seeking to define itself as something new in the world. Chautauqua historians (with the notable exception of Rieser and Simpson) have, unfortunately, tended to uncritically accept some very questionable source documents about the early days of Chautauqua Institutions without interrogating their broadly self-congratulatory perspectives and unstated assumptions. Concurrently, in celebrating the region’s commercial and social development, most regional historians have generally contented themselves with local ephemera and seldom considered in depth the intra- regional relationships required for a tourist destination to prosper. This dissertation will offer some alternative socio-religious readings of the discourses which have dominated Chautauqua Institution histories. The traditional readings have concealed or overlooked the important regional dynamics that made the enduring success of Chautauqua Institution possible when so many coeval institutions and later imitators fell into obscurity or were absorbed into the secular world. In researching the history of Chautauqua County in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, I have been continually struck with how fixated the Chautauqua region was on the oil district to its south – the successes, catastrophes, and the overwhelming moral ambiguity of its sudden wealth. The oil district, in turn, bore a keen interest in Chautauqua as a resort area. This untraced regional history is an important resource for further understanding the early days of the CLCM and the Institution that followed. The geographical polarity first established by CLCM was incorporated and re-oriented by the emerging Chautauqua Institution in a larger pattern with national, and ultimately international, implications.

The considerable efforts of many ordained and lay ecclesiastics, businessmen, and politicians – with and without religious agendas – who prepared for the emergence of the Chautauqua Institution have been generally overlooked in the received histories. Much of the early social context, and many of the actual historical records, are now lost. In the absence of a more comprehensive assessment of the social and economic context of Chautauqua Institution’s founding era – the rival church camps, amusement parks, railroads, and resorts, and particularly the largess of Pennsylvania’s oil money – the Institution now impresses its preferred history on the landscape. Chautauqua Institution now physically stands – and deliberately maintains – its identity as a pre-modern relic in a post-modern world.

CHAPTER 1: THE PENNSYLVANIA OIL DISTRICT AND THE CHAUTAUQUA REGION

In this chapter I will venture an extended review of some of the economic, social and historical factors that contributed to the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and the later Chautauqua Institution. Though these elements are not of themselves particularly arcane, neither are they in the realm of common knowledge except for historians. The first section will consider some social aspects and personal behaviors of the Pennsylvania oil district (“Petrolia”). Prior to the discovery of oil in western Pennsylvania, the region was substantially a northern extension of the Scots-Irish plainfolk culture from which emerged the early camp meetings in the southeast. Culturally, therefore, Petrolia bridges the trans-Appalachian camp meetings and the religious sites on Chautauqua Lake. As a consequence of its plainfolk culture, the era’s highly androcentric “war fever,” and the region’s yet more extreme “oil fever” and the wealth it generated, Petrolia served as both a social foil and an economic resource to the Chautauqua region in the late nineteenth century. The second section will offer some general observations on the culture of the Chautauqua Lake region in that same era as it essentially invented and rhetorically positioned itself as a resort area in putative contradistinction to Petrolia, and particularly as a religious resort aligned with the evangelical Christian camp meeting movement in the late nineteenth century.

Oil and Water “Here I am in an oil town, mud all over the hubs of the wheels, literally one horse was smothered over in it; the queerest crowd of men with trousers tucked in their boots; no privacy – hotels all over-crowded – chambers here thoroughfares, everybody passing through at will…. Everybody here is making money…. Explanation – they have all struck oil.” --Oliver Wendell Holmes

29 30

Titusville is at present enjoying a reign of terror… If one or two cold blooded murders, several stabbings and poisoning affairs, forty or fifty grog shops, and other trifling evils, keep up the reputation of the city, then Titusville is in “good repute.” Notwith- standing the “g. r.” of the place, it would be well enough for those of our citizens having business there to go armed and prepared for the desperados who infest the city. -- Corry Republican 18711 Geographically, Petrolia and the Chautauqua Lake regions adjoin one another; though separated by a political boundary, their commercial spheres naturally overlap. In the late nineteenth century, a percentage of the economic capital that poured into the oil region flowed north to build the Chautauqua region as a tourist resort. Without oil money, the Chautauqua region’s growth would have been much slower, and likely never would have developed as fully. (Without the direct intervention of John D. Rockefeller’s oil fortune in 1936, Chautauqua Institution would have undoubtedly bankrupted during the depression, as did many other similar organizations.) Without the moral abyss of the oil region, Chautauqua’s claim to virtue would have never taken root. The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting site and the much larger Pennsylvania oil district provide striking parallels and contrasts in liminal spaces. Both had quite porous boundaries yet remained distinct places, socially and psychologically separated from the rest of the nation. Both displayed a relaxation of many social restrictions while at the same time instituting new ones. Both served in the process of redefining gender in the post-Civil War era. In those curious rhetorical formulas that sometimes define an era and a region, both prayers and curses were often described as “long and deep,” “loud and deep,” “deep and dire,” and so forth. (Depth, whether in prayer or profanity, apparently distinguished the adept from the dilettante in both Petrolia and Chautauqua.) Both regions were perceived by their patrons as temporary stops on life’s journey: for Chautauquans, to “lay up a store in heaven”; for Petrolians, to probe the earth and “make a fortune” before moving on. These regions provided inverted mirrors of each other, and at the same

31 time contained and reflected the greater American society. Both regions were, in Fou- cault’s term, heterotopias.2 The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting first defined itself in opposition to the social and ecological nightmare of western Pennsylvania’s oil country. From our contemporary perspective, environmental awareness appears as a mid-twentieth-century phenomenon; the unregulated despoliation of nature as the price of commerce seemingly did not trouble the conscience of an earlier time. However, the nineteenth century was not without its environmental observations and concerns. These tended to be couched in romantic or humanitarian terms, and seldom made their way into public policy until quite late in the century. These concerns were typically packaged under the banner of public health issues, or melodramatically framed in terms of robber barons exploiting the workers, or some combination of both. The salient point is that environmental concern can be teased out of descriptions of the oil region, and this concern, conflated with moral rhetoric, informed the over-determination of Chautauqua Lake and its region as a place of purity and cleanliness. Contrasting quotes suggest the contemporary awareness of the differences between Chautauqua and Petrolia. In his introduction to John Heyl Vincent’s The Chau- tauqua Movement, Chautauqua co-founder Lewis Miller writes, Chautauqua was founded on an enlarged recognition of the Word. What more appropriate than to find some beautiful plateau of nature’s own building for its rostrum, with the sky for its frescoed ceiling, the continents for its floor, the camp-meeting spirit of prayer and praise for its rostrum exercises, the church-school for thought and development? (v) Lewis Miller, though a progressive spiritual thinker, did not suffer from a surfeit of romanticism. Yet to him, nature was a cathedral, a holy place where one could draw close to God. Compare, then, William Wright’s observation of the oil district: … in Petrolia, the church universally believed in is an engine- house, with a derrick for its tower, a well for its Bible, and a two- inch tube for its preacher, with mouth rotund, “bringing forth

things new and old,” in the shape of two hundred barrels per day of crude oil, mingled with salt water…[T]hat practical Christianity which leads men not only to love and fear God, but to love mercy and hate covetousness, is not in a flourishing condition. (57) Obviously, making a profit was the motivating factor for the population of Petrolia; their view of nature, insofar as the oil-seeking population brought any spiritual awareness to their circumstance, was inclined toward the “subdue the earth” paradigm.

Petrolia Before commercial drilling for oil began in 1859, Pennsylvania’s Venango, Craw- ford, Warren and McKean Counties were scarcely populated and had unexceptional economies. Bituminous coal mining reached the southern end of the range; to the north the coal seams became too deep and thin to warrant further extraction. Occasionally enough coal and iron ore were present to build a furnace – one is known to have existed in southern Venango County – though these probably served only local markets. Hillsides were too steep to hold tilled soil and bottomlands were often nearly impassable mires. (One quicksand bog near Titusville swallowed an entire train in 1869.)3 Roads were scarcely footpaths through the thickets; as a means of travel they were the mode of last resort. Consequently, the upland plateaus were barely populated; the region’s few towns of clung to the riverbanks and were there menaced by catastrophic flooding. The invention of a process to extract petroleum in 1857 changed everything. Be- tween 1859 and 1873, 56 million barrels of petroleum were pumped from western Pennsylvania for a gross profit, in today’s terms, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In a time and place without environmental sensibility, the ecological toll was catastrophic. As Brian Black amplifies in Petrolia, the environment was viewed as less than a commodity; it was an obstacle to be over-ridden in the pursuit of petroleum. In a relatively short while the wells slowed to a trickle and the speculators moved on to new frontiers, leaving ghost towns, open pits, oozing wellheads, and abandoned machinery in their wake. The Oil Creek bottomland, where the early action took place, is composed of five

33 or more feet of alluvial silt and disintegrated quartz conglomerate over an impervious layer of shale. Precipitation and groundwater remains in suspension in the silt until it evaporates or finally drains into the creek. The constant traffic of horses, mules, wagons, and men churned roads and paths into a sea of mud. J. H. A. Bone, who provided one of the most important descriptions of the oil region based on his passage by foot from Titusville to Oil City in 1865, celebrated Oil City at last. Oil City with its one long, crooked and bottomless street. Oil City, with its dirty houses, greasy plank sidewalks, and fathomless mud. Oil City, where horsemen ford the street in from four to five feet of liquid filth, and where the inhabitants wear knee-boots as part of indoor equipment. Oil City, which will give the dirtiest place in the world three feet advantage and then beat it in depth of mud.4 Prior to the railroad’s entry into the heart of the oil district in the 1860s, oil was shipped by horse cart or loaded either in barrels or in bulk onto flatboats and sent down Oil Creek to its confluence with the Allegheny River at Oil City. In summer the creek was typically too shallow to run the overloaded vessels, so a series of logger’s dams were employed to provide a temporary flood. Their coordinated release of “freshets” would briefly raise the creek’s level enough to send hundreds of boats and barrels careening down the river in a chaotically grand, and occasionally fatal, flotilla. By some estimates half the petroleum sent down the river was lost in transit. There was more to be extracted, and as the region held the world’s known supply, what was lost on the river raised the price on what remained in the ground.5 To increase production, wells were “shot” with torpedoes of nitroglycerine to shatter the underlying rock and permit more oil to be extracted. More than a few catastrophic explosions by inattentive handlers festooned the landscape with body parts. As wells were – and occasionally still are – intermingled with residences, the toll sometimes spread to innocent bystanders.6 One would expect that such catastrophes, along with some truly spectacular fires, wrecks, and robberies, would encourage a more cautious sensibility. They seemed to have just the opposite effect. If anything, catastrophe added

to the allure of the oil region and the peculiar illness known as “oil fever.”

Oil Fever Leeann White demonstrates in The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender that white men were free – at least in the south – because they were not slaves and they were not women. Masculinity across Appalachia, both north and south, depended in part on the ability of men to “protect their women” as a matter of honor. While slavery was not an issue in western Pennsylvania, protection from outsiders was. In a region that had been largely bypassed in the great migration west, strangers were an object of curiosity, if not suspicion. Yet by the end of 1859, strangers suddenly seemed to be everywhere in town and country, tramping through fields, knocking down fences and knocking on doors, offering preposterous sums for swamps and bottomlands, then reselling a day or two later for ten times what they paid.7 As in the larger Civil War (particularly in the South), though the cry was to protect the women, a significant underlying concern was to preserve the structures that supported the definition of masculinity, to preserve – in that expression rich with ambivalence – the traditional way of life. Thus, although the region was not precisely at war in the 1860s, war fever broke out; the absence of an identifiable enemy was only a minor inconvenience. War fever exists in part by defining itself as “masculine”; normal society is “feminized” by comparison. Joshua Goldstein observes that Male soldiers … can compartmentalize combat in their belief systems and identities. They can endure, commit terrible acts, because the context is exceptional and temporary. They have a place to return to, or at least to die trying to protect – a place called home or normal or peacetime … Normal life becomes feminized and combat masculinized. War fever, with but slight modification, became Oil Fever in Petrolia, and many of the social changes wrought by the Civil War were easily transplanted to the search for oil – a war on the environment. Several threads can be drawn together to explain the culture of the oil fever. For

the locals, masculinity was threatened by the influx of strangers; their women had to be protected. As the oil boom landed among the established local population, the choices seemed to be to join in the oil boom, to take the money and run, or to try to maintain normalcy. Those farmers who quickly profited by the land rush often moved out, or at least moved their females to safer environs; established towns such as Titusville, Mead- ville, and Pittsburgh seemed to especially benefit from this urbanizing population.8 As for the strangers (many of whom were Civil War veterans), they had already been fighting – through various levels of abstraction – “to protect their women.” Perhaps for some demobilized warriors, it was easier to keep on fighting to protect a vanished world; undoubtedly home-town sweethearts had matured, married others, moved on, or died. For some, there was simply no longer a home to go to. For former Confederate soldiers, lost masculinity might be restored by a lucrative tour in Petrolia. After the hyper-masculini- zation of war, perhaps some were simply not ready to return to “feminized” society as that would in itself represent a loss of masculinity; the problem of restoring warriors to civilized society is as old as war itself. Probably for most, the oil country looked like a way to make a quick fortune, far more exciting than returning to the family farm. The oil region took on the qualities of a war zone, an image cultivated in the popular press. The virgins “back home” needed protection; it was thus a man’s duty to venture into this dangerous place in order to provide for them. This could occasionally take a Kafkaesque turn. In 1871, a Jamestown paper noted that women and children in a mining town in Cameron County, Pennsylvania, were “literally starving.” The out-of- work husbands and fathers had “gone elsewhere” in search of employment, abandoning them. Though not reported in the narrative, the logical place for those errant husbands and fathers to seek their fortune was in the oil region, a hundred miles to the west (JDJ 16 Mar. 1871). Though “dandies” and “educated men” undoubtedly made up a part of the new populace, most seem to have been itinerant laborers searching for work. As the Civil War drew to a close, discharged soldiers of both armies, at loose in the world and free to seek their fortune, made their way into the oil region by the trainload, creating the spectacular boom towns of Pithole City, Petroleum Centre, Oleopolis, Red Hot, Shamburg, and

others too will o’ the wisp to have ever been dignified with a spot on the map. These discharged soldiers, inured to the casual despoliation of nature, perpetual transience, and a social sphere composed almost wholly of men, fit easily into this new place. In many respects they simply brought army life with them, even maintaining the military hierarchy. “Every other man you meet is a soldier” observed a correspondent to The Nation in 1865; “The steadiest mechanics and workmen have most of them been privates, and have many wild tales to tell of battle and adventure. Most of the bar-keepers and hotel-keepers are captains and majors.” (“Pithole” 270) In some respects, oil fever in Petrolia created a microcosm so highly liminal that seemingly all boundaries property, behavior, and personal integrity dissolved in the rush for oil wealth. In a sea of mud, land was hard to distinguish from water; in structures clapped together of green wood, indoors was practically indistinguishable from out. Often men lived at the well-head, camping in the engine-sheds rather than sleeping a dozen-to-a-room in one of the ramshackle “hotels” where patrons typically shared a straw tick on the floor with two or three strangers. The air was filled not only with natural precipitation but also with the odor of raw sewage, decaying animal carcasses, oil and wood smoke, steam, natural gas, and petroleum vapors. During a blow-out of a “flowing well” the air was so thick with petroleum and salt water that the distinction between solid, liquid, and gas became a matter of purely theoretical interest, particularly when fire took hold and consumed everything. An observer noted that at McClintockville, twelve miles south of Titusville, “the idea predominant … [is] to do nothing permanent. There must be a lack of faith somewhere in this oil business, or people would build more enduring structures, and those better adapted for the winter blasts.”9 An article on the town of Reno, on the Allegheny River, concurs, noting that “men came to the oil region now to make money, get rich, and go away to enjoy the fruits of their industry. They did not intend to stay long, because they erected the commonest character of houses, and lay in the most primitive fashion.”10 Pithole City – the most notoriously insubstantial of the boom towns – exploded from virtually no one to over 16,000 inhabitants in four months in 1865. Nearly sixty “hotels” were slapped up; a score or more men might sleep nightly in a single room. In its brief

heyday it managed a daily newspaper and ranked as Pennsylvania’s fourth busiest post office by volume. Its wells quickly played out and the population plunged to less than 200 by December, 1866; it was almost wholly abandoned by 1870. Many of its structures were dismantled and carried off to new towns or destroyed by fire. By some accounts, the races apparently lived in a surprising equality, as illustrated by an 1864 incident in Franklin, Pennsylvania, concerning John Wilkes Booth and Cale Johnson, an African-American. The latter, rejoicing in a barber shop over a recent Union victory, prompted the enraged Booth to query, “Is that the way you talk among gentlemen, and with your hat on too?” Cale, apparently with a temper as short as the actor’s, replied, “When I go into a parlor among ladies I take my hat off but when I go into a bar-room or a barber shop or any other public place, I keep my hat on!” Booth reportedly reached for his pistol, but was hustled out of the shop before shots could be fired. Copperhead sentiment ran strong in Franklin, where an anti-war paper was published. Yet even here Johnson was free to speak his mind – and likely to carry a gun. In a world where the pistol was a great equalizer, Booth generally held his secessionist opinions to himself.11

Gender This was a world of men; relatively few women and children were found in the region as there was simply “no fit place to put them.” It is difficult to place women in the social hierarchy with any assurance, though I suspect they were, with rare exceptions, at the bottom. It is also difficult to ascertain how many women actually lived in the region, though the proportion was undoubtedly quite small. Some pre-oil women apparently stayed on in the district, supplementing family incomes by providing domestic services such as cooking and inn-keeping. For many families at a remove from the rush to oil – in the early years confined to the river valleys – life probably went on as before, though with an improvement in family incomes due to the new wealth in the community and an expanded demand for farm produce. Children are attested in the photographic record, particularly those employed in “dipping” the river to extract free-floating petroleum. As this would have been a miserable occupation, they must have been of the poorest social

38 strata. At least one young girl was reportedly employed as a well engineer for $3.00 a day – the going rate for such an occupation – though the seriousness of this claim is questionable (Jamestown Journal 26 Mar. 1867). Women in the region could expand the bounds of gender. Some landholders were apparently women espoused to the region’s farmers, or occasionally widowed landown- ers who stayed to keep an eye on their property. (As these few might be quite wealthy, they inhabited their own class as honorary men.) “Rather a curious thing happened here yesterday,” reported The Nation’s correspondent from Pithole City. “The keeper of one of the hotels here turned off a servant girl. She didn’t like such treatment and, taking a horse-whip, drove him out of his hotel down the street.” (Giddens 288) As the horse-whip was possibly second only to the pistol as a masculine accoutrement, one must wonder what further abuses befell the abjected innkeeper after this incident. More commonly, women were simply considered a commodity to be transacted like other property. The Jamestown Daily Journal noted in 1871 that “The other day a Titusville man’s wife ran off with a gay Petroleum Centre lad. The deserted one followed the couple to the Centre, and upon the eloping parties paying $7 and costs the husband relinquished his claim.”12 Such women as were mentioned were often were prostitutes, denizens of the bag- nios that dotted the towns and occasionally even floated up and down the rivers in traveling bordellos. In 1865, as Pithole’s male population exceeded 10,000, an estimated 400 prostitutes were in business in the town (Culp. Ctd. in Black 154). Needless to say, the “women’s boarding houses” had many gentlemen callers, and were subject to the more remarkable social events of Petrolia. As a cultural attraction, Pithole managed a daily parade of the town prostitutes, to whom all the gentlemen reportedly doffed their hats. Boxer, bouncer, gun-runner, bounty-jumper, showman, saloon-keeper, pimp, and self-proclaimed “Wickedest Man in the World” Ben Hogan contrived women’s wrestling matches, footraces, and bathing exhibitions to be performed in various states of undress for the delectation of his male customers throughout the region.13 Oil Fever, as an extension of War Fever, in many respects duplicated the culture of the Civil War; and the oldest profession is generally recognized as a subset of a war culture. As the “pure” women at home must be protected, so the “soiled doves” must

make their own sacrifice for the morale of the soldiers. (One should recall that during the war the Union Army published a guidebook to some 450 houses of prostitution in Wash- ington D.C.; the brave Confederate women of Nashville, Tennessee reportedly inflicted more casualties on Union Soldiers with their mattresses than did the men of that city with their rifles. See Lowry.) The oil regions contained the elements required for prostitution to flourish: a contingent of “sporting males” in an unregulated environment that prized fisticuffs, heavy drinking, and heterosexual gender performance as an indicator of masculinity; brothels, either freestanding or in conjunction with “free-and-easy” saloons, dance halls, restaurants, hotels, and theaters; and a supply of women. Timothy Gilfoyle, from whom I draw these observations, suggests that between five to 10 percent of young urban women in the era engaged in prostitution at some point. Most of these were native-born and often recently arrived in the city. In such occupation they might earn as much in one evening as they would in a fortnight of factory labor. After a short term in the business they typically would secure more socially acceptable work or find a husband. One might note that the same unregulated environment outside of traditional social structures that enabled the johns’ resorting to prostitutes also enabled the janes to ply their trade.14 Insofar as the masculine culture of the oil district can be compared with the trans-Appalachian south, Petrolia had a cash economy and a sufficient population density to foster prostitution; both elements were in short supply in the rural south outside of major metropolitan areas. Life for women in any occupation in Petrolia must have been difficult. The promise of easy money in the boom-and-bust business cycle brought thousands of “vagabonds and loafers who indiscriminately and obscenely insult every female that passes”; they were further described as “things, in the human shape… blathering skillen, low, mean, dirty, drunken villains.”15 Women often were the target of their displaced energies. The Titusville Herald of 1 Aug. 1866 reports an attack on several houses of prostitution: “A disgraceful and destructive riot occurred at Petroleum Centre, on Monday night, resulting in the wounding of two men, complete demolition of one house, the cleaning out of another, and the loss of thousands of dollars' worth of property by indiscriminate pillage.” By way of background, Petroleum Centre was by all accounts the most lawless of the oil

40 region’s towns. Lying half-way between Titusville and Oil City on Oil Creek, getting there before the railroads proved an adventure of the “Heart of Darkness” sort. In the absence of constabulary or even a fundamental civic government, the two-street town grew up willy-nilly, derricks among the dwellings, a haven for lawbreakers. To continue the narrative: “…It appears that about 10-12 o'clock Monday night a gang of bullies and bruisers collected in front of the house of Madame Wood, an establishment on Washing- ton Street, where the ‘pretty waiter girls’ of the Free-and-Easys are lodged and boarded.” A cascade of profanity from the crowd progressed into a fusillade of stones. One missile, passing through a window, struck a kerosene lamp and fire erupted. “The crowd then rushed forward and burst open the door, entered the house and drove out the inmates. No further offensive demonstrations were made, the crowd appearing satisfied with their work. The house was little injured...” This was but the opening act to the evening’s entertainment. The mob proceeded “to the residence of Miss Lucy Hart, also on Wash- ington Street.” Miss Hart, who also owned houses in Washington, D.C., had “newly and luxuriously furnished” the dwelling with $3,000 worth of accouterments before "opening shop." Shots rang out from the house, reportedly from the bartender. The closer one reads the narrative, the more curiously sexualized the house becomes: [T]he crowd greatly exasperated stormed the building en masse. The windows and doors were shivered in every part of the house, and the raiders entered at every aperture in front, flank and rear. Once within the walls the rioters proceeded to commit every imag- inable extravagance. Some of them rushed up stairs and commenced to ransack and pillage. The writer dwells at length on the properties destroyed or stolen: Trunks and closets were broken open and their contents thrown about the floor, or stuffed into sacks and pillow-cases and carried off…. One spectator counted seven hair sofas which were taken or thrown out of the house and instantly carried off. Four or five mar- ble-topped tables were thrown out of the windows .…The rioters

walked off deliberately with their plunder in every direction, and seemed to enjoy the havoc and depredations as the most innocent of pastimes. The riot turned to sexual assault: “Some of the women were stripped of their clothing and brutally outraged. There were six in the house, and after their escape they sought shelter in every direction. Where-ever they were found by the rioters the house was threatened, and they were compelled to seek other hiding places.” The final cause of this rapere in Petroleum Centre is lost to history. There is little surprise that the commodification of virtually everything in a hyper-masculinized environment, in combination with an idle or exploited populace devoid of moderating influences, should spill over into an outrage on women. Once the females were expelled, transvestitism ruled the night: “Many of the rioters became intoxicated and paraded the streets in the women's clothing stolen from the house.” (Herald facsimile) The narrative substantially concerns itself with the dollar-value of properties lost and destroyed; that women were “brutally outraged,” though suggested in the headline, is tossed off with little follow-up in the eighth paragraph. Two years later, a correspondent for the New York Daily Herald would observe that “[Petroleum Centre] is a town almost exclusively of men. ‘Fashionable Millinery’ purports to be sold in some of the shops; but it is a mystery who buys it, for a petticoat is a phenomenon.”16 Outrages against women were apparently common. The corpse of an unknown female, likely a prostitute, was discovered in Oil Creek near Titusville in March of 1871. She had apparently met her demise at least two months previous. Though her jaw was broken and skull fractured, the Titusville authorities listed her death as accidental (JDJ 13 Mar. 1871). Violent assaults against women were a regular news item: A brute named Mike McCoy, living near Petroleum Centre, last night assaulted a girl named Mary Daly near that place. After knocking her down, he kicked her about the head and face, and then jumped upon her, breaking two of her ribs. In default of bail he is committed to jail.17

Druggings and deliberate poisonings were also noted: “Yesterday afternoon a noted courtesan from Hydetown entered a restaurant on Franklin street, accompanied by a man who ordered lunch and wine. The order was filled by a waiter, who observed that when the man passed a glass to the woman he dropped something in the liquor…” (JDJ 9 Feb. 1871) Prostitutes were disposable; decent women warranted further consideration: A respectable-looking, middle-aged woman was found to be in a state of beastly intoxication yesterday afternoon in a grogery kept by P. Mulwheany, in Titusville. She said she was thrown out doors, and in such a brutal manner as to break her leg. While lying in the ash-heap, it is said her pockets were rifled of ten dollars…. (JDJ 30 Mar. 1871) “The dead body of a female child was found under the sidewalk outside the limits of the city of Titusville on Friday night. No clue to the parents or person who hid the child.” (JDJ 28 Mar. 1871) Children were an occupational hazard of prostitution; the wonder is that accounts such as this were not more common. But in a sea of mud, open pits, ditches, and flowing rivers, disposing of unwanted infants could be easily accomplished. The phrase “Titusville IS lively” concludes these and many more examples.18 By the early 1870s, the down side of the oil region’s economic windfall was increasingly apparent to the observers in Chautauqua County. This was, not coincidentally, the era in which the Chautauqua region was shaping its claims to cleanliness and purity. The turpitude of the Petrolia served as a foil to Chautauqua’s claim to virtue. The very earth in Petrolia was often discussed in gendered terms; well drilling was seemingly a displacement for sexual energy; to “make a fortune” was the ultimate creative act. One observer offered, “Alas! that poor Mother Earth should be so treated, however, and so grievously bored.” Another would note that “The Funk well is now silent and its lips dry…”19 A news editor recounted his first exposure to a flowing well in even more graphically anthropomorphic language: The gas from below… was forcing up immense quantities of oil …

in pulse like throes…. when the gas subsided for a few seconds, the oil rushed back down the pipe with a hollow, gurgling sound, so much resembling the struggle and suffocating breathing of a dying man, as to make one feel as though the earth were a huge giant seized with the pains of death and in its spasmodic efforts to retain a hold on life was throwing all nature into convulsions. During the upheavings of the gas it seemed as if the very bowels of the earth were being torn out and her sides must soon collapse. At times the unearthly sounds, and the seemingly struggling efforts of nature, imperceptibly drew one almost to sympathize with earth as though it were animate.20 Wells were (and still are) identified by name. Though these were usually rather mundane nominatives such as “Phillips No. 2,” more fanciful designations such as “Elephant No. 1”, “Eagle,” “Anaconda” were also common.21 Sexuality occasionally entered the equation; various “cat” titles (“Scare Cat,” “Ramcat”) are as likely to be associated with a slang term for prostitutes as the genus felis. (The “Wildcat” well in Wildcat Hollow, near Petroleum Centre, is the origin of the descriptive term “wildcatters” for oil workers. Wild cats are still common to the region; this place name preceded the oil boom.) Other gendered wells include “Ladies,” “Floral,” and “Swamp Angel.” A romantic story is told in connection with [the “Coquette” well]. It is said the brother of the superintendent of the property had a dream in which he fancied that an Indian menaced him with a bow and arrow. At that moment a lady friend, who had been considered somewhat of a coquette, advanced stealthily and handed him a rifle with which he fired at his foe. The Indian disappeared, and from the spot where he stood gushed out a river of oil. Visiting his brother, he recognized the spot on the Egbert farm from whence the stream of oil burst forth. His brother marked the spot and bored the Coquette well, which commenced flowing fifteen hundred barrels daily, then fell to one thousand barrels, and now gives six hun-

dred barrels regular yield daily. Owing to the volume of gas in the well the oil rushes out with such violence that at first it blew entirely across the tank, and saturated the ground around. A covering of boards has been placed at the mouth of the pipe, and against this the stream plays with a force resembling the stream of a steam fire engine striking the side of a house.22

Tourists and Voyeurs The spectacles of the gendered earth – like Pithole City’s parade of prostitutes, or the women’s wrestling matches staged by Ben Hogan – were commodities to be exploited. The Coquette well “being one of the latest great ‘sensations,’ is an object of much curiosity, and many pilgrims come daily to gaze in wonder and envy on it. Steps have been created and visitors are admitted to a sight of the oil pouring into the tank on the payment of ten cents.” This was hardly the only well to be so treated. Of 1860’s Fountain Well, one of the earliest flowing wells (the term “gusher” would not generally used until the later oil strikes in Texas), a reporter noted that After hearing statements from our friends, we could not, late as it was, deny ourselves the satisfaction of witnessing the wonder itself. On our way to the well we met crowds returning from the well, all greatly excited. On reaching the well we were astonished beyond measure. The coolest nerve could not witness the scene without excitement. Of the Crossley well, also in 1860, Thomas Gale noted that “the gaping crowds who had been struck with wonder at the others, now flocked the boat, paid their dime and were landed across the creek, to feast their admiration upon this new subject.”23 The Rouse well of 1861 has the distinction of being the most prolific of the early flowing wells and site of the region’s first spectacular fire. By some estimates, 30 souls perished in the initial explosion or shortly thereafter; “So numerous were the victims of this fire and so conspicuous, as they rushed out, enveloped in flame, that it would not be an exaggeration to compare them to a rapid succession of shots from an immense Roman

45 candle.” The same author notes that “Had this catastrophe happened even ten minutes later it us safe to say its victims would have quadrupled; for word of the strike had spread with the rapidity of thought, and hundreds were running in breathless anxiety to behold it.”24 Such voyeurism attended Petrolia from the start. The circumspect Edwin Drake, who often deflected or misdirected inquiries of what exactly he was seeking with his odd drilling apparatus, was besieged by voyeurs in that August Sunday in 1859 after “Uncle Billy” Smith found oil in the casing of that first oil well. Many years later one witness would observe: I was at Petroleum Centre at the ringing up of the curtain, witnessed the coming in and going out of Pithole, the rise and fall of Shamburg, and the fading away of Red Hot, but, on looking back over those eventful times, the striking of the twenty-five barrel well on Watson Flats by Drake was a tornado to a spring shower by comparison. How the news spread so quickly has always seemed marvelous to me when I consider the primitive means of travel and news circulation in those days. It seemed as though the entire population of the country had heard of the phenomenon at the same time, for in less than twenty-four hours after the strike we had in Titusville such a crowd as had never assembled there before.25 The nineteenth century, quite adamant in maintaining the distinction between public and private (male and female) spheres, was, contradictorily, a great age for voyeurism. Crowds rushing “in breathless anxiety” to see the latest flowing well were but a high-speed version of the gawkers at camp meetings, or the leisurely upper middle-class tourists in search of the next watering hole, gallivanting off to “see the elephant.” (Picnic parties were known to travel out of the cities to observe Civil War battles.) The oil district added an urgency not found before. Niagara Falls, one might safely assume, would be there next year; the oil district was quite another thing. Oil fever would not – could not! – last, and one had to experience it while one could. Its profligacy was its

performance, and oil fever was whipped into a frenzy in the popular press. The region’s very insubstantiality added to the allure of the place. The contemporary assessment was accurate; the first wells played out relatively quickly and the industry decentered as newer, deeper wells and improved technologies found more oil in more places. Though other booms would follow, nothing like Petrolia would happen again. Transients chased the next oil boom; those remaining sought a degree of stability and order, and as a consequence church steeples rose where once stood derricks. A series of successful revival meetings – success measured in purported conversions – shook the region in late 1860s. (How enduring were the conversions is a matter of conjecture.) Churches had always been a presence in the oil district; the last structure standing in Pithole City, long after everything else had fallen into ruin, was the Methodist Church. In the aftermath of the boom times, the religious presence became more obvious and the influence of churches as status markers grew. With churches came an ecclesiastical calendar which, for evangelical Protestants, included the usual extended meetings, quarterly meetings, and revivals. Thus a camp meeting on the beautiful Chautauqua Lake was just the thing for religious seekers of the district, and they streamed north to the annual summer sessions.

The Chautauqua Lake Region In the nineteenth century, Saratoga, Newport, and Coney Island served as liminal places, laboratories in which visitors could experiment with new or different ideas about the value of the work ethic, the significance of luxury in a democratic republic, the proper roles of men and women, and the relationship between community and privacy. American resorts offered a world in which participants could express themselves in ways that would normally have been proscribed by external judgments or internal censors. These public cities of play flowered in a society that supposedly revered the domestic hearth; they promote a titillating culture of ar- tificiality for people who claimed to detest hypocrisy, encouraged

47 heterosexual leisure in an era dominated by the concept of a separate female sphere, and offered urbane pleasures for a nation with a strong antiurban streak -- Jon Sterngass, First Resorts

Chautauqua [Lake] is… reputed to be the highest navigable water on the American continent, being 1290 feet above the level of the Atlantic, and 730 feet above Lake Erie.… Upon the lake there were placed at an early period sail and row boats, and these not only kept up communication with the outer world, but induced the outer world to come in with some freeness, and enjoy a land literally flowing with milk and honey…. -- Patrick Barry, Over the Atlantic and Great Western Railway, 1866

To-day the place is new and forming. It has no pedigree like Newport and Saratoga and Richfield Springs. It is fresh and young, with all the buoyancy and vivacity of the West to which it belongs…. The towns are healthy, pleasant, and prosperous. No rush of speculation has reached them yet, though gas and petroleum are both found at no very great distance. It is through portals of comfort, peace, and cheer, that the traveler reaches Chautauqua. -- The Chautauquan 1887

Chautauqua is beautiful, and grows more beautiful with the passing years. It is worthy of the service to the cause of religion and culture to which it has been consecrated. The lake is lifted up fourteen hundred feet above the sea. Green fields and beautiful

FIGURE I: Regional map of Chautauqua and Petrolia circa 1871. Chautauqua Lake is just right of the top center; Fair Point (not indicated) is just down the west (left) side of the Lake, near the first stream. Petrolia dominates the bottom half of the map. The many farms between Titusville and Oil City were transshipment points.

forests surround it. No river empties into it, nor any large creek or brook. Its crystal waters are supplied by natural springs. It has been compared to Lake Como for beauty. The outlet is a winding chan- nel, in a forest of tall and thickly growing trees, – of the most remarkable little rivers in the country. What stories might be told of the brave men, who, during the past two hundred years, have roamed and made war, have loved and wept and died, on these Chautauqua shores! There are strange traditions lingering here, that wait the summoning of some genius who shall do for them what Irving has done for the Hudson, and Cooper for the Mohawk. -- John Heyl Vincent The Chautauqua Movement, 1889 26

On the eve of the Civil War, the Chautauqua region’s economic star was rising while western Pennsylvania’s was moribund at best. The rolling terrain of Chautauqua County, New York facilitated agriculture after the forests had been cleared. The fertile soils of the plain and escarpment south of Lake Erie were (and are) prime grape and fruit- growing regions. The upland plateaus and valleys are well suited for grains and dairy production. The opening of the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo in 1825 made the export of produce and manufactured goods to the eastern seaboard and even Europe economically feasible. The development of rail links in the 1850s and after further improved these economic prospects. Consequently, light manufacturing gained a foothold in the region. Though tourism in the modern sense was only just being invented, the tourist trade held some promise as a growth industry. Oil changed everything. Citizens of Chautauqua County, New York could not but notice both the spectacular wealth generated by Pennsylvania oil’s economic windfall as well as the shocking social and environmental degradation that followed in its wake. By the 1870s, Chautauqua Lake and the surrounding region, with a growing reputation as a resort area, was primed to sell itself as the antithesis of the Babylon that was the oil country – or indeed those Sodoms and Gomorrahs that were the nation’s major metro-

50 politan areas. Chautauqua’s claims to purity, wholesomeness, and healthfulness – sentimental but true enough in their own regard – took on particular gravitas when contrasted with the oil district. Chautauqua was unscathed both the by the Civil War and the oil fever in nearby Pennsylvania, relatively untouched by the social perils and loose morals of urban centers (it indeed had a culture of religious innovation), and was generally unpolluted by the heavy industries that darkened the skies and fouled the rivers of the industrial centers. In the simplest economic terms, a tourist region cannot be self-supporting as tourism produces little in the way of tangible, fungible goods. Successful tourism attracts surplus capital from other places in exchange for a putative benefit – entertainment, enlightenment, relaxation, recuperation. Consequently, a tourist destination requires for its success outlying regions with a capital surplus, and must be able to (rhetorically as well as physically) position itself as a place offering putative – rather than fungible – benefits attractive to outsiders. In the absence of significant natural resources of commercial interest, Chautauqua developed its putative resources. Chautauqua lay near the midpoint between the major population centers of New York City and Chicago, and nearer still the industrial centers of the Northeast. As a rural enclave in the heart of industrializing America, the Chautauqua region defined itself in opposition to the evils of urban living – at once at the geographical center and the socio- logical pole of a rapidly changing nation. While the Chautauqua Lake region was unscathed by the ecological catastrophe suffered in Pennsylvania, its reputation for wholesomeness and cleanliness was equally a product of rhetorical positioning. The Lake’s proclaimed virtues – its physical elevation, cleanliness, and isolation – were the product of Victorian social concerns. Chautauqua’s claim to purity made sense in the context of the ecocide to its south; its claim to stability and moral wholesomeness worked in contrast to the boom-and-bust cycles of unchecked resource exploitation and the human misery spawned by raw capitalism and unrestricted immigration. The Chautauqua region’s substantial history as a place of religious innovation contributed to the success of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and Institution. A

number of religious communities – sublime and otherwise – had been established in the region at the time of the founding of the CLCM (1871) and the Vincent and Miller’s Fair Point Sunday School Assembly (1874). Speculative religious endeavors are a part of the region’s culture, and remain so to this day. They remain a potent tourist draw and economic force. This culture of spiritual endeavor contributed to the region’s putative opposition to Pennsylvania’s mammon. Spreading the word about Chautauqua – camps, assemblies, Institution, and the entire region – became part of the performance of holiness for the individual actor. This behavior was quite specifically modeled in a range of publications. Visiting Chautauqua became a pilgrimage. One might get a taste of Chau- tauqua in a tent show, but nothing could compare with the actual experience of being there. Visiting Chautauqua carried status; making an annual tour carried some gravitas as an indicator of one’s moral sensibility; owning a cottage on the Lake, or, better yet, the Chautauqua grounds, said even more. As the nineteenth century progressed, it became possible to travel further both faster and less expensively. Transportation merchants needed to provide – or invent – destinations for the emerging tourist class. Chautauqua had the three key ingredients for a successful resort: location, location, location. The Chautauqua region was blessed with railroad connections; three of the major east-west rail trunk lines passed near or through Chautauqua County and, thanks to the oil boom, several more feeder lines carved the region north and south.27 All roads, seemingly, led to Chautauqua, and Chautauqua was quite prepared to receive guests. For the first Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting in 1871, the steamboats scheduled extra trips service the crowds, and “extra trains [were] put on the ‘Cross Cut’ and Oil creek R. R. for the accommodation of passengers from ‘down the Creek.’” (JDJ 29 June 1871) Petrolia, from the start of the CLCM, was shipping human cargo to Chautauqua.28 In contemporary terms, a public relations campaign was organized and sustained over the course of decades to create an image of the Chautauqua region – with particular emphasis on Chautauqua Lake and the developing religious and tourist sites – as a place of bodily as well as spiritual renewal. On the national scale, this campaign depended on advertising. Railroads attempted to sell the region as a travel destination. Editorial “puff

52 pieces” were cultivated by travel junkets for sympathetic editors. In the earliest days of Chautauqua Assembly, co-founder John Heyl Vincent edited The Sunday School Teacher, a Methodist Episcopal periodical with a national readership; this was probably the most successful vector for getting the word out on the virtues of Chautauqua in the Institution’s early days.

Rhetoric and Reality The perception of the Chautauqua region as a resort is traced to a cholera epidemic in Buffalo, New York, in the 1840s. To escape the pestilence, several families wintered over on the northern end of Chautauqua Lake. A legend was born: Chautauqua was “healthy,” at least in contrast to urban settings.29 Regional boosters would cultivate this notion well into the twentieth century; healthiness and purity – physical as well as spiritual – was the obvious draw in the dialogue with the oil region discussed in the previous chapter. By the standards of the late 1800s, the Chautauqua Lake region was indeed good for the health. Then and now, most major cities were located on coasts or major rivers, an artifact of an earlier era when overland travel was the mode of last resort. In an era of poor or non-existent public sanitation, cities were subject to an array of communicable diseases. Water-borne illnesses were common, and epidemics of influ- enza, cholera, and diphtheria were gravely dangerous to urban dwellers. The medieval notion of mal aria – “bad air”– as the source of disease in low-lying areas held the popular imagination even as scientific explanations came to light. If low elevation contributed to disease, then logically higher elevations must be healthier. Chautauqua Lake is indeed relatively elevated, with no obvious source river, and – in the absence of any significant industry or population centers on its shores – relatively pristine. Lying at over 1300 feet above sea level, Chautauqua Lake is among the highest significant bodies of water in the eastern United States. As the lake never saw much urbanization or industry and is substantially spring-fed; it was (and is) relatively sanitary. Before air conditioning, many cities were very nearly unendurable in the summer. Washington D.C., sited in a swamp along the Potomac, was a notorious ghost town; most eastern seaboard cities likewise emptied of inhabitants who could manage to vacate. The

market responded with the creation of the great summer resorts – the Empire State alone boasted of Saratoga Springs and nearby Ballston Spa, Sharon, Richfield Springs, New Lebanon, Niagara Falls, Watkins Glen, Coney Island, Thousand Islands, the Hamptons, and Geneva, to name only a few. As several names imply, many boasted of springs and various “waters”: sulfur springs, oil springs, nitrogen springs, salt springs, hot, warm and cold springs – all making various health claims based, sooner or later, on the absence of miasmatic pathogens and other unsavory byproducts of human occupation. Chautauqua Lake’s claim to special recognition due to its elevation seems more a product of an editorial echo chamber than an informed geographical observation. Norman P. Carlson, a regional historian, reckons the earliest claim to Chautauqua Lake’s remarkable elevation for its size was made in 1836 in Thomas Gordon’s Gazetteer of the State of New York; this claim was picked up and continues with variations and elaborations to this day. At certain prospects north of Mayville one may view the blue Chautauqua Lake stretching south while to the north and over 700 feet lower, “brown Erie” dominates the northern horizon. On very clear days one may from certain points in northern Chautauqua County espy the cities of Buffalo, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania, as well as a long stretch of the Canadian shoreline across Lake Erie – views of 80 miles and more. Though rather mundane compared to the vistas one might enjoy in the American west, in the experience of those from the northeast and midwest – home of most of Chautauqua’s early patrons – these were astonishing vistas. From such observations the notion of Chautauqua Lake’s remarkable elevation lodged in the popular imagination, and there it remains.30 Then as now, “spring water” held a particular cachet in the popular imagination. Though the Chautauqua region produced many “mineral wells,” the elevated Chautauqua Lake was a wonder of particular magnitude: The beautiful Lake Chautauqua is one of the great fountains of nature. It is but an immense spring of forty square miles of area. There are many places where the spring water boils up through the gravel of its bed, and you may see, on a sultry day in August, when the lake is clear and calm, at a great depth, fish disporting in these

cool fountains – fish, doubtless, of the better class, luxuriating in these piscatorial watering places.31 Better class of fish notwithstanding, it is worth noting that springs are plentiful in the area, and only a few modest creeks – none of which pass through urban areas – flow into Chautauqua Lake. While Saratoga’s famous mineral waters were best taken with a splash of rye whiskey, the pure waters of Chautauqua were perfectly suited for drinking, sailing, and swimming unadulterated. In the context of the late nineteenth century, Chautauqua’s claim to purity – both environmental and spiritual – resonated in the context of the ecocide to its immediate south as well as in contrast to the general squalor of the major urban centers. The Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, eager to move passengers over its rails, played upon the contrasts in its promotional literature. A brochure from 1873 reads in part: Combined with the beautiful scenery of lake, outlet, and landscape, the altitude gives the whole a pure, invigorating, health-restoring atmosphere, that renders Chautauqua Lake a most healthful and enchanting resort, where not only the body can be improved, but the beauties of nature so lavishly bestowed on every hand, enrich the mind… (Ctd. in JDJ 24 July 1873) Worth noting is the promise of Chautauqua’s improving the mind as well as body, claims that the young Chautauqua Institution would capitalize on in the following years. In an 1888 “Retrospect,” H. H. Moore extolled the virtues of the region in much these same terms: The climate is such as high elevation, pure water, and well-drained soil must always produce. There is a constant breeze day and night. The blessed possibility of being able to "keep cool" even in dog- days is a high compliment to any locality south of the British pos- sessions, but it is a Chautauqua possibility. The water conceals neither malaria nor typhus. The soil breeds no poisons. It is clean and healthy and vigorous from one end of the lake to the other.32 “Pulmonary complaints,” particularly of asthma and tuberculosis, were common

in an era of generally poor sanitation, unregulated industrial air pollution, and homes heated by wood and coal. The pure Chautauqua air was offered as a cure. The Atlantic & Great Western Railroad brochure mentioned above would observe that “in many of [Chautauqua Lake’s] beautiful groves are well kept hotels, for the accommodation of tourist and [travelers as well as] for the invalid who comes to inhale the invigorating air and recover the quick step and rosy cheek of youth…” Further, “A journey to Chautau- qua Lake is a round of pleasure, and every season witnesses a large increase of tourists and invalids who flock to this beautiful retreat for recreation and restoration of health…” A year later the Fluvanna House, on Chautauqua Lake, advertised that it sat “at an elevation of 1,362 feet above tide water, rendering it noted for its pure and bracing atmosphere – being an asylum for those afflicted with Hay Asthma and kindred diseases.” (Ebersole 8) Simple recreation at Chautauqua could prove sufficient to cure all nature of disorders. Over the years, the qualities of the Chautauqua air would take on near-miraculous qualities: The cool, bracing breezes from both lake Erie and lake Chautauqua [sic], combine to make it an invaluable place for invalids, especially those afflicted by pulmonary complaints. A former Chautau- quan, who was last year very near death’s door with consumption, in Pennsylvania, and who finally began to rally until he was strong enough to bear a journey to Chautauqua, declared that he began to feel better the moment he inhaled the odor of the lake. He stayed here for several weeks, and the change for the better in his condition could be observed almost daily. (Chautauqua Assembly Her- ald July 1879) The very lack of the fantastic or exotic scenery was trumpeted as a healing virtue of the region. The implicit suggestion was that Niagara Falls, with its torrents, whirlpools, and chasms might be too enervating to those with a sensitive disposition. Where the other finger lakes of New York tend to be quite deep and surrounded by relatively rough mountains, the hills around Chautauqua rise much more gently from the lake:

The landscape upon either shore cannot be considered grand as that which lines many parts of the Hudson; there is nothing to fill the mind with thoughts such as one experiences when viewing Niagara or the wonders of Yosemite; it is simply beauty without grandeur, and beauty of such a character as to lull the tempest-tossed mind to sweet repose. (Elmira Gazette. Ctd. in JDJ 28 July 1873) These sentiments were expanded upon a few years later in the Chautauqua Assembly Herald (hereafter CAH), which took the opportunity to offers some rather invidious comparison with other watering holes: Unlike Saratoga, Chautauqua has no mineral springs to offer as an inducement to pleasure and health seekers. There are no grand and majestic water-falls like those of Niagara, no wonderful freaks of nature, in the shape of gulfs, chasms, cliffs, whirlpools, glens, etc., like Watkins and Havana, yet Chautauqua surpasses all other resorts and commands admiration by her quiet loveliness and picturesque beauty. It would seem as if Nature, in the formation of this lake, had attempted a more than ordinary perfection – and succeeded. It is a place where tired and overworked humanity may come and thoroughly rest and refresh… (July 1879) The rhetoric of Chautauqua Lake’s curative properties occasioned at least one tongue-in- cheek observation concerning the many Pittsburgh residents who vacationed there: Among those who delight to put in a few weeks at Mayville, the Pittsburgher predominates largely. Whether this is owing to the facilities in getting there by the Allegheny Valley, Oil Creek and Cross Cut Railways, or the quality of Chautauqua water as a “smoke remover,” we are unable to say. At any rate, the Smoky City is largely represented here each season, and we are told that a few days’ fishing and boating upon the lake serve to bleach the Pittsburghian out, until he resembles a Caucasian in color and can vote at any poll where white men are allowed to do so. (Titusville

Herald. Ctd. in JDJ 30 June 1871) Political correctness aside, the claim to the purity and healthfulness of relaxation on Chautauqua Lake made sense in contrast to the foulness of those industrial sites where air pollution could render day nearly indistinguishable from night.

Suburban Development As an indication of the growing tourism industry, tracts of tourist cottages were first developed in the 1870s. The interplay between religious organizations and real estate development is rather striking, though arguably of a type consistent with developments such as Ocean Grove, New Jersey, Wesleyan Grove, Massachusetts, and others. In 1871, The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting began leasing lots on their grounds; this process would be picked up by the later Institution and continues to this day. Soon after, a tract in Lakewood, on the southern end of Chautauqua Lake, was developed by the Congrega- tional Church Society of Jamestown. Howard Park, as the area was named, is still a recognizable entity within that village. Shortly after the founding of the Methodists-oriented Chautauqua Institution at Fair Point in 1874, a group from the American Baptist Church acquired a 150-acre spit of land on the opposite shore known as Leet’s Point. Renamed “Point Chautauqua,” the intent was clearly to create an upscale version of the Methodists’ efforts at Fair Point. The eastern shore of upper Chautauqua Lake generally rises more quickly than the low western shore where sits the Institution, affording views of the region’s spectacular summer sunsets and, on clear days, looking well south into the more rugged terrain of Pennsylvania. The venerable Frederick Law Olmstead laid out the grounds, his only executed design for a religious community. A palatial 400-guest hotel was rushed to completion in 1879, a year before the Chautauqua Institution’s Atheneum Hotel opened. The Point Chautauqua Hotel, along with the huge Hartson Tabernacle, with their high vantages, dominated the shoreline of Chautauqua Lake’s northern end. This Baptist resort was dry, as was the Institution; “no spirituous malt or intoxicating liquors or wine shall be sold or offered for sale or drank upon the premises hereby conveyed.”33 The theology of the Baptist camp is unclear – did they attempt to run an “old-fashioned” camp meeting,

perhaps influenced by the increasingly popular Christian Holiness movement, or operate in the semi-secular educational manner of the Institution? Though Olmsted left common spaces in which religious campers might have pitched their tents, these were seemingly never developed in an appropriate manner. Some have hinted that the “camp meeting” description for the site may have been a red herring to facilitate the initial investment by well-heeled Baptists; the true intent may well have been to develop a summer resort with but modest religious influence. Of interest to this study is the deliberate effort to serve a moneyed crowd with a taste for more expansive cottages. Olmsted was already prominent name in urban development; his generous building sites starkly contrasted to the cheek- by-jowl lots platted at the CLCM and carried over into the Assembly. In 1874, on Chautauqua Lake’s lower basin the Packard Brothers of Warren, Ohio, owners of the Lakeview House, began developing a 25-acre tract adjoining their hotel in what is now Lakewood. The deed to purchasers stipulated that no intoxicating liquors could be sold on their property.34 By 1896, Lakewood had “248 of the finest and most palatial summer residences on the lake”; advertised as “The Saratoga of the Lake,” the village was clearly an upper-middle class resort community. Though not so insubstantial as the “mushroom towns” of the oil district, tourism proved a difficult business in a region with a short summer season and before the advent of winter sports; the tourist trade in Lakewood fell into a decline after the turn of the twentieth century. The dry hotels at the northern and southern ends of Chautauqua Lake contributed to the later, and more sustained, development of Bemus Point as a tourist destination. Bemus Point sits on the half-mile wide strait that separates the north and south basins of Chautauqua Lake. A ferry was put in operation across the narrows in 1811; it was the only public cross-lake transport until the construction of an interstate highway-type bridge in 1982. (The ferry remains in fitful operation during summers as a tourist attraction.) The Chautauqua Lake House, the first hotel on this site, was built in 1871; the Pickard House, Columbian Inn, Mason House (Hotel Browning), and the Hotel Lenhart would follow. (Aside from the Atheneum Hotel at Chautauqua Institution, the Lenhart remains the last of the lake’s “grand hotels.”) Bemus Point remains quite a busy summer town; boats line the shore, restaurants line the main streets, and one seldom needs to

59 search far for an adult beverage. Bemus Point, so far as I have been able to determine, has never voluntarily presented itself as a dry town. Expatriates from the oil region seemed to have a founded an impromptu colony in Bemus Point. A group from Titusville had some interest in property on the point, or on nearby Long Point, in the early 1870s, though Ebersole’s Chautauqua Lake Hotels, the definitive book on the subject, makes no mention of this group as innkeepers. Of related interest are the “Citizen Corps” brigades of the National Guard. In the post-Civil War era these were apparently as much social club as military unit, and they found Chautauqua Lake quite suitable for their citizen-soldier encampments. One group from Buffalo reportedly encamped in 1871 on the northern end of the lake;35 a far more flamboyant group from the oil region followed in 1873, lodging at Bemus Point – likely in association with the landholders mentioned above. The tenor of the newspaper accounts suggest that their intent was less than serious: One of the deck hands on the steamer Jamestown says they aren’t regular soldiers, that they are only frosted cake and feather- bed soldiers…. Yesterday three officers and one private arrived from Titusville, making quite an addition to the corps. The private is being drilled. The boys are very anxious to drill some more, and they are afraid that some of the officers got lost on the Cross Cut [Railroad]…. It would seem that the entire city of Titusville was migrating to Chautauqua: Many of the Titusville people are arriving daily and being quartered at different points on the Lake, and the whole city is pre- paring for an exodus to the Lake on Friday, Saturday and Sunday next. In the afternoon yesterday the corps and the ladies had a delightful time in the grove, dancing and enjoying the fine music of the Cornet Band…. Ed. Williams, of the Parshall House, the big “tarvern” in Titusville, is also rusticating on the Lake… (JDJ 13 Aug 1873). Clearly, the Jamestown papers bore quite a keen interest in the activities of these “rusti-

cators” from the oil country, so much so that the Titusville brigade received as much reportage as the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting transpiring at the same time.36 More than simple curiosity was involved – these were well-heeled clients, some millionaires, and their frolics on the lake bade well for the region’s future development. The story later notes a few genteel visitors lending aid and comfort to the guardsmen: “Willis Tew and wife, Jay D. Cady and wife, Mrs. Eric L. Hall, Mrs. B. F. Goodrich, of Akron nee Mary Marvin and Miss Josephine Fenton.” B. F. Goodrich is still a familiar commercial name; Miss Fenton was daughter of the New York State senator and governor, who resided in Jamestown. Tew, Hall, and Marvin are still important names locally. Though not the cream of American royalty such as were found at Newport, Saratoga, and the Hamptons, Chautauqua Lake had clearly drawn the attention of some younger fortunes, and its fame was growing. Significant names such as Studebaker and Ford would make an appearance in coming years. Henry Ford would bring his friend Thomas Edison; Edison would wed the daughter of Chautauqua Institution co-founder Lewis Miller. George Mortimer Pullman, of railroad sleeper car fame, was a native to the region, and he retained a lifelong interest in the area. (I suspect, or perhaps intuit is the better term, that Pullman would have developed a lakeside site if the national economy not stagnated in the 1880s. For the benefit of his employees, Pullman developed the Chi- cago suburb that still bears his name.) Clearly, Chautauqua Lake had captured the imagination of the new industrial and oil money between Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, and was on the verge of a tourism explosion that would continue into the next century. Oil money in particular built the railroads and owned the rail cars that brought the bourgeois capitalists to Chautauqua Lake, bought and built the steamboats that plied its shores. Though with some predictable downturns and alterations, the region continues to this day as a playground for outsiders, a magnet for surplus capital generated and amassed elsewhere.37 In passing, a few brief observations on the Chautauqua region’s tradition of religious innovation. At the founding of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting, a religious community would already exist but a few miles north, at Brocton, that sounds strikingly like something out of contemporary headlines: the Brotherhood of New Life, founded by

Thomas Lake Harris. Though founded on a conflation of Swedenborgianism and idiosyncratic mysticism, the community eventually became a cult of personality around Harris. Upon joining the community, all personal property was bequeathed to the beloved leader, who would then direct the initiate’s daily activities in the most minute detail. Such concentration of authority led to the inevitable sexual mischief, and founder Harris was scandalized when word leaked out. By that time, however, the community had substantially moved to California, taking along the viniculture they had fostered in Chautauqua County. Travel writer and peer of the realm Laurence Oliphant (along with his mother and his spouse) were the most notable of Harris’ disciples; Oliphant would eventually leave The Brotherhood and start his own community in the Holy Land.38 Spiritualism came early to the region and remains a significant presence in Chau- tauqua County. In the 1850s a Spiritualist group set up a community south of Jamestown in the town of Kiantone. Records are sparse and confused – recent scholarship indicates a Spiritualist orientation, though in contemporary estimations they seem to have been considered Adventists. Their community, Harmonia, was founded on an “Indian legend” of the healing powers of some “magnetic springs,” as well as the rumor of buried treasure beneath their site. (The source of the legends was apparently Indians of the rare Celtic web-footed tribe, contacted in Spiritualist trances.) The group constructed some peculiar round structures and, most remarkably, dug several substantial tunnels in which they sought the treasure or, in some accounts, proposed to wait out the tribulation. Their structures were reportedly still visible at the turn of the twentieth century; the tunnels soon flooded and collapsed. The community, under the guidance of the palpably insane John Murray Spear, apparently sailed down Conewango Creek into oblivion in 1859. Nevertheless, they held a significant a Spiritualist convention on their site in the mid- 1850s which may well have established the region’s reputation as a place of religious innovation (Cronin 52-146). Lilydale Assembly, billed as the world’s largest Spiritualist community, is located east of Chautauqua Institution on Cassadaga Lakes. The community was founded in 1879, though meetings had taken place on the site since at least 1871. Spiritualism was a rapidly growing movement in the late Victorian era, and was perceived as a significant

62 challenge to the mainstream religions, perhaps as much for its theological novelty as for its attraction to women. Consequently, a collection of Spiritualists a mere 15 miles east of the Chautauqua Assembly grounds was real cause for concern, and the early Chautauqua seasons regularly featured sermons and lectures on the evils of communing with spirits. Lilydale could on occasion out-chautauqua Chautauqua in the free and open discussion of politics and religion. Though Susan B. Anthony was permitted the Chautauqua speaker’s platform in the 1880s, within a decade her positions had become too strident for the elders at Fair Point, and she was made unwelcome. Anthony decamped to Lilydale, where she spoke to an audience of over 3000 in 1891. Though not a Spiritualist, Anthony occasionally returned to Lilydale thereafter to rest and recuperate, and The Dale still celebrates its coup of the Institution. Camp meetings were held on Chautauqua Lake as early as 1814, and at Fredonia by 1817. Mormons, whose beginnings near Syracuse were not far from Chautauqua, were for a time a presence in the county prior to their migration west, though they seem to have made little lasting impression. In the 1880s, Rev. James Townsend, a significant participant in the early Chautauqua Camp and Assembly, founded a more liberal “New Chautauqua” movement, first in Lakewood and later at Bemus Point. Townsend’s health failed within a few years, however, and his assembly dissolved within a few more. (For his apostasy, Townsend has been substantially written out of the official Chautauqua histories.) Several monastic communities dotted the region over the years; significant Amish and Mennonite communities now till the fields, and quite recently sites for earth- centered religions have emerged. Large religious gatherings then and now foster tourism in various guises. People traveled not only to splash in Chautauqua Lake or Lake Erie, but to pilgrimage to the Chautauqua Camp Meeting and later Institution, as well as the Baptist’s Point Chautau- qua, Lilydale Assembly, the Brotherhood of New Life (until 1883), and even today to see the Amish or join in the nature worship. For our purposes, the significant issue is the ongoing tradition of religious innovation in the area, fostered to a degree by a culture of religious tolerance, though enabled also by a general lack of population and cheap real estate. (One can at this writing acquire a substantial piece of agricultural land in Chau-

tauqua County for less than the down-payment on metropolitan condominium.) For low- investment tourism such as religious gatherings foster, the region is still admirably located among the population centers of the east. Though passenger rail travel has nearly vanished, interstate highways now ply the region, and getting to Chautauqua remains an easy drive for much of the eastern United States.

Gender II For most of the nineteenth century Victorians cultivated an idealized world of “separate spheres” for men and women. Men would, at the risk of their moral fibre, venture into the cold and hostile public sphere in pursuit of business endeavors to support their families. The woman’s duty to her husband, family, and society was to maintain an enclave of purity and safety in the home’s private sphere. Such an idealized dichotomy may have been more honored in the breach than the execution, but it clearly held cre- dence among a broad socio-economic sector throughout most of the century. The male- only culture of the Civil War and later Oil Fever pushed the notion of separate spheres to its logical breaking point, and confirmed the necessity of a woman’s calming presence to balance the dynamism (if not fool-hardiness) of men. The highly gendered milieu of the Pennsylvania oil district grew very nearly into a parody of the “separate spheres” concept of gender relations, and provided Chautauqua a critical polarity for its efforts to join in the redefinition of gender roles taking place in the larger society. Progress radically destabilized the “settled” categories of gender after the Civil War. Railroads, camp meetings, and resorts in the late 1800s engaged in the refiguring of gender roles and the boundaries of the public and private spheres. This redefinition was first provoked by large-scale public transportation, facilitating the phenomenon of many unescorted women at large in public. Simultaneously there emerged middle-class tourist resorts that fostered public heterosexual mixing. Of interest to this study, women traveled unaccompanied to Chautauqua’s resorts (both secular and sacred), women participated in the leadership of both formal and informal public events, and women formed specifically gynocentric societies in which they held positions of authority. Prominent among these is the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, by most accounts a product of the first

Chautauqua Assembly in 1874, though formally organized later in Cleveland.39 Women’s suffrage debates (an outgrowth of the abolitionist movement) were given a public platform at Chautauqua, if a bit grudgingly at times. Possibly the most significant advance for women in the public sphere came with the development of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle in 1876. For the first time middle-class housewives had access to higher learning, a privilege formerly limited to upper-class men and a few “radical” females. Armed with a liberal education once the province of men, they thus felt compe- tent to engage in public debate. At the same time fictional works provided role models for the new public female. Concerning Chautauqua, H. H. Moore’s Ida Norton and Elizabeth Alden’s Four Girls series of novels shared in the process of redefining gender roles in the post-Civil War era. Like many fictional heroines of the era, the lines between reality and invention were so thoroughly blurred that readers could scarcely distinguish between them. Feminist historian Amy Richter notes that “fact or fiction, [the heroines] served equally as meta- phors for national strength”; the ease with which women moved through what was formerly the domain of men demonstrated America’s advanced civilization (158). Ida Norton, the title character of Moore’s novel, was a true renaissance woman, though as a fictionalized ideal of a Methodist minister she rarely traveled without an escort, and naturally observed the most strict decorum with her intended husband. Alden’s Four Girls enjoyed a bit more liberality; they traveled as a group from “a distant city,” but were not reluctant to break off singly or in pairs to enjoy the public company of men. These women had a life independent of men – at least in the microcosm of the religious site. Moore’s Ida Norton, a waif, lost her adoptive father at an early age and was raised by a widow. The fathers of Alden’s four girls have little to do with the central narrative. The young women move about without chaperones at the 1875 Chautauqua Assembly, take jaunts on steamboats, live in tents or room at the Mayville Hotel, and journey to and from Chautauqua by rail, unescorted. These new “American Girls” – as the type was titled in the popular press – typically depended on the kindness of strangers as they sojourned in the public sphere. (The wholly independent “New Woman” would not emerge until early in the next century.)

Women’s freedom was a product of the labors of men, whose ability to assemble and operate the complicated machinery of the post-Civil War world made women’s progress possible. As Richter observes: That American women could face up to the strains of technology and commerce, of high speeds and countless details, and all the while remain womanly, reflected well not only on them but American civilization – on the freedom, courtesy and manly protection American men provided. (158) Men, of course, were a part of the larger narrative. Women’s successful negotiations of a complex world thus redounded to the credit of men; masculinity as ever depended on a notoriously unstable signifier. Progress had its limits: insofar as the fictional heroines were concerned, catching a worthy “American Man” was their goal in life. “Manliness of spirit” in the post-Civil War era comprised a mixture of ante- bellum values tempered by the fires of war, as well as a progressive spirit welcoming the challenges of a rapidly changing world. The “New Man” displayed gentility in honorable acts and speech, manifested a quiet religious sensibility, was reasonable in his discourse and open to compromise insofar as his core values and honor were not impugned. Ruth, one of Alden’s Four Girls, finds herself wrestling with the redefinition of masculinity underway in the post-war era, as well as a growing sense that her childish notions of heroes and heroism were being supplanted by more mature recognitions: [Ruth’s] brain was in a whirl… They had been great men of whom she had heard, and she admired them all; she wanted the secret of their power, but she didn't want it to be made out of such commonplace material as was in the hands of every child. She did not know what she wanted – only that she had come out to be entertained and to revel in her love of heroes, and she had been pinned down to the one thought that real men were made of those who found their power in their Bible and on their knees. Second to the Bible, the most salient feature of the real man was his nerve, particularly as he contended with the forces loosed by the great industrial machinery of his age. The

66 railroad engineer stands out in particular as the quintessential male, though adventurers in all occupations would suffice.40 As Richter notes, “the engineer embodied both the systems of order associated with modern business and the untamable and unpredictable forces such systems sought to control” (149-50). Significant negotiations and compromises were required by society to accommodate “feminine purity” at large in the public sphere, particularly as associated with rail travel, railroad stations, department stores, public parks, and like spaces. Many of the same negotiations were required to accommodate women at camp meetings and resorts – sites that often turned the private sphere into public display. Depending on the locale, many of the rules of private decorum could simply be suspended. Of the Wesleyan Grove Camp Meeting on Martha’s Vineyard, James Jackson Jarves observed Here, even domestic life itself is as open as daylight. The reserve and exclusion which distinguish English homes do not obtain in this rustic life. Sauntering through the leafy lanes in close proximity to invitingly open doors and windows, one sees families at their meals, tempting larders in plain sight, and the process of cooking, ironing, and other household duties, performed by the mothers or daughters themselves, with graceful unconsciousness or indifference to outside eyes. Occasionally, when curtains are not dropped, or sliding partitions closed, beds and even their inmates are disclosed. Everywhere ladies and children, in full or easy toilet, reading, writing, gossiping, amusing themselves at their discretion, unawed by spectators and as completely at home outside as inside their own doors. (Ctd. in Weiss 73-74) Though I am not convinced that the early Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting or In- stitution saw such casual public displays, certainly the gender boundaries that obtained elsewhere in polite society were relaxed in the Chautauqua site. Most of the early patrons resided in tents and walked to communal spots for meals, personal hygiene, and so forth. Though tenters at the early southern camp meetings apparently had individual cooking fires or camp stoves set up behind their tent (and even brought the family cow for fresh

milk), the Chautauqua site encouraged use of the “boarding tent” for meals, and cows stayed with the horses further up the hill. Of the “hotel” slapped up at the earliest Chau- tauqua Assembly, waggishly named “Knowers Ark,” it was often observed that the snores of the speakers carried as far at night as their sermons did during the day.

Heterotopium Chautauquans In accompaniment to the rhetoric of purity and healthfulness, Victorian sentiment – often under the guise of history – was added to the discourses associated with the Chautauqua region. The faux-history may have been created to counter the fascination with historic sites elsewhere in the nation. Civil War battlefields were a substantial tourist draw in the decades after that war, and as the nation’s centenary anniversary drew near, sites associated with the American Revolution grew into tourist attractions. Though some fanciful attempts were made to link Chautauqua Lake with significant actions in the French and Indian War, these were never borne out in fact. Chautauqua was left to invent a history in the absence of any real historical distinction. Aside from the general wonder that was Chautauqua Lake, legends and romance often turned on the region’s pre-European inhabitants. Though the region was – and is still – home to many Native Americans, these were of little interest to Victorian-era Chautauquans. For purposes of romance, far more could be made of the remnants of the original races – their burial mounds, their stone implements that littered cleared forests, and such other traces of the “vanished race” that could be gleaned from place names and local legend. This was of course a shockingly ironic era for Native American issues; as Indians in the American west were being hunted nearly to extermination, the romance of the Noble Savage was expanding in the east in a discourse associated with the Manifest Destiny of an expanding nation. Obed Edson, the premier regional historian of the last century, wistfully observed that When the Indian, in obedience to the supreme power, relinquished this lake and shore to white men, he turned it over just as Nature had made it, with its pickerel weed and water lilies, reeds and rushes growing around it, with the woods and cool, gurgling

springs in its bordering shades, where grew the ginseng, the blue- berry, laurel, arbutus and all the flowers that once gave joy to the heart of the Indian girl, a wilderness of verdure that came down the hills and concealed the shores that changed to so many bright hues in October, as if Nature’s artist, tired of painting rainbows in the summer sky, had cast the contents of his paint pot on the Autumn woods. Now the forest has given way to green fields, a city and many handsome cottages and fine lawns adorn its shores. Yet the voices of the wind are whispering in our ears, filling them with memories of our primitive state, and we wonder if the art of man has made it as attractive as when virgin forest, unmarred by the desecrating hand of man, stood round it. (Ctd. in Powers 89) Reality is somewhat less bucolic. Indians clearly did clear trees, plant crops, and “dese- crate” the virgin forest with their presence. Though no significant battles with Natives were fought over the lake, the first settlers found the occasional Native longhouse, cropland, and burial site. These were often attractive places for homesteading, and in response the Natives apparently abandoned the area and devoted their resources to protecting more important sites further east and south along the Allegheny River. The Chautauqua region seems to have been a buffer zone between the Seneca-Iroquois and the Chippewas to the west – a region claimed by no-one, and consequently not worth fighting for. Insofar as most of the region was covered by climax forest, as by all accounts it was, it would have been a poor hunting ground. The “sport fish” of Chautauqua Lake beloved of modern anglers – particularly the muskellunge, pike, and trout –would have been held in little regard by the Indians, who could have trapped or netted far more fish from the Allegheny and its tributaries with far less effort. Chautauqua Lake may simply have held little interest to the Natives except as a connecting link between Lake Erie and the Mississippi watershed. The very term “Chautauqua” was (and is) subjected to all nature of fanciful interpretation. The origin of the name is lost to history; like many regional place names of a French cast it is probably derived from a transliteration of Indian terms passed through

Gallic orthography and into English pronunciation. Given an opening for romanticizing – this was an era devoted to generating a mythic history for America – all nature of sublime and ridiculous theories were set forth. One of the more common explanations concern Indians pulling an unknown fish from Chautauqua Lake and transporting it overland to Lake Erie in the bottom of their canoe. Discovering upon their arrival that the fish was still alive, they released it into that body, where ever after the species (pickerel or muskellunge) thrived. Thus the native place-name Jahdahgwah: “fish taken out.” The problem with this story – that canoes are portaged upside-down and anything inside would have fallen out during the bumpy 10-mile jaunt – seems to have escaped the notice of every commentator. A variant states that the fish was instead caught up in a windstorm and transported in that manner to Lake Erie (Edson, Powers 32). Of this tale Mabel Powers41 observes, in a fantastic conflation of Indian lore and Indo-European astrology, that During the Indian occupation of this region the sun was in the sign of Pisces. The Piscean Age is identical with the Christian Dispen- sation and, in the early centuries, antiquarians claim, the fish was used as a symbol of the Christ. To such students the fish interpretation of the name of the lake, and the fact of its being a spiritual retreat, and the birthplace of several religious movements, will not appear as far removed as one might suppose. (92) Though Powers is a late author relative to this study, such mystical and rather fanciful perspectives are a tradition in the discourses of Chautauqua. Writing three decades earlier, Susan Blodgett Pulver treated this same narrative in such a saccharine-sweet manner as to rob it of any historical value. (At other points Pulver intermingles Scandi- navian brownies, Greek deities, and Native lore on the shores of Chautauqua Lake.) “Chautauqua, at once a dream, a picture, and inspiration and a realization, moves us to all that is best in our nature, and gives the promise of nobler and better aspirations in the human soul,” she intones.42 A somewhat more likely (or at least less improbable) explanation of Chautauqua Lake posits an Indian commentary on the shape of the lake – really two lakes separated

by a strait at Bemus Point – translated as “bag tied in the middle,” “two moccasins tied together,” or similar descriptors. Another interpretation offers “foggy place,” certainly an accurate description of the locale in any season, but particularly so from late summer until mid-winter. Powers offers (without verification) that in Native sign language Chautauqua was “indicated by peering through crossed fingers before the eyes, signifying the ‘Place of mist,’ in which the Great Spirit was hidden.” (46) At least one interpretation displays, in Levi-Strauss’s term, the armature of Native American myth. A young Indian woman, according to the tale, ate a root which she dug from the bank of Chautauqua Lake. This created in her a powerful thirst; stooping to drink from the lake’s pure waters, she disappeared from sight. Thus the name Ja da qua: “the place of easy death” from whence one disappears and is no longer seen. This explanation is attested in several independent accounts, including a reference attributed to the famous Chief Cornplanter.43 In Ida Norton, Moore offers “the place where one was lost” as a translation of Chau-dau-qua, and follows with a shaggy-dog story not worth the ink spilt in its compo- sition. Ge-wau-ga (“a tongue of land projecting out”) is offered as the “first name which was given to [Fair Point] since it was occupied by man” (218). Over sixty pages of the novel concern an account of the adventures of a French missionary in upstate New York in the 1500s. Under the benign if somewhat manipulative influence of Father Gerrans – “A Jesuit must be a politician or he is not a Jesuit at all” (224) – a motley collection of tribal remnants in an era of intertribal genocide gather on Chautauqua Lake at Fair Point and form a confederacy with distinctly Christian sympathies. In summing up the narrative, Ida – who has translated the “historic” accounts for her intended husband based on her recherches in Paris – notes that after her long studies It comes as natural to write Ge-Wau-ga as Fair Point, and when I see Ge-ja-wa [the Indian hero] at the extreme point watching and waiting for the coming of the maiden, I am inclined to call it De- go-wa, (the place of watching). And since the brave and lovely maiden called the bay where we gathered lilies in our childhood, Da-on-da, I am inclined to do the same.

A bit later Ida observes, What I shall lament most is the wasting war in which the nation of the Ereions, including the Chau-dau-qua villages, were swept out of existence, and the country abandoned to wild beasts (264-65). In the late-Victorian view, the existing Natives were the degenerate remnants of the Noble Savages who populated the continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans. These redskinned throwbacks, doubtless under the influence of the Great Spirit, did Europeans the favor of clearing out the continent to prepare for the White immigrants. Thus the Victorian mind resolved the contradiction of the taking of lands from the Natives – the lands were substantially unoccupied and thus free for the taking. The strength and feroc- ity of the historic Seneca nation, authors of the “wasting war” mentioned by Ida, are so often noted in the novel as to make the extermination of the peaceful wigwams on Chautauqua Lake inevitable. Of the Senecas who still populate the region not a word is mentioned. Moore, who as an itinerant minister spent several years in and around Sala- manca, New York, in the heart of Seneca territory, consistently places their homeland well to the northeast, over the Genesee River. In Moore’s narrative, the wisest of the Seneca elders recognize the folly of butchering other tribes, but their counsel isn’t followed. Having cleared the region of the rival “Allegans, the Mohegans, the Lenapes, the Algons, and the Wyandottes,” and later the Kahkwas and Erieons, the Senecas found they could not hold their vast territory; it slipped back into a wilderness perfectly suited for the European immigrants (209, 233, 262). Yet another layer of Ida Norton conflates and interpenetrates the holy land, or at least Chautauqua Institution’s famous large-scale map of that region, with the Assembly grounds. Thus many a conversation, debate, or romantic tryst takes place on “Mount Hermon” or near “Jerusalem,” or in “Palestine,” and so on. Moore is a clever author, and undoubtedly some Biblical reference underlies his choice of locales for each episode. Moore plays tricks with scale as well as geography. The Biblical cities on Chautauqua’s three-dimensional map are no larger than pie-plates; though children today are often seen playing atop the various “mountains” (which stand no more than a few feet high) it would be simply ridiculous for three or four adults to attempt to stand atop one and engage in

any serious conversation, as happens often in the novel. Fair Point, by the end of Moore’s novel, is seen through the eyes of Ida both as a child and as a mature woman; she was party to both the Camp Meeting and the early Assembly; just off shore of the Chautauqua grounds she was turned out of a skiff by a childhood friend who, after many years’ absence, returned to Chautauqua and eventually became her husband. Their courtship takes place in this new Holy Land, they share a virginal first kiss on the miniature Mount Carmel. Yet another fictitious past – a fiction within a fiction – vicariously emerges through the extended accounts of the French missionary Father Gerrans, whose accounts of the Native’s oral traditions seemingly stretch back to the ice age (209). To again quote Moore’s heroine, Ida Norton: But what, more than anything else, has interested me in these studies is their antiquity and their connection with Chautauqua. If I should ever visit that place again I shall find myself surrounded by a thousand new associations. I shall think of scenes that were transacted there from one generation to another, long before the foot of white man trod the soil. (264-265) Moore’s project (like Powers, Pulver and other writers of the era) was to invent a para-mythic history in the absence of a real one. Thus for consumers of all things Chau- tauquan a “deep map” of the Chautauqua region and Assembly grounds is fabricated out of some artfully arranged dirt and tattered Indian blankets, if not whole cloth. A visit to Chautauqua, for the properly-prepared seeker, might take on elements of pilgrimage rather than simple tourism. Thus the Chautauqua region distinguished itself from so many other “watering holes” that vied for tourists in the era. Altogether, these authors manage to juxtapose and interpenetrate in a palpably real locale several sites – the Holy Land, a fictional Indian history, fictionalized and authentic personal histories – that would otherwise have been quite incompatible. They created, in Foucault’s terms, a heterotopia,

73 one that contained and reflected, beyond the fences surrounding the Chautauqua site, the concerns of a rootless, industrializing nation quite sentimental for an idealized rural past.44

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF CAMP MEETINGS

There are a few suggestions which are now proper to be made. The first is, that all differences should be set aside, and only a spirit of mutual forbearance and brotherly love prevail. We have neither time nor inclination for dispute. Let us dismiss all matters which have no connection with the appropriate exercises of this meeting. …. Let us talk about Jesus – of him only, and all the time. Let secular matters be kept entirely out of sight – set them all aside! We have left them down yonder in the valley, and have come up to this mountain to worship the Lord our God. Let the world, then, be entirely set aside, and let us all with one soul agree in the desire and prayer to be possessed of the Holy Ghost. This is the blessing which all, I hope, have come here expecting. -- John Inskip, 1867

We are here ignoring all denominational distinctions, we are here to seek the advancement of the cause of Christ in all the churches that honor Christ; we ask from you all a hearty catholic- spirited, non-sensitive, earnest, Christian manifestation. We re- quest those who are specially solicitous about denominational pre- rogative, denominational privilege, denominational aggrandize- ment, to go out and drown themselves in the lake!! -- John Heyl Vincent, 1877

The gracious dispensations of God to men, like the unfold- ings of redemption, are progressive and ever brightening…. Each successive revelation grows less typical, and more didactic and intellectual – less national, and more personal – less ceremonial and outward, and more interior and directly saving – less prophetic and

74 75

remote, and more promissory and immediate – less earthly, material, and sensuous, and more divine, spiritual, and life-giving. -- Asbury Lowry, 18841

This chapter will identify and trace the changing beliefs and behaviors associated with camp meetings from their first appearance in the rural, trans-Appalachian American Southeast to their later expressions in the suburban North and Midwest. I will first offer some general comments on the physical arrangement of the camp meeting (which, with but modest alteration, remains to this day), follow with some observations on performance behaviors, with a specific examination of gender performance as associated with camp meetings, and conclude with a survey of the behavioral changes that accompanied the sanctification movement later in the nineteenth century. In one view, the great camp meetings of Second Great Awakening Christianity in the early 1800s were nearly extinct by the Civil War (Johnson 242-253; Bruce 59). In this view, the great meetings were victims of their own success; the huge encampments gave way to local “extended meetings” and hundreds of regional meetings that met the needs of the religiously inclined. The nation’s handful of camp meetings in 1800 grew to over 600 meetings held annually by 1816 and topped 1000 four years later (Johnson 85). So many meetings obviated the need for individuals and families to travel great distances to the camps as religion could be found closer to home. A more recent reassessment con- vincingly indicates that camp meetings were a potent social and religious force through the century. Though they declined in number in mid-century – a decline surely related to the Civil War – camp meetings never stopped evolving; they in fact grew in popularity and developed a more sophisticated organizational structure and theology in the post- bellum era.2 In this light, the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting, the Fair Point Sunday School Assembly, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Chautauqua Movement trace an evolutionary branch – among many branches – that grew from the early camp meeting movement. American Methodists considered outdoor meetings to be reflections of the earliest days of their religion in England, when John Wesley, denied the Anglican pulpit due to

his novel theology, gathered crowds in the open fields in the 1740s. Open-air meetings also had a lineage in the British northlands; descriptions of Scottish “field meetings” in the 1750s are quite nearly identical to their American counterparts a half-century later (Fischer 705-706). Later apologists would trace outdoor meetings and full-fledged camps back to Biblical roots, to the Festival of Booths (Sukkoth) of the ancient Hebrews, and concurrently note, in a nod to the Celtic stock that popularized the early American meetings in the American Southeast, the “Druidic” tradition of outdoor festivals.3 For the faithful, camp-meetings took on aspects of a rite – an event that had always already happened. The quasi-official status of camp meetings held some advantages. Several Prot- estant denominations in a district might join in a meeting with relatively little jostling over theological issues. This was particularly useful within the sparse and widely-scattered frontier populations. Though Methodists eventually dominated the movement, meetings seemed to have originated with some “radical” Presbyterians, and clearly frontier Baptists often participated. This ecumenical spirit would remain true throughout the camp meeting era and was trumpeted at the Chautauqua Assembly. Perhaps more importantly, as camp meetings stood outside regular church discipline, there was an extra-ecclesiastical freedom to offer criticisms and to improvise methods and even theological novelties, though these innovations were not always necessarily positive. Indeed, innovations could easily progress into excess, to the long-term detriment of camp meetings in the popular imagination.4 In contrast to urban Americans, who might flee the city for some freedom from the crowds, the early rural camp meetings had quite the opposite effect. They created a temporary city in the wilderness, one which permitted, by virtue of the presence of many strangers, the relative freedom of the urban environment “with all the diverse people, the bustle, the excitement, and even the personal anonymity of street life.” (Conkin) Under the aegis of religious endeavor, … campers confronted something close to an urban neighborhood. They clustered, made up a crowd. … Soon, for rural Americans, living on widely dispersed homesteads, going to camp was literally

a way of creating temporary cities…. It involved people in a social environment far removed from their lonely cabins, and allowed them to escape old roles and assume new ones… Add a heady dose of religious ecstasy, and people could literally lose themselves in self-justifying experiences that enabled them to forget, or tempo- rarily transcend, all the strains and problems of everyday life. This meant escape, renewal, recreation, all sanctioned by ostensible religious goals. (Conkin) Thus camp meetings became not only liminal spaces, but heterotopias. The radical individuals of the frontier could for a time be a part of a crowd and revel in a different sort of freedom; economic, gender, and even racial barriers might be radically reduced, even eliminated. Under the aegis of religious worship could be discovered the worst excesses of the immoral cities; on these sacred sites all of time collapsed into the present moment. Out of the (temporary) destruction of an old order a new one could emerge: an improved sense of social identity and social connections, new political and social movements, new churches and ecclesiastical structures, new identities with a broader array of possibilities for the individual. Though offered under the rubric of religion, camp meetings were overwhelmingly social events, very nearly a revivification of the medieval religious fair. Timothy Flint, an early observer of camp meetings, enumerated the participants: The ambitious and wealthy are there, because in this region opinion is all powerful, and they are there either to extend their influence, or that their absence may not be noted, to diminish it. Aspi- rants for office are there, to electioneer and gain popularity. Vast numbers are there from simple curiosity, and merely to enjoy a spectacle. The young and beautiful are there, with mixed motives, which it were not severely to scrutinize. Children are there, their young eyes glistening with the intense interest of eager curiosity. – The middle aged fathers and mothers of families are there, with the sober views of people, whose plans in life are fixed, and calmly waiting to hear. Men and women of hoary hairs are there, with

such tho’ts it may be hoped, as their years invite. – Such is the congregation consisting of thousands. (Ctd. in Bruce 3) Starting in the late 1860s, great post-bellum camp meetings near eastern cities, served an urban as well as rural clientele. These meetings proclaimed a more fully articulated theology – the holiness movement – than did the earlier generation of backwoods preachers, and they offered a structured program of sermons, exhortations, and semi-closed prayer groups, in contrast to the spontaneous outpourings that characterized the early camps. A measure of internal discipline was maintained at these later meetings; consequently, the incidents of drunkenness, sexual license, and hooliganism that disturbed early meetings were highly reduced, though with a loss of the displays of extreme spiritual exaltation of the earlier era. The first truly massive meeting – the “Woodstock” of the camp meeting movement – was at Cane Ridge, a few miles from Paris, Kentucky, in August, 1801. Estimated attendance runs as high as 25,000, though this number does not bear scrutiny.5 Cane Ridge shaped perceptions of camp meetings down to this day, though much that reportedly happened there has not been observed since. Charles Johnson, author of the first substantial modern history of the early camp meeting movement in America, opines that “Cane Ridge was, in all probability, the most disorderly, the most hysterical, and the largest revival ever held in early-day America.” (62-63) Thanks to the extravagance of Cane Ridge and other early meetings, camp meetings were – and in many circles still are – characterized as “a bizarre form of undisciplined religious barbarism, dominated by emotional intensity, primitive excesses, and pious anti-intellectualism.” (Opie 445) Even the camp meeting movement’s most ardent proponents address the extravagant elements, if only to hurriedly emphasize the putative good to be gained from the meetings. This certainly admits that early meetings were other than a vision of heaven. Establishment ministers (Anglicans and Presbyterians) were theologically trained and ordained even in 1800, and Baptist pastors had at least some seminary training and were assigned specific churches. By comparison, the earliest Methodist ministers on the frontier were relatively uneducated circuit riders. They seemingly needed little more than a Bible and an inspiration to take up the path, though their perambulations were under the

79 supervision of a hierarchy of senior ministers and elders. The aim of their evangelism was not merely moral instruction, but conversion and salvation. By mid-nineteenth century, when the Methodist Episcopal Church had established formal training for its preachers, there was no embarrassment within the church for the relatively unschooled or semi-schooled pastorate of an earlier day. In 1853, Methodist apologist D. Holmes contended that “he is the best minister who executes his commission with the greatest success.” A results-oriented clergy – results measured in conversions and church enroll- ments – was preferred over ministers boasting of theological or doctrinal distinction: And so, it is not rare intellectual endowments, ripe scholarship, or profound philosophy that makes the minister of Jesus Christ: these sanctified and properly applied, are of incalculable advantage to the general purposes of the ministry; but without the divine call, and constraining love of Christ, his character as a minister is radically defective. He [who] lacks the spirit of Christ – has no sympathy with his mission and work, and hence cannot successfully negotiate the matchless interests pending between earth and heaven. (iv) By these measures – the divine call and “constraining love of Jesus” – was made the circuit rider. These riders were frontiersmen themselves; they understood the travails of life on the frontier, knew the culture, and spoke the language of their peers. Given their miserable pay and working conditions, they could hardly be conceived as spiritual mercenar- ies of the Methodist Church; given their rudimentary education, they hardly challenged the “ignorant but proud” tradition of their backwoods flock. The region’s homesteaders tended to be unschooled in every sense.6 Presbyterian- ism and Anglicanism were the religions of the wealthier planters, and offered little comfort to the subsistence farmers and sharecroppers. Those few establishment ministers who ventured into the forests typically offered a class-oriented theology of predestination and election, or dwelled on hair-splitting theological arguments. Neither theme had much resonance for the frontier listeners, who brought from the old world a distrust for the hireling ministers of the upper class (Fischer 703).

In contrast to themes of predestination, the Methodists offered something of a theological novelty to their frontier audience: the decision to accept the Divine as a deliberate and conscious act undertaken by the individual, who by this act (and through the Savior’s atoning death) was thereby granted personal salvation. This theology is still known as “Salvation under Grace.” Such a salvation was, rather than the predestined fate for the elect of God, or the product of rigid discipline and long study for the monastic, an instantaneous event prompted by the individual. This “instantaneous” quality is still foregrounded by evangelicals; as Simpson in 1869 proclaimed, “Present results are aimed at; present success is looked for.” (Introduction xviii. Simpson paraphrases Wesley.) The individual was (and is), in a sense, the master of his or her own eternal destiny by, contradictorily, “submitting to the will of God.” Such a submission was emi- nently democratic: “Every man must get down to the foot of the cross before he can be saved, pride must be humiliated. There are no luxurious coaches running to the cross, we must go it alone, over the hard way…” said John Kent at the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting in 1874. Kent was at the time 80 years old, and had been a preacher for 59 of those years. He was articulating the camp meeting theology of his youth (JDJ 12 July 1874). Frontier religion was therefore an extension of the radical individualism already at large on the frontier, an individualism in this case extended to all ages, sexes, and races. The vigorous Christianity preached by the itinerants found an appreciative audience; their periodic visits became an excuse for social gatherings. Meetings in homes and rudimentary churches might draw enough of a crowd to spill out into the fields and wooded clearings, recalling a cherished old world tradition. The organized camp meeting emerged as a response to the crowds attending circuit meetings, extended meetings, and quarterly meetings – all established parts of the ecclesiastical calendar.7 Evangelical preaching was calculated to raise a sense of guilt in the listeners, not merely for their “original sin,” but for the transgressions the listeners had deliberately undertaken in life. The enumeration of these, contrasted with the awaiting fires of Hell for the doomed sinners, were pitched to bring the penitents to a state of “conviction” whereby the individuals realized that, without divine intervention, they faced “eternal damnation in the lake of everlasting fire.” Concurrently, the convicted sinners would

enter a state of “mourning,” a liminal place between the prior mundane, irreligious life and the awaiting state of salvation that was the reward of the conversion and salvation experience.8 Mourners, properly prepared, were encouraged to “invite Jesus into their heart.” The reward of participating in this formula was “salvation” and “eternal life”; the participating individual was listed among the “saved” in church membership rolls and (hopefully!) in heaven. From early accounts of a few women and youngsters shouting or fainting at religious meetings there developed increasingly spectacular group and personal behaviors. The most dramatic of these manifestations fell away nearly as rapidly as they arrived, leaving a few fairly conventional behaviors still observed at Pentecostal gatherings today. This is not to demean the perceptions of those who were party to the manifestations; surely the experiences were (and are) real enough for those who live(d) them. Neverthe- less, one may easily trace the progress of the more distinctive behaviors and discover the vectors by which the behaviors were modeled thanks to house-to-house gossip, itinerant ministers, letters, and published reports of occurrences in religious periodicals. Itinerant Presbyterian minister James McGready’s works are of particular interest in modeling of early camp meeting behaviors. McGready (“M’Gready” in early texts) was an influential minister at the semi-spontaneous gatherings from which the camp meeting movement emerged in the late 1700s. In 1801 he composed "A Short Narrative of the Revival of Religion in Logan County," and posted versions to colleagues in the East and to several evangelical journals. Historian Paul Conkin asserts that, aside from Jonathan Edward’s Faithful Narrative of the 1734 revival at Northampton, McGready’s narrative was the most influential work ever published on the topic of revival. The accounts were read publicly and privately around the country “with almost magical effect.” Francis Asbury, the first Methodist Bishop in America, unable to prepare a sermon due to illness, “simply read one version of McGready's narrative, and reported that nothing had ever so moved one of his congregations.” Clearly, there was a longing among the churches to enter into this spectacular movement, to join into this spiritual revival and participate in the ecstatic behaviors.

After McGready, Francis Asbury was the great popularizers of camp meetings, and under his bishopric a generically frontier Protestant practice came to be a perceived as a distinct feature of the Methodists. The movement spread rapidly. New England had a number of quite vigorous meetings, descendents of which may still be found today. Every state in the growing nation held meetings as the European population spread across the continent. Regional variations emerged based on the local folkways. Crowds came to witness the camp meeting proceedings and often – and not always voluntarily – joined in the proceedings. Though the heart of Protestant worship was and is the congregational service in churches, camp meetings drew crowds of people who otherwise never set foot inside those structures. For many visitors camp meetings came to equal religion, and it was often observed that some would get a year’s worth in a few days.9 Many of the attendees who swelled the early meetings were there from motives of curiosity rather than spirituality, and quite plainly came to gawk, if not to scoff. Voyeur- ism – that great peccadillo of the Victorian era – had its place in camp meetings early and late. Voyeurism arguably represents a repudiation of boundaries and thus a step into liminality; thus the gawker by her or his very attendance took the first step toward the conversion experience. As a consequence of the varying motives of camp meeting attendees – the believer, the spiritually curious, the socializer, the amorous adventurer, and the scoffing sophisticate – accounts of camp meetings span a continuum between partisans who viewed them as gifts from God and critics who were amused, shocked, or scandalized by what they saw.

Space and Behavior The physical organization of the camp meeting space bears some investigation, particularly as it developed after Cane Ridge. Individual family tents and wagons, as well as larger congregational or “society” tents, were arrayed about an auditorium. A distinct preachers’ stand was constructed as the locus of attention; this was usually just a rude platform with a deck as much as six feet above the ground. (In later years a more decora- tive gazebo might take its place.) Facing the stand, an amphitheater of backless wooden benches was built to seat a thousand or more. The whole would be assembled under

shade trees, giving rise to the descriptive term of “brush arbor.” (The scrawny beech trees seen growing up among benches at the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting site give the scene a rather comical flair. See Figure II.) As vernacular camp meeting architecture developed, a semi-circle of multi-storied frame dwellings might arise about the auditorium, from whose upper stories patrons could observe the services. In the South, immediately behind the tents would be family cooking areas; horses and the family cow would be kept nearby, probably for fear of rustlers, and boys would be employed to whip the ubiquitous swine and dogs out of the congregational areas.10 Convicted sinners in need of “instruction” were invited into the space immediately in front of the preacher’s stand, where they would find themselves distinguished from both those who had been saved and from the unmoved sinners, both of whom remained in the auditorium. This central space was variously known as the “altar,” “mercy seat,” “anxious seat,” “mourners’ bench,” or similar terms by the appreciative, and the “pen” – for its resemblance to an animal enclosure – by the critics. In the earliest days the altar was apparently just a clearing between the speaker’s stand and the first row of benches, and several accounts suggest that, as the meeting warmed, patrons in the first few rows might be dis- lodged to make room for mourners coming to the altar. An altar, in the Biblical tradition, suggests a sacrifice; at the camp meeting altar, the sinner’s old life was “sacrificed” to God; when they emerged they were said to be “saved,” “reborn,” “born again,” etc. At the altar the mourners could “find peace.”11 The invitation was often to “come to the foot of the cross” to be “washed in the blood of the lamb,” suggesting that time and geography were collapsed into the camp meeting altar site and that one was experientially participating in the crucifixion of Jesus. Elaborate, excruciating descriptions of the Savior’s death would have prepared in the penitents an emotionally charged experience. By all accounts the early camp meeting conversion was an overwhelming emotional event, though more developed theology would be offered in the classes and meetings that were a required as a part of becoming a regular church member.

FIGURE II: The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Auditorium circa 1873. The slender trees were left to provide shade; their presence led to the designation of such places as “brush arbors” in the South. This photo has erroneously been attributed to the later Chautauqua Assembly; Lewis Miller funded backed benches and an improved speakers’ stand for that first 1874 session.

As early as 1814, Chautauqua County, New York had its iteration of a complete revival or camp meeting with what, by that time, were all the conventional aspects of architecture and behavior. A history of the town of Ellery, printed in the Jamestown Daily Journal in 1877, recounts this episode, apparently the first such meeting on Chautauqua Lake: To this place came earnest workers of the Methodist church, erecting their canvass or rough board tents in a circle, enclosing a half- acre or more, and uniting their faith and strength in preaching, praying, exhortation and singing, persuading many to change their course and walk in the ways of life. The preacher's stand was a rude structure of boards, with a platform elevating the speaker from four to six and a half feet above the heads of his audience. Near the center of the ground was a little yard surrounded by poles lashed or pinned to trees in which the praying members united in prayer morning and evening. During the course of these prayer circles it was customary for every one who felt the “spirit” to engage in a prayer, and it would frequently happen that a score or more would be praying at the same time. At these prayer meetings one or more of its members was usually prostrated with what was called the “power”; the person so effected wore a pale and death- like hue, the limbs seemed paralyzed, the eyes were set and rolled upwards, breathing scarcely perceptacle [sic], pulse weak or flut- tering all indicative of death or utter exhaustion. The writer concludes of the phenomenon, “It is not our province to philosphize [sic] or explain this very singular phenomenon, but on awakening from this trance, which usually occurred in the course of an hour, the person seemed in an ecstasy of joy. Many called it the spirit of God, which others said these people were bewitched.” (JDJ 29 June 1877) The behavioral manifestations of the spiritual presence had a function. The evangelical denominations of the early camp-meeting era required conversion and salvation as prerequisites for membership, and these needed proof in performative acts. For Christian

86 seekers in the early nineteenth century, an appearance at the altar became a rite of passage, expressing the liminality of the altar space and its attendant breakdown of personal and social distinctions, and as well a declaration of one’s preparedness to enter the church. All, regardless of age, gender, or social status, were made equal at the altar, all were “humbled” by their experience “at the foot of the cross.” At least in theory. As Methodism grew into mainstream acceptance and its adherents achieved a degree of economic stature, the imperative for all to be humbled at the public altar fell away. Though everyone was equal before God, some, depending on social status, were seemingly more equal than others.12 At church meetings in the late 1700s, some curious responses began to occur among the participants: spontaneous exhortations, shouting, jumping, and fainting. James McGready found his regular church services running well into the night at the instigation of the congregants who “stayed about the doors, unwilling to go away.” Congregations behaved this way at several locales over the next few months. “God's people were quick- ened and comforted; yea, some of them were filled with joy unspeakable, and full of glory,” he wrote. At Gaspar River, Kentucky, in 1797, McGready observed …several persons under deep convictions broke forth into a loud outcry – many fell to the ground, lay powerless, groaning, praying and crying for mercy.… [A]n old, gray-headed man lay in an ag- ony of distress, addressing his weeping wife and children in such language as this: “We are all going to hell together; we have lived prayerless, ungodly lives; the work of our souls is yet to begin; we must get religion, or we will all be damned.” (ix) At a service at Red River, Kentucky, prior to Cane Ridge, McGready recalled “...multitudes were struck down under awful conviction; the cries of the distressed filled the whole house. There you might see profane swearers, and sabbath-break- ers pricked to the heart, and crying out, ‘what shall we do to be saved?’” Writing in 1801, Robert Paterson recalled “a boy, under the age of twelve years, became affected in an extraordinary manner, publicly confessing and acknow-ledging his

sins, praying for pardon, through Christ, and recommending Jesus Christ to sinners, as being ready to save the vilest of the vile.” (566) The earliest meetings were, by all reports, astonishingly chaotic. Ministers attempted to keep up a regular orders of service, however, anyone with the inspiration could begin exhorting. At Cane Ridge the services apparently continued non-stop for several days. Emotions, brought to a fever-pitch, burst forth in spiritual ecstasies. An extract from Peter Finley’s Autobiography suggests the chaos that was Cane Ridge. (Though Finley would become an important frontier preacher and historian of the early camp meetings, at Cane Ridge he was a curious freethinker.) The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others in wagons, and one … was standing on a tree which had [fallen]. Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy in the most piteous accents, while others were shouting most vocifer- ously…. The scene that presented itself to my mind was indescrib- able. At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment, and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens. (166-167. Ctd. in Johnson 64) Finley was not immune to the spiritual force; several times during his stay he fled into the woods to escape the din and settle his emotions. “While witnessing these scenes, a pecu- liarly-strange sensation, such as I never felt before, came over me. My heart beat tumul- tuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as if I must fall to the ground.” Finley’s observations of the striking individual and group behaviors seen at Cane Ridge suggest why that gathering shaped expectations of camp meetings for generations. The event became, for better and worse, the paradigm for camp meeting behaviors down to this day. Shouting gave way to the “falling exercise” – a state of partial or complete paralysis. Falling was a more palpable manifestation of the Holy Spirit; none, reportedly, could stand on those occasions when an audience was “being felled.” Many who experienced

the falling recalled everything around them with perfect clarity; some, however, reported unconsciousness or semi-conscious states, and various degrees of paralysis might follow for some time.13 Falling began among individuals; as the manifestation spread tens and even hundreds might be “slain” at once. The unconscious or semi-conscious were often carried off the field to prevent their injury by others convulsing and falling. Among an agricultural people familiar with the harvesting of grain with scythes, the metaphorical felling of a crowd as if by a supernatural reaper made a profound impression and hurried many to the altar. At Cane Ridge, a series of uncontrollable convulsive movements known as “the jerks” were also experienced. Conventional wisdom in the era insisted that attempts to control the jerks prompted their progressing into the more severe forms: uncontrolled running, jumping, and even barking. Their only cure, according to preachers, was prayer (Bruce 53). A few more “exercises” were also noted: the rolling exercise, the dancing exercise, the running exercise, the singing exercise, and the haunting “holy laugh” (Johnson 57-62).

Gender Performance: Women Though the earliest accounts – particularly by the attending ministers – draw an image of all ages, sexes, and classes participating equally in the exercises, later accounts by less sanguine observers typically note that young women were the most visible and active participants.14 As the consensus was that camp meeting histrionics served as a release from the tensions of frontier life, it hardly seems remarkable that women, bur- dened in so many ways by social inhibitions and limitations, would avail themselves to an opportunity for release, particularly when offered under the penumbra of religion. Some women were apparently regulars at the altar. Two English pastors, on a visit to America, observed at a camp meeting Two or three young women were fainting under the exhaustion and excitement; and one, who was reported as a Methodist, was in a hysterical ecstasy, raising her hands, rolling her eyes and smiling and muttering. It appeared that she courted this type of excitement

as many do the dram, and was at frequent meetings of this character, for the sake of enjoying it… (Reed 281-282. Ctd. in Johnson 142-143) The spiritual manifestations expressed by women could be truly spectacular. To quote Frances Trollope, who witnessed an altar call at an Indiana camp meeting in the 1820s, …above a hundred persons, nearly all female, came forward, uttering howlings and groans, so terrible that I shall never cease to shudder when I recall them. They appeared to drag each other forward, and on the word being given, “Let us pray,” they all fell on their knees; but this posture was soon changed for others that permitted greater scope for the convulsive movements of their limbs; and they were soon all lying on the ground in an indescribably confusion of heads and legs. They threw about their limbs with such incessant and violent motion, that I was every instant expecting some serious accident to occur. (Extract in Johnson 256) Scandalized observers reported that women in the depths of spiritual agitation “uncon- sciously tore open their bosoms and assumed indelicate attitudes”15 (Johnson 57). Timo- thy Flint, another early observer, recalled Another female, who had arrived at womanhood, was so much overcome that she was held up to the breeze by two persons who went to her relief. I never before saw such exhaustion. The verte- bral column was completely pliant, her body, neck, and her extended arms, bent in every direction successively. (Recollections 258) These displays were perceived by many observers as immodest at least and sexually provocative at worst. By many accounts the actions of women took on the aspects of a religious hysteria; one is tempted to draw parallels with the acts that prompted the Salem witch trials nearly two centuries earlier. (Not a few unsympathetic observers judged the extravagances of camp meetings to be the result of diabolical, rather than divine, inspiration.) Though the behaviors were unusual, some portion of the witnesses’ outrage may be

attributed to differing mores of Southern plain-folk culture that did not share Northerner’s Victorian prudery.16 Clearly, though, the liminal space of the camp meeting altar permitted behaviors among young women that would not have been tolerated elsewhere, and it seems likely that an element of sexual display – whether conscious or not – comprised some of the actions of the women. Histrionic behaviors by women drew charges of sexual licentiousness. An expression of some currency among critics of camp meetings was that “More souls were made than saved at a camp meeting.”17 Given the hot-house environment of the early camps and the general breakdown of social restrictions, coupled with a temporary access to many new potential mates, there is little surprise that there were sexual dalliances. Illegitimate births were common in the South in the era because there were few persons authorized to formalize marriages.18 Rev. John Lyle, a sharp critic of camp meetings, ruefully noted that one of his parishioners, Polly Moffitt was “with child to Petty and died miserably in childbed,” thanks to a liaison at a camp meeting. Becca Bell, another of his flock, “who often fell” at camp meetings, “is now big with child to a wicked trifling schoolmaster of the name of Brown who says he’ll be damned to hell if he ever marries her.”19 Early critics of camp meetings hint at prostitution among the anxious seekers but fail to provide specific evidence. Though not impossible, given the small and widely scattered population and general poverty of the trans-Appalachian region, prostitution was not an occupation likely to flourish, though there may have been some quid pro quo arrangements. Nevertheless, sexual encounters could take on some remarkable permutations: after the Saturday evenings service at Cane Ridge, one exhausted young woman was discovered under the preachers’ stand at Cane Ridge in the company of six men. Charges of prostitution were usually leveled at those women most prone to “falling”; critics regularly noted that the women most susceptible to the “falling exercise” were also least likely to recall the “edict of virtue” (Johnson 65, 54; Bruce 56). As “the fallen” were often taken to an isolated spot to be prayed over until they regained their senses, habitués who were regularly carried from the altar would have certainly given rise to comment. Frances Trollope, speaking of a plaintive young woman who offered a remarkable

performance at the altar one evening, observed her the next day, “…ere I left the ground, with her hand fast locked, and her head supported by a man who looked very much like Don Juan might, when sent back to earth as too bad for the regions below.” Trollope indeed noted “many a fair but pale face, that I recognized as a demoniac of the night, simpering beside a swain, to whom she carefully administered hot coffee and eggs.” (245-246. Extract in Johnson 210.) Trollope suggests that some campground ministers had interest in things other than spiritual as they “instructed” the mourning women in the pen: The preachers moved about among them, at once exciting and soothing their agonies. I heard the muttered “Sister! Dear sister!” I saw the insidious lips approach the cheeks of the unhappy girls; I heard the murmured confessions of the poor victims, and I watched their tormentors, breathing into their ears consolations that tinged the pale cheek with red. (245. Extract in Johnson 255-256.) Two severe critics of camp meetings, Frances Trollope (1780-1863) and Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), both condemned meetings – and American religious innovation generally – on grounds of sexual license. Trollope, at another point in her Domestic Manners of the Americans, castigated a revival meeting in urban Cincinnati in much the same terms as she used for camp meetings: in her view, a collection of wanton females, under the guise of religion, engaged in questionable dalliances with itinerant ministers. Virtually every chapter of Smith’s posthumous Religious Fanaticism, substantially composed some decades after Trollope, addresses these same themes.20 Both writers became deeply involved in gender issues: Trollope, a remarkably independent English- woman, decried the poor status of women in America, and Smith actively participated in the women’s suffrage and temperance movements. Flirtations and dalliance were (and are) a common activity at religious gatherings. Of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting of 1871, a correspondent for the Titusville Her- ald puckishly bemoaned the poor lighting on the camp grounds, as “one is just as likely to get his arms around a ‘chaplain’ as his girl, in the dim light of the lamps that are suspended.” (Ctd. in JDJ 3 July 1871) A commentator at the CLCM in 1874 noted with

relief that, in the opening days of the session, “Only the staid and elderly people have much arrived here yet, so that there is much good solid work being done, and but little ‘mooning’ and ‘lallygagging.’”21 Many letters from young women attest to their various “new boy-friends,” and observers often noted that even the better-behaved young men in attendance seemingly had little interest in the services proper when the young ladies were afoot. Attempts to halt the familiarity occasionally took a comic turn. The Wellsville [New York] Reporter noted in 1874 that A young man … was arrested and imprisoned at the Bradford camp meeting last week for whispering to a young lady during the exercises. Rev. Bennehoof and constable Emory are under $500 bail for their appearance at court on charge of false imprisonment. Among the witnesses present at the examination were a number of the first young ladies of Bradford, who testified in behalf of the young man. (Ctd. in JDJ 4 Sept. 1874) Progressively more formalized campground organization and rules curbed the worst sexual excesses. The grounds began to be arrayed in an orderly fashion and lit with torches and lanterns. To discourage assignations, women were forbidden to leave the encampment after dark, though this may have been proffered as a means to protect females from the ruffians at large beyond the camp-fires (Johnson 92). Tents were to be illuminated through the night with candles, lending the “particular beauty” to the camps spoken of by many observers, and coincidentally to inhibit sexual shenanigans. As early as 1802 guards patrolled the meeting grounds through the night, not only to keep the rowdies at bay but to enforce quiet laws. By the early days of the Chautauqua Assembly guard duty had apparently devolved to hushing late-night giggling by the young ladies. At least that is all the ladies confess to. Women’s participation was far more than histrionics and flirtation. Though denied an official status at the early camp meetings, women were by many accounts the most vigorous and spectacular participants. From active participation to song-leading to spontaneous exhorting, the role of women steadily expanded. The growth of the holiness movement in the post-Civil War era can be largely attributed to the work several signifi-

93 cant women alongside supportive men. Martha Inskip worked in churches and camp meetings alongside her husband, Rev. John Inskip, in the cause of the holiness movement from the 1860s. John Inskip would become the first president of the National Association for the Promotion of Holiness, under whose auspices were organized the great national camp meetings later in that decade. Sarah Lankford received entire sanctification in 1835 and began the influential Tuesday Meetings, first as a women-only event, but soon opened to both genders. Phoebe Palmer, sister of Sarah Lankford, followed in this movement and would eventually overshadow her sister. Phoebe began attending camp meetings in the late 1830s; she was soon leading tent meetings, and by the 1850s was apparently addressing camp meeting congregants from the main speaker’s platform. In 1859 Phoebe’s husband Walter, a physician, would leave his practice to join his itinerant wife in spreading the holiness message. In 1864 Walter Palmer purchased the Guide to Holiness, an important holiness periodical, and placed Phoebe as editor. By some estimates, the Palmers and Sarah Lankford added two and one-half million members to the churches of the Britain, Can- ada, and the United States through their holiness work in the late nineteenth century. Phoebe Palmer would die at a relatively young age; Walter would subsequently marry Sarah Lankford, herself a widow by that time, and the duo would continue the work for several more decades (Brown, Inskip 73; Dieter, Holiness Revival 51). Phoebe Palmer generated a distinct theological advance – the “shorter way” to sanctification, based upon her personal experiences and Scriptural references (Romans 12:1-2; Exodus 29:37; Matthew 23:19). The individual’s deliberate act of consecrating one’s whole being to God plus the liberal application of faith would, in her view, guarantee entire sanctification. Phoebe Palmer is considered “the ‘Mother’ of the holiness movement”; she inspired several generations of women to take on roles of lay leadership and establish religious and para-religious organizations.22 Susie Stanley, a modern feminist critic, notes that, while men’s attention to the “power of the Holy Spirit” was directed to the rooting out of sin in the individual, women utilized this power in the service of the greater social good though social movements such as abolition, temperance, and women’s suffrage. Indeed, in the view of these early women holiness advo-

cates, the very possession of the spiritual power enabled their ministry (Stanley, “Em- power”). This important gender difference would be carried forward in the later Chautau- qua movement, which was in many important respects substantially a women’s movement.

Gender Performance: Men Early camp meetings attracted a distinctly anti-religious crowd as well as the earnest seekers and the generally curious. Rowdiness, drunkenness, petty theft and vandal- ism, profanity, fighting, heckling, and similar irreligious behaviors attended camp meetings from the start. In a region and era when entertainments were few and whiskey was plentiful, any sort of public gathering became, as often as not, the site of drunken brawls and an array of antisocial behaviors. Concurrently, religion was perceived as a threat to the freedoms enjoyed by males, and thus religious gatherings and ministers became targets of hostility.23 Disturbing religious services had a long history in this populace – it can be traced back to the British Isles (Fischer 615-618). Charles Woodmason, an Angli- can minister who traveled through the Carolinas before the Revolutionary war, experienced at the hands of the Presbyterians of his day much the same abuse as would appear at camp meetings a few decades later: This Day we had another Specimen of the Envy Malice and Tem- per of the Presbyterians – They gave away 2 Barrels of Whisky to the Populace to make drink, and for to disturb the Service – for this being the 1st time that the Communion was ever celebrated in this Wild remote Part of the World, it gave a Great Alarm, and caus'd them much Pain and Vexation. The Company got drunk by 10 oth Clock and we could hear them firing, hooping, and hallowing like Indians. (30) Drinking and public drunkenness were endemic to early nineteenth-century frontier culture; whiskey was the universal lubricant of all social interactions. Therefore, it is no surprise that barrels of spirits were secreted about the camps or in the nearby woods, to which thirsty revelers or, more likely, scoffers, might resort to fortify their courage.

Drunken parodies of the sermons and altar calls are reported, a sort of latter-day feast of fools.24 The excesses of the first-generation camp meeting rowdies, though fired by whiskey, may also have been ignited in part by the perception that “their” women were subject to romantic abduction by outsiders. The loss of women from closed rural communities would have been perceived by the young men as a potentially serious problem, particularly in a culture where bridal abductions – either forced or voluntary – were common.25 As flirtations and dalliances were (and are) a fixture of camp meetings, perhaps the young men’s anxieties were not all imaginary. The rowdies’ antisocial and antireligious behaviors were overwhelmingly male occupations, and expressed the masculinity of their actors.26 Irreligion was, like salvation, an act of individuation that required an audience for its successful deployment. The “scoffers” were, often enough to warrant mention, captured by the Holy Spirit, and found their own unexpected religious moment. Between the “saved and civilized” male and the “rebel” one may discern a debate between contending definitions of masculinity. The former defends a “civic, masculine virtue” that would grow into middle-class respectability, while the latter, though he was simply reiterating a cultural imperative of gender definition, represents (in his own mind at least) an outlaw hero in the Robin Hood mould.27 Camp meetings provided a stage upon which these notions could be played out. Though the weapons were often rhetorical, with preachers and exhorters contending with rowdy hecklers, fisticuffs and small arms could also join the fray, and frontier preachers – many of whose careers started as camp meeting hecklers – could be formidable pugilists. An observation and reminiscence from the CLCM, though likely romanticized, captures a bit of the rough-and-tumble frenzy of the old meetings: Crowds of roughs organized themselves into bands and made regular raids upon the worshippers and endeavored “to clean them out,” … But these sturdy christians could fight as well as pray, and formed a regular police force of from sixty to one hundred in number, fine specimens of muscular christians who did as good a work in repelling the invaders as they did in the prayer meetings on their

knees…. [I]t was no uncommon thing to see some powerful brother arise from his knees, and pitch head long from the charmed circle some depraved youth who was putting in execution some evil scheme to turn the minds of christians from Heaven. And the good brother executed this little feat without ceasing to pray, deeming it not of sufficient importance to warrant his stopping in prayer.28 Such “muscular christianity,” as it endeavors to combine adolescent machismo with sanctimony, is highly, deliberately performative. The behaviors, still seen in our day, can function as admirable role models at best, though more often they turn ironically humorous, hypocritical, or even menacing, thus defeating the intent. Of interest to this topic is the later career of Ben Hogan, whose exploits as boxer, barkeeper, showman, and whore- master in Petrolia have been previously noted. Hogan found religion at a New York City revival meeting and spent his later days touring as an evangelist, often preaching in his old Pennsylvania haunts.29 Nathan Bangs, American Methodism’s first comprehensive historian, offers a re- alistic assessment of the more questionable patrons of camp meetings: It is admitted that in such vast multitudes, assembled in the open air, under circumstances of such peculiar excitement, and many of them not well instructed in science or in morals, there must have been some disorder, some mingling of human passions not sanctified by grace, and some words and gesticulations not in accordance with strict religious decorum. In a disclaimer worthy of any politician, Bangs concludes, “Every action, therefore, and every thing which was said and done, I am by no means careful to defend or pledged to justify.” (113) Contrarily, in his 1854 Camp Meeting Manual, B. W. Gorham in a feat of remarkable myopia flatly contends that “there is not a tithe of truth in the stories, which from time to time, obtain more or less currency on the subject of the wickedness committed on and about Camp Grounds.” (26) Nevertheless, he offers an apology and rationale for the “evil disposed persons” who attend encampments:

…while men more or less abandoned have attended Camp Meet- ings, as they have attended other large assemblages, these Meet- ings are the only sort of great gatherings where these very wicked men have been arrested in the course of their wickedness, and converted into good and useful citizens.30 Gorham articulates the unanimous justification for enduring the questionable morality that accompanied camp meetings: no matter their motivation in attending, some good must invariably be impressed on the scoffers which might, in the fullness of time, bear spiritual fruit.

The Refinement of Behaviors Eventually legal restrictions on the disturbance of religious gatherings were put into effect, along with limitations on the distribution of liquor near churches and camp meetings (Bruce 46). The legislative authorization for the incorporation of the CLCM, for instance, specifically invokes “Article VII, Title 8, Chapter 20, first part of the revised statutes…, entitled ‘Of the Disturbance of Religious Meetings,’” and confers upon the Camp Meeting trustees the power of “peace officers” (History 47). Such legislation indicates the developing political influence of the evangelical denominations as they grew into mainstream respectability, and reflects as well the social changes that came with the settling of the frontier. Camp meetings became more civilized places. Events and speakers were scheduled well in advance; rules of conduct were clearly posted and enforced; a regular schedule of preaching, exhorting, tent meetings, private devotions, and meal breaks were established and generally maintained. Meeting grounds were prepared along conventional lines, with a distinct speakers’ stand, an altar, and bench seating with a wide aisle down the center. (In the early meetings, at least, the audience was separated by gender, in accordance with instructions laid down by Wesley. Separate altars for men and women were contemplated, if rarely constructed.) Manuals for planning and executing camp meetings were soon being printed and distributed, and meeting reports were seen in the popular press as well as religious journals.

The heart of the improved camp meeting site was the preacher’s stand, the altar, and the auditorium. The tendency was for ministers and special guests to gather on the stand; in large encampments, the structure must have been quite imposing. Gorham suggests that attending ministers might reside in the lower part of the stand, though there is little independent confirmation of this.31 Charles Johnson claims that the camp meeting altar “was as much the property of the people as the preacher on the rostrum.”32 By his reckoning, the altar services, which usually took place during the afternoon and evening sessions, were the most popular as they provided “the greatest opportunity for audience participation.” (132) This observation may have been true in the early camp meetings, when the architecture was first being formalized. However, in time the altar area would be enclosed and access limited. Fron- tier preacher Peter Cartwright required the lanes leading to the altar be kept clear, specifically to permit women easier access to the area. He also prohibited “standing on the seats and … around the pales of the altar,” and limited the number of mourners permitted within that space (Johnson 137). If keeping the lanes clear would provide easier access for the women, one might conclude that the lanes were blocked by men. Their standing on seats and around the altar obviously would disrupt the view of much of the audience, so Cartwright’s prohibition of bench-standing makes sense in the interest of common courtesy. One might further speculate that at least a few of the men gathered about the pit with a voyeuristic intent – that of watching the uninhibited actions of the women within. Gorham recommends an altar area of about “twenty-five feet square,” apparently for small meetings, or, alternately, a width of slightly over double that of the preacher’s stand. He illustrates and discusses benches and an aisle within the altar and stresses that the floor be made absolutely level and generously covered with sawdust, bark, and a thick layer of straw. Most significantly, “The entrances to the altar should be at the two front corners of the [preacher’s] stand, and, I think, only there.” Gorham is vague about the means of separating the mourners from the rest of the flock, mentioning only a “railing” (131-132; illustration on 135). The salient feature, to my eye, is that by mid-century access to the altar area was controlled by the preachers, exhorters, or other officials. No longer could a mob of maenads come streaming forth into the latter-day orkestra, as

described by Trollope. Wooden benches within the pen also discouraged uncontrolled falling, flailing, etc.; straw and sawdust would ease the burden on the knees of the prayer- ful. Apparently the practice was for the mourners to kneel behind the benches, rather than to sit upon them. Trollope observed this behavior inside a society tent at her 1829 visit to an Indiana camp meeting; Henry Miller also confirms this in his account. Note that histrionics could be limited by adding a bit of furniture to the altar, implying a degree of individual control over the exuberance. Controlling the configuration and access to the altar shaped and limited the conduct of the seekers. As the camp meeting was constrained and conventionalized, so were the histrionics. Preaching was conducted from the stand by an ordained minister. After a prayer invoking the assistance of the Almighty, a scriptural reference was pronounced and its moral or theological lesson enlarged upon in a sermon lasting from a few dozen minutes to several hours. In the early period, given the poor training of the preachers and the super-charged environment, these niceties were likely often set aside. Sermons would be followed by some lusty singing. Isaac Watts’ hymns and vigorous camp songs still found in the evangelical Protestant tradition were particular favorites. The boisterous, rhythmic hymns brought the crowd to its feet and encouraged movement; an exhortation would follow which, well-executed, might whip the crowd into an emotional frenzy. Hymns and exhortations were in fact most noted for bringing on the ecstatic spiritual manifestations. The exhorter would further enlarge upon the sermon, but much more freely in “enthusiastic and nonintellectual discourses culminating in an appeal to salvation.”33 This was the famous “altar call.” Exhorters were apparently free to move among the crowd, particularly within the altar area. Exhortations could be particularly raucous affairs, mixing vivid warnings of impending doom to tearful pleas for repentance to blistering personal attacks on the audience (Johnson 127). While sermons were the province of established ministers, exhorters could range from specialists in the field to ministers-in-training to gifted laity.34 Women first made a semi-official appearance at early camp meetings as exhorters and hymn-leaders; their role in the camp meeting (and later, Chautauqua) movement would grow as the century – and the camp meeting movement – progressed.35 In slave-holding regions, there are many descriptions of persons of color exhorting to

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their fellows, and there are suggestions that, under some circumstances in the ante-bellum South integrated populations might unite under both Black and White exhorters. In the South, slaves and free blacks were undoubtedly a part of the camp meeting experience; the question is to the nature and extent of their participation. Most sources indicate that Blacks held a separate service in the environs – occasionally from a speaker’s stand immediately behind the stand used by Whites. If so, the events would have mirrored one another. The Black meeting was reportedly more boisterous than the White version, and often seems to have run later into the evenings. The intermingling of the races, particularly on the final evening of the meeting, is often suggested but few specific details are offered in its support (Johnson 46, 113-118. See also Trollope). African-Americans are rarely mentioned at northern holiness camps which, though well-attended, became increasingly economically segregated as the century progressed. Such Blacks that were in attendance were therefore likely to have been household servants. Where large ethnic populations were found, the palm was apparently extended to sympathetic Protestant outlanders. Swedes were a notable presence at the CLCM; Germans and Moldavians were clearly welcome at Manheim, Pennsylvania, in the heart of what is now known as Pennsylvania Dutch country. Quakers and Shakers, who were often of British stock, were also regular participants. (Anti-British sympathies still ran strong in the era, as ruefully noted by Trollope; English were undoubtedly considered “foreigners.”) Johnson offers evidence that camp meetings were held for the benefit of American Indians, though without notable success. Some of the most remarkable descriptions of camp meetings relate to spontaneous exhortations, particularly by women and children. Bishop Matthew Simpson, quoting the experiences of an anonymous preacher at Cane Ridge, recalls “I saw about three hundred of them exhorting at one time – some of them children, who were held up in arms or on the shoulders of men. One little girl, about nine years of age, was put on a man’s shoulder, and delivered, I think, a body of divinity. At length, when she was exhausted, she sank back upon her upholder, upon which a man who stood near affectingly said, ‘Poor thing, set her

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down.’ She replied, ‘Don’t call me poor; I have Christ for my brother, God for my father, and am an heir to a kingdom.” (Intro- duction xiv) A far different picture emerges of women’s participation later in the century. Unlike the raucous affairs of Cane Ridge, the holiness camp meetings of the 1860s and after were positively genteel – a consequence of the long process of controlling behaviors and subli- mating the religious ecstasies: A WONDERFUL scene was witnessed in one of the boarding tents on Monday evening at tea-time. Some two or three hundred were sitting at table, in the act of commencing their repast. A group of five or six, two or three of whom had just entered into the blessing of perfect love, and one had just been converted, were sitting together. Their hearts were full and their eyes were streaming. One of them broke out and praised the Lord. Another followed, and another. The fire ran up and down the tables. At this juncture a young lady from Philadelphia, the daughter of a preacher, began to preach – yes preach. Her soul, lips, eyes, face, all on fire. The people arose from the table, weeping and shouting, and after lingering around a season, went off with hearts thrilling; the most of them leaving their meals all but untouched. Another such tea-table scene was never, perhaps, witnessed. (McLean 259) Rather than exhorting among thousands in an open field and dining at individual family tents as at Cane Ridge, “two or three hundred” now have a dining hall in which they take tea together – a meal unheard of on the western frontier. Arguably, the same contagious enthusiasm is felt, but rather than simply exhorting, a young woman begins to preach, implying a structured intellectual discourse rather than a spontaneous outpouring. The novelty of a woman’s preaching certainly made an impression on the writer; a situation much like it (though set on the Chautauqua grounds) is recalled in Moore’s Ida Norton. The effort to change perceptions of camp meetings was not accidental. By mid- century, the pitfalls of histrionic conversions were apparent to even the most sympathetic

102 observer. Nathan Bangs admitted that “we do not place dependence upon these external signs as evidences in themselves of either penitence, conversion, or sanctification.” Spe- cifically addressing a dependence on falling, jerking, and the like as markers of a spiritual experience, he observed that, “As there may be a fear, a hope, and a love, which is not well founded, so there may be much bodily exercise without any spiritual profit. These things may or may not be.” In his view, one held in wide sympathy, If a person who has had these exercises profess, in the meantime, to have experienced a change of heart, if he bring forth the fruit of righteousness in his subsequent life, we may then safely conclude that the work was effected by the Spirit of God; but if otherwise, if he still manifest the unhumbled spirit of the Pharisee, or bring forth the “works of the flesh,” his profession cannot save him from the condemnation of the hypocrite, or the miser of the self-deluded. (117) The Jamestown correspondent to the 1874 CLCM took some pains to distance contemporary behaviors from the spectacles of the past: The generally accepted idea from the outside world of a Methodist prayer meeting is very far from the true condition of affairs. They seem to think that at each meeting numbers of people get what is called the “power,” throw themselves on the ground, kick, yell, and behave in an insane manner generally. Now as far as we have observed nothing of the kind has been done at this camp meeting and we believe the cases are exceptional rather than general.36 The refinement of the behaviors was most apparent as the prepared sermons gave way to exhortations. Traditionally, as the crowd warmed to the hymns and exhortations ministers on the stand might descend into the altar and auditorium and join the mourners. This became a durable tradition, recounted in both early and late-century descriptions of camp meetings. Compare, for instance, the Cane Ridge accounts mentioned above with an example from the first National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness in Vine- land, New Jersey, in 1867. The sermon was by the peripatetic Rev. Gorham; in his

103 concluding remarks he “desired that all those in the congregation who would just then, and with all their hearts, give themselves to God, should immediately come forward and kneel at the seats in front of the stand.” Several hundred responded to Gorham’s call “from all parts of the congregation.” He then asked all the ministers who would humble themselves before God and seek for a great Pentecostal baptism, to retire from the stand and kneel with the other seekers. To this they every one, to the number of fifty or more, immediately responded, Brother Gorham himself going with the rest. Of interest here is that “fifty or more” preachers were on the stand with Gorham at this huge gathering, all of whom descended into the altar with the mourners in a grand liminal exercise. The manifestations follow a well-established pattern of vocalizing, though there is no mention of convulsions, jerking, barking, and so forth: [M]inisters and people bowed together, first in silent prayer and consecration, and then in groanings, and subdued but earnest and intermingling prayers, and this often broken upon by shouts of praise. Many will never forget that scene, nor how the Spirit took them into hitherto unknown depths of humility; nor how they realized the sweet baptism of the Holy Ghost coming upon them… (McLean 147) Compared to the excesses of the early meetings, this was remarkably orderly affair. The mannered atmosphere of these holiness camp meetings seven decades after Cane Ridge is regularly emphasized in the late-century accounts. The “Great Pentecost” at Manheim, Pennsylvania, the following year was even more remarkable for its restraint. This was probably the most remarkable event of all the holiness camp meetings, where – in the conventional language – “thousands were slain.” Of the first Monday evening service, wrote one observer, “Silence reigned. Thousands were in an attitude of prayer. An awful presence seemed to rest upon the multitude.” Another participant, breaking out in a cold sweat, recalled clinging to chairs as his strength failed him. People told him his face was “illuminated” (Ctd. in Brown, Inskip 86). The contrast with Cane Ridge bears emphasis:

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no screaming, convulsing, or barking here; a preternatural silence of the participants, reliably estimated at over 20,000, marked the event.37 The sanctification experience, even in such a crowd, was an internal experience manifested in physical weakness, perspira- tion, and “beaming” countenances. Ambiguous “fruits of the Spirit” as the true signs of conversion and salvation would grow in the coming decades, eclipsing the manifestations that so electrified the early nineteenth century. (These fruits would mature at the Fair Point Sunday School Assembly, gaining their own conventional expressions; ecstatic celebrations were discouraged, if not positively banned.) One such “fruit” was the longstanding requirement for converts to engage in a probationary period for church membership – often up to a year.38 (Contrarily, the “gifts of the Spirit” – the ecstatic performances – would again be foregrounded after the turn of the twentieth in what is now known as the Pentacostal movement.) Bangs provides a remarkably even-handed view of the camp meeting phenomenon and accepts the necessity of emotional arousal as a part of the religious experience. Though one may not share in his religion, it is difficult to argue with his holistic view: …man is a creature of passions as well as of intellect. And as Christianity is not intended to destroy, but only to regulate the passions, as well as to enlighten the understanding and sanctify the heart, we must expect the passions to be moved, and the emotions to fear, hope, love, and joy to be excited in religious as well as in all other exercises…. Those therefore who address themselves to the understanding only, as if men were merely intellectual beings, avail themselves of not one half of the motives with which the gospel furnishes its servants, to induce sinners to repent and believe in Christ, and to encourage believers to persevere in the path of duty. (117-118)

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Salvation and Beyond In the revival tent and camp meeting altar, conversions were typically undertaken in the heat of the emotional moment. The saved might (and too often, did) easily return to their old wicked ways once they returned to their mundane environment, in a familiar process known as “backsliding.”39 Francis Asbury lamented this tendency in 1809: “…I fear a backsliding among the professors, and some sudden conversions, not sound or not lasting and many Methodist families have neither form nor power of goodness! Yea, practical religion is pretty wanting.” (In Johnson 84-85. “Professor” was the term for those who articulated, or “professed,” having received salvation.) Backsliding was a sufficient cause for the penitent’s continued participation at the camp meeting altar and justified a regular appearance at “the foot of the cross.”40 Backsliding was part of the confession of the young woman Frances Trollope described in the 1820s, “a very pretty girl, who was kneeling in the attitude of Canova’s Magdalene immediately before us.” The penitent combined pleas with confessions and prayers: “Woe, woe to the backsliders! Hear it, hear it, Jesus! When I was fifteen my mother died, and I backslided, oh Jesus, I backslided! Take me home to my mother, Jesus! Take me home to her, for I am weary!” The Christian’s spiritual “home” is of course Heaven. The penitent cries out for “John Mitchell” before “sobbing piteously behind her raised hands.” (Was the mysterious Mr. Mitchell associated with her backsliding?) “She lifted her sweet face again, which was as pale as death, and said, ‘Shall I sit on the sunny bank of salvation with my mother? My own dear mother? Oh, Jesus, take me home, take me home!’” Though public confessions are not universally a part of evangelical Christianity, the young woman’s utterances certainly take on a confessional quality. Trollope’s description, with the kneeling, sobbing, raised hands, and lifted face, suggests at the least a conventionalized set of behaviors, if not precisely a performance engaged in for the benefit of the penitent’s audience.41 Memoirist Henry Miller recalls his 1865 revival experience as “a meeting that seemed more of an attack of religious hysteria than a revival of deep religious feeling.” He suggests that “religion so acquired may be a good thing for some people, and no doubt there are a few who are improved by it. But my observation has been that most of the converts secured under the stress of such excitement do not stick very long and soon

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backslide.” He concludes with a homey observation not likely to please evangelicals: “Those who do stick and remain consistently faithful to the teachings of their religion were probably good enough for all practical purposes anyhow.” (14-15) For many outside the evangelical fold, an “eternal salvation” that needs periodic renewal does not withstand theological scrutiny. For the believer, the onus is on the seeker to maintain good relations with God who is, in the traditional understanding, unchanging and unerring; one’s salvation might be lost in a moment of temptation. A. H. Wyatt addressed these concerns from the pulpit of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting in 1874: Faith, to be effectual, must be at all times present and continuous. It must be perpetual, if you ever lose it you fall back. You have a consciousness of falling when you lose faith. Faith makes us independent of any secondary aids or a third person in order that we may be saved. If we depend on agencies we would come far short of reaching eternal life. (JDJ 13 July 1874) Wyatt’s theology continues the radical individualism of the early camp meetings: as you are responsible for seeking salvation, given by the grace of God, you are equally responsible for losing it through the loss of faith.42 Backsliding, in Wyatt’s view, is a consequence of losing faith. In the Methodists’ conception of sin, one deliberately takes an action contrary to the will of God; backsliding likewise is a deliberate choice, and thereby a sin. Backsliding and sin were behavioral acts that might be witnessed.43 Gorham confirms this behavioral approach to spirituality and translates it into evangelical terms: “What you aim at, is both to receive and communicate spiritual good on the ground.” (56) Sin, salvation, backsliding, and fruits of the Spirit were all visible, performative manifestations of the religious experience, conceptions of an omniscient deity notwithstanding. Though one could not know the mind of God, one might ascertain the spiritual state of one’s fellows by their consistent performance of spirituality. A cure for backsliding was said to be found in a second stage of the conversion experience, variously known as “sanctification” or “entire sanctification,” “full” or “Pentecostal” salvation, “holiness,” “perfect love,” “Christian perfection,” and similar

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terms. The wealth of nomenclature indicates that sanctification was not rigorously defined; it was rather an idiosyncratic experiential state (See Dane 72-84). Sanctification is founded on the notion that the inherently sinful human must be purified or “made holy” before entering the Kingdom of Heaven, for the eyes of God “are too pure to behold evil." (Habakkuk 1:13) Christian apologist Charles Dane conflates a number of approaches and offers that “Sanctification is the act of God’s free grace whereby the soul is purified from sin, and filled with pure love. It enables its possessor to have continual victory over every inward and every outward sin while he trusts in Christ.” Dane further clarifies that “Man still has temptation, but is ‘more than conqueror through him who hath loved us’” (Rom. 8:37). Such a state of grace is compatible with our conditions and circumstances here below.” (Parenthetical reference in original.) This final statement places the Protestant sanctification in contradistinction from the Roman Catholic notion of Purgatory, a fifteenth-century speculation concerning the place where one was purified of sins after death. Protestants rejected such a doctrine as non-Biblical but were consequently at a loss to explain when and where one might be made sufficiently pure to enter the presence of God.44 One view was that the saved were ultimately forgiven and purified shortly before, or at the moment of, death. Such a notion invited further speculation. To quote Rev. John Parker, speaking at the first National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness (1867): It appears then that perfect purity is attainable in this life…. It is admitted that this must take place at some time.… [I]t is said, this is done just before death. But why five minutes or ten minutes before death? If God can do it five minutes before you die, can He not do it ten minutes, ten hours, or ten days before?—then why not now? (84-85) What, indeed, prevented one from seeking this ultimate purification in the prime of life? Thus believers began to seek scriptural justifications and experiential evidence that one might enter into this state of spiritual purity. John Wesley himself proposed the existence of such an experience; though he never admitted to have entered into such a state, he did not deny the experience of others who claimed to have achieved Christian perfection.

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Sounding a bit like a religious salesman, B. W. Gorham, in the extended Socratic dialogue that comprises the first part of his 1854 Camp Meeting Manual, recounts the concern of one “saved” individual about his tendency to backslide, and proposes the cure. Says the unnamed seeker: “O, I am afraid to go home, and engage again in my worldly pursuits, lest again I should wander from God, and grieve his Holy Spirit.” To which the narrator replies: “Very likely you will do so, my friend, unless you get a higher measure of the grace of God than ever. What you need is full salvation.” (68) Sanctification, as presented by Gorham, seems a relatively simple process, another trip to the altar. Such was not the case. While both salvation and sanctification are accomplished at the instigation of the individual, salvation is but the first step; it is the invitation of “Jesus into the heart.” Sanctification is the voluntary yielding of one’s all – body, mind, spirit – to God in an act of consecration, and consummated through the power of the Holy Spirit. To quote St. Paul: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1) Sanctification was eagerly sought by some over the course years and even decades. Those who receive the “Second Blessing” describe it in raptur- ous terms; Hannah Whitall Smith, a party to the holiness frenzy in the late-nineteenth century, found it in retrospect to be rather silly, another “fanaticism” to ensnare flighty women. Apparently, even the sanctified Christian might backslide: “No one can lose the blessing without committing a grievous wrong, by turning the heart away from God, and in some way treating him with neglect or insult,” says Gorham (71). Dane substantially agrees, and notes that sanctification “is the greatest antidote for backsliding. It is possible to backslide from any state of grace. Yet, the fact is, few who have been entirely sanctified have backslidden.” (11) Like salvation and the simpler forms of backsliding, falling from the state of sanctification could only be a deliberated act by the individual. Once again, one was master of one’s salvation – or damnation.45 Submission to God through salvation and sanctification brought one to a “true freedom,” in contradistinction to the “Spiritual slavery” which “is the true condition of the unconverted man.” Thus explained Hiram Pratt at CLCM in 1874: “When a man is converted he feels a dominion over his

109 evil appetites and passions hitherto a stranger, and if we continue in the work of salvation we shall at last be washed in the blood of Christ, be restored to the lost image, and know everlasting light on all subjects.” (JDJ 12 July 1874) Though sanctification had a historical precedence, particularly in Methodism, it seems to have had little notice in America in the early days of the nineteenth century. By the 1830s, sanctification literature would appear in modest distributions, and dedicated sanctification periodicals emerged. After the Civil War, the holiness movement and the camp meeting movement (which had been in a slow decline) would receive a great boost of popularity.46 One might discover several explanations for its post-war success: in the early camp meeting era, such a concept may have been beyond the skill or scope of frontier preachers to articulate or their audience to appreciate. The radical individuality and democratic impulse of the frontier eschewed theological complexity and sought the low- est religious common denominator. A second stage of the salvation experience invited social stratification – the very thing the early camp meeting participants sought to obliter- ate. Everyone in search of salvation needed to humble themselves at the altar; claims of an advanced level of spiritual achievement would tend to exalt those who could claim it benefits. The defenders of sanctification recognized the movement’s pitfalls: apologist Charles Dane indeed refers to the movement’s less-attractive behavioral repercussions as “cranktification” and “sanctimoniousness.”

Embourgeoisement In a perspective derived from the theories of Victor Turner, camp meetings, as a pilgrimage, generally have a liminal, anti-structural quality. Social roles and hierarchies tended to flatten in the encampments, opening the possibility for new and creative re- imaginings of the social order. In a post-Civil War nation caught in a whirlwind of change and, consequently, with a highly sentimental regard for an edenic past, one can hardly understate the value of the late encampments in reconciling a view of paradise lost with potential new roles in an uncertain present. Many of these new roles, particularly as they pertain to women, would take shape in the later Chautauqua Movement. The existential communitas of the first generation of camp meetings gave way to

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a normative model that attempted to maintain the best of the original but with a greater attention to timetables, planning, organization, and division of labor. Social hierarchies re-emerged as the new community created new markers of social status. This process characterizes the late-century camp meetings, which honored the spirit of earlier encampments while at the same time limiting the more extreme behavioral displays. The settling of the frontier, the Civil War, growing industrialization, and improved transportation changed American culture. Growing personal economies invited new status markers, and these found expression in putative advanced levels of spiritual growth. At the same time, many rural Americans – the heart of the early camp meeting movement – were being drawn into the cities and taking industrial jobs. In response to their social disorientation, they sought comfort in the familiarity of “old-fashioned” camp meetings located near the urban centers. The resulting new generation of camp meeting reflected their sentimentality for the old forms and, at the same time, expressed new status markers such as cottages (rather than tents), a new-found reverence for nature, and perhaps the claim of entire sanctification. With or without the holiness movement – which certainly had its detractors – camp meetings underwent a revival and an evolution after the Civil War. Permanent camp meeting grounds, acquired and maintained by churches, committees, and local boosters, had been established even prior to the conflict. Their permanent buildings and leased lots must be contrasted to those isolated country clearings, almost devoid of aesthetic interest, where camp meetings first took root.47 Still later, state-chartered associations were formed; they also often acquired desirable acreage on lakes, rivers, and oceans.48 Such considerations marked the camp meeting’s movement into the broader American culture, and an audience drawn from a more upscale populace with a growing appreciation for scenic vistas and the “ennobling” quality of natural beauty. Plain tents and rough-hewn cottages gave way to elaborate dwellings and public structures with a very sophisticated aesthetic.49 As the camp meeting movement spread into different regions, other folkways were brought to bear on the vernacular architecture and site selection. The later movement also attracted growing middle-class families who did not care for the expense or moral uncertainty that attended upscale watering holes such as

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Saratoga or Coney Island. Such considerations certainly played into the siting and early success of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting - Fair Point Assembly, and comparable religious communities such as Ocean Grove in New Jersey, or Wesleyan Grove on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Thus the rural camp meetings attended by largely uneducated patrons and over- seen by a theologically untrained ministerium were hegemonized by a more socially upscale generation. These later patrons aspired to middle-class respectability and developed an urban perspective, though with strong sentimental ties to their rural past. The most extreme manifestations of the camp meeting experience – barking, screaming, convulsing – were replaced by more genteel though still remarkable experiences. Preach- ing on the looming fires of Hell for the unconverted would give way to more sophisticated appeals to salvation and sanctification. The individual’s performance of spirituality would in time progress into social actions, culminating in the emergence of the social gospel movement. In the view of this more sophisticated seeker, a quicksilver salvation that backslides away is no salvation at all; an “entire sanctification” that needs periodic renewal does not bear serious contemplation. Social actions – temperance and women’s suffrage, to name two of the most salient – became the markers of “true Christianity” among an upscale, urbanizing populace. Meanwhile, proponents of sanctification would eschew the “worldliness” of the neo-mainstream evangelicals and create their own more conservative denominations. As Dayton observes, these parties were “protesting Protes- tantism”; the social ramifications of the split remain with us to this day.

CHAPTER 3: THE CHAUTAUQUA LAKE CAMP MEETING

Yesterday afternoon was the time appointed for the commencement of the Methodist Camp Meeting on the grounds of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association of the Erie Confer- ence, situated on Fair Point. For several weeks past a large force of men have been engaged in clearing the grounds, erecting tents, boarding and lodging halls &c., and last evening a company numbering about one hundred persons had gathered at the grounds – the advance of the large assemblage that is expected to-day…. At the conclusion of the sermon the congregation and ministers in charge gathered in the altar at the foot of the pulpit and consecrated the grounds to the service of God. It was truly a solemn and impressive occasion and one that will never be forgotten by those present. -- Jamestown Daily Journal 28 June 1871

The crowd commenced coming before daylight overland, and continued coming until noon. From Mayville and the connections of the Cross Cut [Railroad], the Col. Phillips brought down several loads of passengers, the little steam tugs and sail boats brought in their additions, and the steamer Jamestown brought hundreds of passengers from Jamestown and from a special train of five crowded cars from Meadville on the A. & G. W., on each of her two trips. Above all these, the crowd that filled the enclosure of the encampment came overland by private conveyance, and the woods back of the encampment was packed with thousands of horses….

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By noon there were not less than ten thousand people on the grounds, and what was very remarkable this large crowd were without exception very orderly. A large police force were on the ground, but there was nothing for them to do, except walk around and see the folks. -- Jamestown Daily Journal 18 Aug. 1873 . So very little has been said regarding this year's camp meeting at Fair Point, either in the way of official notice or private communications, that we were but slightly surprised, upon visiting the grounds of the that famous resort this morning, to find workmen who are ornamenting the grounds for the Sunday School As- sembly. It is this Sunday School Assembly, undoubtedly, that has to answer for the small attendance at the Camp Meeting, nearly every one preferring to postpone their vacation until the greater event. There are now upon the grounds at Fair Point, we should judge, barely three hundred persons scattered among the different cottages.... That the camp meeting will be very dull and lightly attended is very evident... -- Jamestown Daily Journal 16 June 1875

The meeting will close next Sunday night, and the work of improvement will go uninterruptedly on until the great event of the season, the Sunday School Assembly, that has so overshadowed the modest little gathering assembled together this last week, and that will probably crush it out of existence in another year. -- Jamestown Daily Journal 21 June 1875

Thus a few newspaper clippings encapsulate the brief history of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting. The first session of the CLCM, conducted under the auspices of the

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Erie Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, began on June 27, 1871. A modest success in its inaugural year, the meeting reached its high-water mark in a short two years. Attendance at the 1874 session was depressed by a spell of miserably cold and rainy weather, as well as the promise of the new National Sunday School Assembly on the grounds a month later. In 1875 a few hundred gathered – mostly rural patrons, mostly to socialize. Few official records of the CLCM seem to exist. Newspaper accounts suggests that at the maximum, about 10,000 individuals might have attended the busiest Sunday session of 1873. Though an impressive number – representing, by comparison, over 16 per cent of Chautauqua County’s population in the era – it fell far short of the 25,000 that attended the National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness at Manheim, Penn- sylvania, in 1868, or the estimated 250,000 that descended on that body’s annual meeting at Round Lake, New York, the following year (Brown, Inskip 85, 91). Nevertheless, the CLCM had an auspicious start. Though it did not draw the biggest lights of the camp meeting movement, its first session was attended by ministers from as far as Wisconsin and New Jersey, and many more from closer at hand. Like its immediate forerunners on the east coast, the CLCM established and maintained a daily schedule of sermons and exhortations, tent meetings, meal times, and curfews. Though not wholly devoid of attendees with an interest in things other than religious, the encampments were remarkably trouble-free.1 Established rules and schedules, along with the obvious presence of a constabulary, undoubtedly contributed to the orderly conduct. The greatest controversies arose over fees for admission (for “salvation is free!”2), overcharging for the livery of horses, allegations of price-gouging for camp-site requisites, and poor service and high prices in the dining hall (JDJ 16 July 1874). Through benefaction and the sale of subscriptions the founding members purchased the 50-acre Fair Point site; through the leasing of building lots, sufficient monies were raised to improve the property with a dining hall and construct a substantial dock for the steamboats that plied Chautauqua Lake. Compared to many – if not most – of its contemporaries, the Chautauqua Meeting was on solid financial footing. Cottages quickly sprang up and received much comment in the press. Some lease-holders clearly spent the

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entire summer season on the grounds; a few hardy individuals may have wintered on the site.

Genesis Official preparations for the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting were remarkably quick. An ongoing “Preachers and Layman’s Convention for Fredonia and Adjacent Districts,” meeting in Mayville, New York, turned their organizational energies to the acquisition of a “conference ground.” Discussions and negotiations had been underway for some time – J. C. Chapin, in an undated personal reminiscence, placed the beginning “As far back as 1866.” He continues: [T]he object, importance, and advantage of such an enterprise was suggested and urged, and committees appointed to locate and secure the grounds for the desirable purpose…. [It] was thought that the attractions of the beautiful Chautauqua just developing into a place of popular resort should be used to a nobler purpose than for dissipation and demoralizing carousals. Consequently the loveliest spot of all was selected & purchased of Messrs. Hunt for $10,000, it being rightly named Fair Point. Arrangements were likely near completion before any actions saw public notice. Thus we learn from the Jamestown Journal of 15 March 1871 that a committee “was appointed to prepare a financial plan for purchasing a conference ground.”3 The committee moved quickly. Published minutes of July 16, 1871, indicate Im- provement, Tent, and Police Committees underway, and subscribers (mostly committee members) signing on for over $2500. The deal was finalized through the largess of Cyrus D. Angell, Amos K. Warren, and William P. Whiteside, and the committee purchased the 50-acre tract for $10,000. The Angell family, of Chautauqua County, made an early fortune in Pennsylvania oil, establishing the first of many direct connections between Petrolia and religious endeavor on Chautauqua Lake. Angell, who had interests in a number of business and governmental enterprises, would establish the first boarding hall on the camp meeting grounds; his name produced some predictable puns for several

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years. Angell and Warren were active committeemen; Whiteside, also a man of some means, was apparently an interested outside party (JDJ 29 June 1871). Clearly the intent was to establish a camp meeting rather than a revival meeting (from which patrons would return home each evening) or simply to hold day-long conferences, church picnics, and the like. There were apparently no permanent structures on the grounds at the time, thus an emphasis on tents in the initial season.4 This would quickly change with the long-term leasing of lots; permanent cottages seemingly appeared overnight. The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting, the first such event in the district “in many years,” was soon underway. 5 The founders aimed high; they unsuccessfully petitioned the National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness, then convening at Round Lake, New York, to hold their annual conference at the Chautauqua Lake site in 1872 (JDJ 16 July 1871). Personalities of interest in the early days of the CLCM include itinerant minister and auteur H. H. Moore, hailing that 1871 season from Springfield, Ohio.6 Helena Stonehouse, citing Moore’s own written accounts as presented in Obed Edson’s 1896 History of Chautauqua, identifies Moore as the efficient cause of the CLCM. According to Edson, it was Moore who traveled to Round Lake in 1868 (or, more probably, 1869, when the National Meeting was held there) to observe the camp meeting and, returning to Chautauqua County, presented his observations and plans to James E. Chapin, the Presiding Elder of the Jamestown District, at a camp meeting held in Dayton, Chautauqua County, New York. Hiram Pratt, and to a lesser extent, Rufus Pratt, would be an important personalities in the camp meeting and would also make the transition into the Chautauqua Assem- bly, as would W. W. Wythe, of Erie, and later, Meadville, Pennsylvania. Wythe would in 1874 construct the famous large-scale map of Palestine on the edge of Chautauqua Lake. He would build a comparable structure – a large-scale map of ancient Jerusalem – at the Ocean Grove Assembly soon after. Wythe, like the Pratts, is memorialized in a street name on the Chautauqua grounds. An early and often-overlooked booster of the Chautauqua region was Coleman E. Bishop, a Methodist Episcopal minister and sometime editor of the Jamestown Journal.

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He left that post to found the Oil City Derrick, a bully pulpit from which he continued to celebrate the virtues of the Chautauqua Lake region and pitch for a camp meeting on the site. Bishop’s successor at the Jamestown paper was E. Waite, who also used his office to boost the camp meeting on Chautauqua Lake. The most significant “ink-jerker” in Chautauqua history was Theodore Flood, a pulpit minister long associated with James- town who decamped to Meadville, Pennsylvania, yet continued celebrating the virtues of Chautauqua. Flood would soon connect with John Heyl Vincent and, directly or indirectly, publish a number of books, magazines, and papers associated with Chautauqua Institution.7 Other names from the CLCM era – Gifford, Chapin, Kent – are still familiar in the region if only for streets and commercial entities that bear their names. Some – Scofield, Steward, Smallwood – were frequently heard in the camp meeting era but seemingly disappeared with the emergence of the Fair Point Assembly.

Reportage As noted above, an unnamed correspondent (or more) for the Jamestown Daily Journal provides the most consistent record of events on the grounds. (Other accounts in local papers seem to be plagiarized from the Journal.) The daily accounts consist of comments on the weather and general observations on the crowd, followed by summa- tions in varying detail on the sermons. Exhorters are named, though the substance of their talks is rarely disclosed. The reactions of the crowd are also noted, though with little detail aside from “great interest” or, less often, a contrary observation. Typical of late- century camp meetings, mornings would often hear didactic lessons for young ministers and the newly converted. The 1871 session featured, at 8:00 a.m., “a short sermon” followed by a “prayer meeting and experience meeting”; the congregation would disperse until the 10:30 session, when the process would be repeated with the addition of “exhortation and prayer meeting” by another minister. Another sermon, another exhortation, another prayer meeting followed at 1:30 pm, yet another at 5:00 p.m. Meals and congregational tent meetings, along with times for private devotions, would further consume the free hours. The days’ final sessions, beginning about 8:00 p.m., would finish under the

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light of torches and firelight, and might be followed by another round of tent meetings; these were seldom specifically reported.8 Such an active schedule proved to be too much of a good thing; by 1874 the Jamestown correspondent would prophecy that “Affairs have been managed so that there is a regular routine for all that will be very apt to grow monotonous before the end of the week.” (JDJ 9 July 1874) There were occasional observations that the attendees had been “sermoned out” and were no longer attentive. The camp meeting formula, even with the late improvements by Inskip at the holiness meetings, had reached plenitude. Thus the welcome given to the novelty of Vincent and Miller’s Assembly, whose revised daily schedule offered a broader array of stimulations. Though providing serious reporting on the sermons and events on the grounds, the JDJ correspondent also offered tongue-in-cheek “notes” mixed with legitimate criticisms. A few examples from the 1871 season: “A valuable watch and parasol were among the ‘lost’ things on the ground Sunday.” The pun, of course, was of the “lost” seekers hoping to be “found” by the Shepherd. Among other “lost” items: “A little boy was lost in the crowd on Sunday. The boy was found in time, however, to spoil the effect of a good comparison.” And further: “We imagine considerable ‘gumming’ or something else was going on Sunday afternoon, from the fact that a rubber plate of false teeth, lower jaw, was picked up on the grounds. Perhaps the person who found them had a ‘little brown jug’ for a companion.” A further reference to public drunkenness appears later in the same report: “‘The old brown jug’ was on the camp ground Saturday and Sunday, and several of those who partook fully of its contents were picked up by the police and sent to their homes on the first boat. We doubt if so orderly a party, for one so large, ever before gathered together in this county.” The nomenclature of the holiness movement made its way into the reports: “One old gent, sitting at the right of the pulpit on Saturday night, had a wonderful strike of the power – he snored long and loud.” In the tradition of camp meetings, the correspondent was not above offering critiques along with a bit of moralizing: “It was amusing to see a prominent businessman, of the town, plead for two dinner tickets at the Angell House, yesterday, for ‘two sick sisters.’ He got them, and himself and another healthy male companion ‘hashed’…” Further, “Considerable difficulty has been experienced by

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farmers and others hitching their teams in the grove, from the fact that there are too many ‘bosses’ on the job. In several instances the men who run the stables have extorted money from those who took care of their own horses. Why is this thus?”9 Both the CLCM and Assembly founders would establish their own newspapers in part, one suspects, to limit such critiques. So far as I have been able to determine, the Chautauqua Lake Journal only published a single edition in July of 1873; its layout, advertisers, and filler items point to a Jamestown press – probably the Journal – as its place of origin. The Chautauqua Assembly Herald, founded in 1876 and since replaced by The Chautauqua Daily, rarely offers opinions critical of the Institution. (A staff member at the Oliver Archives at Chautauqua Institution, in perusing a draft version of these pages, offered a gentle correction: The Chautauqua papers never offer opinions critical of the Institution.) The Jamestown correspondent was seldom more than ambivalent about the hymn- singing, though he would often make sentimental observations on the “power” of the old tunes (“It takes a dim twilight and a score of hearty earnest voices to bring out all the hidden beauties of the good old Methodist hymns. They ring in one’s ears until morning.”) and rejoiced when R.M. Warren was appointed song-leader in 1873 (JDJ 10 Aug. 1874; 15 Aug. 1873). His appreciation was short-lived: At last evening’s services, a dog belonging to one of the elders became imbued with the power of music and “jined in the chorus” with full rich tones, but slightly defective in time and key…. The dog is noted for his love of the soul inspiring art, and makes himself conspicuous on all occasions. An early and painful death is imminent. (JDJ 8 July 1874) A follow-up appeared a few days later, and the owner of the dog was revealed: “The pensive and melodious bull frog joined in the evening worship for the first time, uniting with Mr. Warren’s musical canine. The effect of their combined voices may be imagined.” (JDJ 11 July 1874) Another entry parodied a familiar spiritual: “I’ll tell you what I like the best, let my people go,

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It is the shouting Methodist, Let my people go.” If the man is not dead who ground out the above lines, we respect- fully solicit his company here for one night. If after a sleepless night, with the shoutings ringing in his ear he can heartily echo these sentiments, our wavering faith in his sanity will begin to re- vive. (JDJ 13 July 1874) The daily briefs might involve several levels of communication. “The best sermon yet delivered at the encampment was by Rev. E. S. Gillette, of Jamestown.” As editor Waite of the JDJ had engaged in a vicious war of words with Rev. Gillette in 1871, to which the preacher responded from his pulpit, perhaps this note was an attempt to mollify the latter.10 Editors of the era loved a noisy feud, and gleefully cultivated them at every opportunity. Thus the following jab was directed at Charles Fletcher, editor of the Chau- tauqua Democrat, a weekly out of Mayville: The youthful Fletcher of the Mobocrat woke to the fact that there was a camp meeting in progress and on the sixth day went to the Point Sunday to report. He anxiously asked one good brother how he could best get posted up to what was going on at camp. “You can find all you want in the DAILY JOURNAL. That has it all.” Charlie is now at work vamping over our reports, diluting them down to the customary attenuation of Mobocrat diet. “You’re wel- com.” (sic. 3 July 1871) Similar charges of plagiarism would be leveled against the Corry Blade in following years.

Salvation and Sanctification at Chautauqua Though not strictly a holiness event, the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting followed the model of the National Camp Meetings for the Promotion of Holiness. Specific holiness sermons and tent meetings are mentioned, as well as their positive results:

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The evening meeting was the best of the day and thus far of the meeting. Rev. W. H. Wilson, of Silver Creek, preached a powerful sermon on “Christian Holiness,” and the prayer meeting and experience that followed were attended by one conversion – the first of the encampment. (JDJ 30 June 1871) The following year noted that “a meeting of ‘Christian Holiness’ was held in the Erie tent, and was well attended.” (JDJ 16 Aug. 1872) Indeed, that year saw a morning service devoted to holiness, delivered by Rev. D. W. Thurston, “an old-fashioned preacher” who “preached one of the regular camp-meeting sermons.” Based on Thessalonians 5:23-24, “The main points of his discourse were that man should be of one work but not of one idea; that there were two prime wants, purification of the soul from ruin and purification of the soul in this world.” These were basic tenets of the holiness movement (in the paradigm of salvation followed by sanctification), along with the contradictory notion that “sanctification is a gradual work, but instantaneous.” By this he meant, in the usual understanding, that one must gradually prepare oneself for sanctification, though its arrival is instantaneous once the seeker is sufficiently advanced. “The speaker then enlarged on sanctification, in which was mixed a good deal of the eternal damnation, and closed with an appeal for sinners to conversion and converted men and women to seek sanctification.” An “old fashioned” sermon indeed, though after decades of preparation, the sanctification movement was at that time something of an overnight sensation. “Rev. Mr. Wilson,” though supportive of holiness, was not enamored of the newfangled trends behind the latter-day camp meeting movement. He preached in 1874 that The way to save souls was by the old way, and not by the new. God has so ordered it that a soul is saved by appealing to the faculties, and time will never change this order…. Soul saving is a divine secret. Not mere personal attractions or knowledge not to be found in theology, but a Divine gift coming from God only. (JDJ 9 July 1874) Though he speaks of salvation, the reverend gentleman was in this discourse indirectly

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attacking Phoebe Palmer’s “shorter way” to entire sanctification, and possibly the ideas also of Hannah Whitall Smith, whose mystical approach to sanctification in the 1870s would not be out of place in a contemporary New Age periodical. Wilson’s argument may have reflected a theological or generational struggle, though one should not dismiss an element of sexism behind the critique. Salvations, of course, were the raison d’être of Protestant evangelism, and the success of a camp meeting was judged by the number of conversions. Thus, Rev. Hill, at the close of his sermon, conducted the prayer meeting and experience meeting that followed, two persons arising and coming forward for the prayers of the congregation. The meeting was marked by a deep earnestness, even more than former meetings, giving encouragement to the many earnest workers present, that their efforts would not be in vain. (JDJ 30 June 1871) The following year saw better responses. At the afternoon session, Rev. H. H. Moore, of Parker's Landing, followed in exhortation, and a number of the attending people signified their intention of turning from the ways of the world. His remarks were on the tri- umph of the christian when death came, and the prayer meeting that followed was indeed the most earnest of any preceding. Later that day, the evening sermon was followed with an exhortation by Rev. Smith, who is what is called an old fashioned shouting Methodist. He can shout, sing and pray all in the same breath, and is one of the best exhorters on the ground. His exhortation was mostly in song, but it carried conviction, and when a call was given for those who wanted an interest in Heaven to come forward around the pulpit, a half dozen took the first step. The prayer meeting that followed was the best yet, and a number got happy and shouted. (16 Aug. 1872) Rev. Thurston of Syracuse likewise brought two seekers to the “anxious seat” in 1873. Later that season, “the Rev. Mrs. Dawson [exhorting after] the day sermon was rewarded

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by several earnest seekers at the altar.” Also in that report, “The meeting was very exciting and several penitents came forward to the altar. One lady had what is called the power, and was carried to her tent. The out-door meeting closed about two o’clock [a.m.], and the meetings in the tents were held until a late hour” (JDJ 15, 18 Aug. 1873). Fol- lowing an afternoon session, “In one or two of the tents the power came down and made a great shouting.” (JDJ 19 Aug. 1872)

Gender Women – so much a part of the camp meeting experience as participants – are scarcely recognized in the daily accounts of the CLMC, and often to an effect that is ambiguous at best, and condescending at worst. Of the few examples, one concerns Wythe’s large-scale map of Palestine, under construction in 1874: Many Pilgrims already have arrived and are gathering relics not only of the past but of the present. One lady Pilgrim carried away what is supposed to be the original “Little Brown Jug” which was found floating on the water near Mount Carmel. I believe the Pil- grim was from beyond Jordan City, of Jamestown.” (JDJ 25 June 1874. Punctuation regularized.) Was she simply cleaning up litter, or is some other meaning implied? What did the woman’s city of origin have to do with the story (aside from providing an opportunity for the correspondent to belabor Jamestown)? Another notice, concerning travel to the camp site, emphasized the age of the woman: An old lady accosted Capt. Murray, of the Chautauqua, on the dock at Mayville, and presenting a small piece of paper, possibly a pass from a friend, asked: “Can I ride to the Camp ground on that piece of paper?” “No,” gruffly replied the Captain; “But there is my boat, you can ride on that if you want to.” The old lady wilted. A rather more serious incident involving steamboats, women, and that bane of camp meetings – drunkenness – may be found in a JDJ note from 19 Aug. 1872: Last evening, Sunday, as the steamer Jamestown arrived at

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her wharf, a disgraceful fight took place on the deck, between Fred Johnson and Phillip Smith, just as the passengers were dis- embarking. The dock was crowded with ladies and children who were in imminent danger of being injured by the [men]. No one was [injured in the fight] except the parties concerned – and the whiskey they had drank. A bit of detective work is necessary to contextualize this story, which appears independent of the camp meeting notes. So far as I can determine, the only reason many “women and children” would be at the Jamestown dock on a Sunday evening in August of 1872 is because they had been at the camp meeting at Fair Point – where possibly Messrs. Johnson and Smith had been drinking away the afternoon. Again, so far as I can determine, not a single woman is named in the daily reports aside from two female ministers, “the Rev. Mrs. Dawson” and “Sister Williams.” Daw- son was the Erie Conference’s first ordained woman minister, as noted above, she exhorted at the CLCM in 1873 and brought “several earnest seekers” to the altar (JDJ 18 Aug. 1873). She and Williams sermonized – the latter rather controversially – in the following year. Dawson seemed to be held in some regard by the Jamestown correspondent: In the evening a new feature was introduced by Sister Daw- son’s taking the preacher’s stand and expounding the scriptures taking the text “this was a fulfillment of the promise made long ago when God said that in the last I will carry out the promise.” The lady is possessed of a strong, clear voice, that does excellent service in the prayer meetings and in exhortations. Dawson also led well-attended prayer meetings in the following season, suggesting her general popularity. No specific biblical reference is made for Dawson’s sermon; I find more than a tentative connection to over a dozen possible source texts. Given its ambiguity, one is tempted to read gender issues into her topic. The correspondent does not expand on the message in his daily account, as he typically did for male preachers. Perhaps he simply didn’t attend that session, and is reporting from second-hand accounts.

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The text is more casual in punctuation than is typical of the JDJ correspondent, so perhaps either a different hand composed the item or an apprentice typesetter was on the job that evening. Perhaps the correspondent was too awe-struck at the novelty of a woman’s preaching to take good notes. In any event, the reaction to “Sister Williams” was less than favorable: [Dawson] was followed by Sister Williams, of Corry, Pa., who felt impelled by the spirit to utter what was on her mind and this was the damning fact that she knew of ministers who had played cards, and handled a croquet mallet asking her hearers what was to become of the children when the preachers to whom they looked for guidance set such awful examples. The lady espoke indefinitely of one or two brothers present in whom she had detected sins that her tongue dare not to utter. This timidity perhaps has lost our readers a startling revelation, but the world might look on them more leni- ently than one who thinks that a croquet mallet points the way to the lower region. (JDJ 10 July 1874) The correspondent’s dismissive tone is not found in any other account of a sermon over the four-year span of the CLCM – though it matches in tone a description of Victoria Woodhull’s lecture in Jamestown earlier that year, which most reportedly attended “to gratify their feelings of curiosity.” (JDJ 23 Apr. 1874) Again, did the correspondent (possibly) depend on a second-hand account? Were playing-cards, croquet, and unutterable sins really the heart of Williams’ sermon, which, like Dawson’s, was not accompanied by a specific source text? What sins, indeed, had Williams “detected” that could not be articulated as women moved, for the first time, into the all-male fraternity of the pastorate? Needless to say, the ambiguity is frustrating, and the poor reporting itself suggests that the reporter’s attitudes toward women, particularly as they expanded their gender roles, was less than enthusiastic.

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Figure III: Map of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Grounds, circa 1871. Hatchings indicate banks and terraces; “East Lake” would be remade as Palestine Park in 1874. Image courtesy of Oliver Archives, Chautauqua Institution

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Physical Improvements The progress of improvements to the grounds was a matter of continuing interest. By the second year of the CLCM, tents are more than tents – many had grown into cottages, though they are still labeled “tents.” A note from 1874 clarifies the issue: “If you come up here to this city among the trees, do not disgrace your parent town and display deplorable ignorance by speaking of houses as cottages. In Camp Meeting parlance, they are tents, white tents, brown tents and wood colored tents.” The writer summarizes, “Tents is the proper word, and it would be well to bear it in mind.” (JDJ 9 July 1874) Though deliberately humorous, a behavioral aspect again creeps into the message as the readers are educated on campground nomenclature. About the modern Chautauqua grounds one may find signs designating “tent cottages.” These were apparently permanent structures to which were attached tents during the summer season. (An alternate theory suggests that the cottages were built on platforms originally set for tents.) The proffered explanation is that the cottage-and-tent arrangement provided more room for the residents, though an aspect of reminiscence may have also played into the practice – a tongue-in-cheek quoting of the earlier camp meetings to which the Institution clung to with one hand while pushing away with the other. Whether labeled “tents” or “tasty cottages,” the progress of the CLCM site was, on one level at least, measured by the progress of permanent dwellings. From that first 1871 season, when everyone lived in tents and had to “pack a cold lunch, or dine on sunfish from the lake,” the physical improvements were often remarked upon. A typical note, this one from 1872, observes in part, “All the dead timber has been removed, the surface of the ground has been leveled and cleared up, so that for elegance of rural scenery and beautiful adaptedness for the purpose for which this grove has been set apart, there is no place in all this section of the country to compare with the Camp Ground at Fair Point of Chautauqua Lake.” (JDJ 14 Aug. 1872) As the cottages grew in number, the tents – so long the mainstay of the camp meeting experience – were abandoned. The Chautauqua climate, notably colder than the trans-Appalachian south where camp meetings emerged, is often not conducive to the casual camper even in mid-summer. The decline in tenting suggests also a decline in

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attendance of the working class patrons, and particularly of the farmers who are generally inured to the Chautauqua County weather.11 The site, by 1874, seems to have been given over to cottagers and day-trippers. (The cows on site probably belonged to the former group. In the era, it was not uncommon for city-dwellers to maintain livestock for fresh milk and eggs). It is possible, but not especially probable, that some farmers were also cottagers, as their economics would hardly support such extravagance. There were still many trees on the Chautauqua site, some of considerable stature. One log cabin remains from the era – a retro architectural form even in the 1870s. In the 1874 season, a steam-driven planer would be stationed on the grounds, turning the many an old oak, maple, or elm into planks.12 Green lumber is poor building material; it was occasionally noted that some cottages were little better than the shanties of the oil district.13 Almost fifty years later Jesse Hurlbut would mention, with an air of “good rid- dance,” the catastrophic fire that swept away many of the original structures. The area affected by the fire, to the immediate south of the original camp meeting auditorium, has been left as green space.14 Building sites were originally leased for fifteen year terms, a span that did not encourage permanent improvements. This was soon changed to 99-year leases, available for the princely sum of fifty dollars “or upwards.” (This minimum price would be doubled in 1874). The first circle of tents beyond the auditorium was soon sold out, and a second tier saw substantial interest. The Titusville Herald noted that “Fair Point, the grounds of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association, is fast becoming a little village of cottages, some of them houses of no mean appointments…. [O]ver one hundred lots have been sold, nearly all of which have been improved in some way and on about half the number neatly designed cottages have been erected.” By July of 1874, “over one hundred [cottages] in all” were completed, furnished, and ready for occupants; nearly a third of which had been completed in that summer alone. At the time of that notice, thirty more cottages were underway, with the intent of completing them before the Sunday School Assembly a month later.15 Quite likely, not all of the lease-holders had any particular religious intent; they simply recognized a good deal when the saw one. “Many of the cottages are tastily deco-

129 rated both inside and out, and would form residences of which no one need be ashamed in the midst of our town,” observed the Jamestown correspondent. He was apparently mystified, though, by the “signs over the doors indicating the locality from which the inhabitants came. Corry, Sugar Grove, Frewsburg, etc. are all represented, though we are at a loss to understand the necessity of the staring, white letters.” (JDJ 10 July 1874) The cottagers were engaging in a longstanding vacationer’s conceit. Clearly they did not leave the outside world behind them as they moved into the New Jerusalem; they used their shingles as a means of cultivating relationships in a manner still found today at trailer camps and cottage communities. Though the camp was run on strict temperance principles, not all lease-holders felt obligated to observe the strictures. R.M Warren, another pastor, author, and cottager who made the transition from camp meeting to Assembly, recalls that Before the advent of the Assembly, there was a man of wealth who built a fine house on the ground, in a very eligible location, which house and grounds were kept in what, at that time, was regarded as fine style. But there was an ice-house, as an indis- pensable luxury, connected with that palatial home, which proved very convenient for other things than ice. It was suspected, from the appearance of the visitors, that something stronger than Chau- tauqua water was imbibed. One day one of the executive board in control of the ground, came to Fair Point with a picnic party, and desiring some ice, called at the residence spoken of, and was told to go to the ice-house and help himself. He proceeded to do so, when lo, in a quiet corner, nicely arranged upon the ice, were many bottles of liquors. He was very soon ordered to remove not only the bottles but the ice-house also. By such summary justice did the old Association maintain its Temperance principles. (Warren 77) Rev. Warren may have been the board member at the center of the story. He was president of the “old Association” in its final years, when the explosion of cottage-building took place; indeed, he owned a fine dwelling on the site. Despite the efforts to maintain

130 the grounds as a purely religious endeavor, creeping secularization was observed: “When we first came on to the ground we noticed a sign in one end of the dining room that said, ‘In God we Trust,’” noted the Jamestown correspondent; “now the sign has been taken down and another one put in its place, which reads ‘Cigars.’” (JDJ 15 Aug. 1873)

Evocation Reminiscence was a remarkably persistent element of the daily reports, though accompanied by observations on the benefits of the “new-style” camp meetings. Remi- niscence and sentimentality are of course conservative in nature; they “recall” a past of debatable historicity but remarkable social power. I have previously quoted portions of the JDJ report of 19 August 1872; the full passage represents a fine example of the putative improvements of the modern camp meeting, and particularly the CLCM: The old fashioned Camp meetings that our fathers and mothers attended years ago, have passed away, and the camp meetings of to-day are as dissimilar as possibly can be. Then, there were canvass tents, on wheels, and stretched on poles, the huge camp fires built on platforms, that lighted all the encampment, the old fashioned shouting Methodist preacher, who shouted the sinner down to the brink and then shouted him over with re-doubled vigor; and above all, the shouting rowdies, who mocked the prayers and songs of praise, and when the daylight passed away, made a hell that was as much to be dreaded as any here on this earth. And these rowdies were the pest of the saint and gentleman sinner alike. They were loud-mouthed and light-fingered, and the camp-fires were kept blazing all through the night, and the muscular ministers were drafted into service as night-watchmen and armed with clubs would guard the slumbering encampment. Often there were drunken broils, and broken heads were substituted for broken hearts. This was the camp meeting of old, and it was "red hot" – so to speak. But the camp meeting of to-day partakes

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largely of civilization. The best of order is preserved and only two or three drunken men have been on the ground, and their drunken consciences would not let them stay long. When evening comes, the people in the tents attend service and never think of their property being disturbed in their absence, and when the service is over the lights are turned down and the people retire, never thinking of bolting doors or locking up their valuables. And there has been no disturbance thus far, and the only thing that bears keeping with the popular idea of camp meetings is the old Methodist, that has been to his score or more of meetings, and who starts the shout along the line. The spirit catches, and we have the Methodist camp meeting, stripped of its scandalous and uncivilized attributes – forever we trust. This extended quote has a sense of the “good old days that never were.” The best of the old meetings – the preaching, singing, and occasional shouting – is retained, though the ruffians are absent, as are the notably ecstatic behaviors. Other reminiscences speak of “fifty years ago” – by which time the camp meeting was already a mature institution whose worst excesses had already been exorcised. Thus on the one hand Cane Ridge still dominated the perception of the encampments; on the other, the good old days are, by the lights of the Daily Journal reports, today. A note from 1874 likewise recalls a golden age that never was: The auditorium is lighted evenings by means of lamps placed under large square glass cases… something like an old-fashioned street lamp. Looking at them from a distance twinkling through the trees, and hearing the sounds from the lips of the worshippers around them, gives an idea of the power in an old Methodist Camp Meeting. (JDJ 10 July 1874) The original camp meetings were lit by torches – typically of long-burning pine knots – and bonfires. “Old-fashioned street lamps” simply would not have been seen at those places. Romance, rather than the reality, seems to motivate these observations. The

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“power” is sentimental, though the evocative atmosphere undoubtedly contributed to a spiritual awareness. Coupled with these reminiscences were poetic and religious ecstasies: … Long may this place be held sacred to the service of sacred song and prayer and the proclamation of the blessed truth of the Gospel of the world's Redeemer, so that in all the years to come the followers of Emanuel may come up annually for the great feast that shall here be held, and devote one week at least in the fifty-two in acts and emotions of worship and praise to God. The writer here clearly invokes the Festival of Booths from the Hebrew Bible, conflates them with later Christianity, and calls into play behavioral aspects – a sentimental ortho- praxy.16 In the typical structure of Christian sermons, the writer introduces an Old Testament idea, progresses to a New Testament development on the theme, and ends in a prayer and an invocation: “And here may penitent sinners by scores and hundreds be annually gathered out of the world and enrolled upon the records of the Redeemer to swell the grand songs of praise that shall go up to God in lively gratitude for salvation and deliverance from sin.” A less exalted paragraph follows, though again with behavioral implications: this is how one acts when arriving upon the Fair Point grounds: “Early in the morning … the people began to arrive upon the ground in large numbers with evident impression, as they stepped within the circle of this encampment, that ‘this is the house of God, that this is Heaven's gate.’” Unfortunately, such ejaculations loose their gravitas when preceded by comments on the removal of dead lumber, the grading of streets, and so forth, and are followed by observations on the “Many prominent and tasty cottages” that had been erected and the improvements to the older dwellings alongside the occasional “canvass” tent (JDJ 14 Aug. 1872). Almost as an afterthought, the “tabernacle” is first mentioned in 1872. This large tent would be the site of society meetings as well as a resort for the entire congregation during rainy sessions. Other society tents apparently were its equal in size; the capacious Swede tent from Jamestown saw regular use for group meetings.17 Kenneth Brown, in a

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personal correspondence, suggests that the tabernacle was probably a Civil War military surplus tent, a common source for such particulars in the era. Where precisely the tabernacle was located on the CLCM grounds is not clear, though probably it was in the clearing where now lies Bestor Plaza. (The tabernacle was certainly located there for the Assembly, and eventually was placed over the ravine where the Amphitheater now stands.) Tabernacles, of course, recall the Hebrew nation’s wanderings in the wilderness in the Mosaic era, and thus precede even the celebration of Sukkoth. Such nomenclature reinforced the quasi-historicity of camp meetings; again, all of history from the Mosaic era through early Christianity to the American camp meetings of the pre-Civil War era is collapsed into a single place and time. The more one considers these precedents, the more these meetings take on aspects of a sacred hall of mirrors, reflecting reflections of reflections of reflections back to some putative origin in the ancient Near East by way of Celtic Europe. Though the articulated intent of the meetings was to recall “primitive Christian- ity” in all its Pentecostal glory, one needed a fair degree of sophistication to recognize and appreciate the symbolism and referents. Thus these later camp meetings became, despite their assertions to the contrary, quite ironic. Quite possibly the project of Vincent and Miller was motivated in part, not by any particular distaste for camp meetings as a religious institution – as is the usual explanation , but against the ironic detachment and concurrent hypocrisy, if not cynicism, that camp meetings unintentionally cultivated through this paradoxical recourse to sentiment and sophistication alongside the better- known issues of endemic backsliding, hypocrisy, and distasteful plain-folk histrionics. Vincent’s aim was to cultivate a deeper basis of spirituality, one grounded in personal spiritual progress, and consequently with little regard for the conventionalized forms of the camp meeting performance of religiosity. On the other hand, Vincent did not hesitate to deploy the sentimental power of the old Methodist camps when it suited his purposes.

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Summation Given a longer lifespan, the CLCM might have settled in to a stable organizational entity and, given its advantageous location, attracted a clientele from beyond its regional matrix, specifically capitalizing on the New York-to-Chicago rail corridor that crossed its doorsteps. Though relatively well-established in comparison to other regional camp meetings, the CLCM did not meaningfully benefit from the deep pockets of Lewis Miller or the national reputation of a John Heyl Vincent to move their project to national attention. The CLCM apparently drew few patrons beyond a 100 mile radius, though fortunately the Pennsylvania oil district – with its surplus capital and a clientele desperate for moral sustenance, or at least a vacation spot on the lake – largely fell within this range. Petrolia is surprisingly well represented in the listing of ministers on the grounds during the sessions; regional ministers tended to bring at least a few of their flock. The CLCM never attracted the important names of the holiness movement – John Inskip, Phoebe Palmer, William McDonald, and Charles Fowler – to name but a few. Several explanations are possible: the significant personalities may not have been available for services, given the explosion of camp meetings in the era, concurrent with the need for most of them to maintain home congregations or denominational business. Quite possibly the CLCM couldn’t afford the biggest names. Though these spiritual warriors were not in the business to grow rich, economics must have had some bearing on their schedules. There was one particular issue in which the CLCM was out of step with the National Association for the Promotion of Holiness, and that was on the issue of admitting patrons on Sunday. John Inskip, the leader of the holiness movement, was quite adamantly opposed to permitting visitors to enter meeting grounds on Sundays. For the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting, and indeed many meetings, Sundays were their biggest days in terms of patronage, and they were unwilling to give up that economic advantage. Along this line, one of John Heyl Vincent’s first “innovations” at the Fair Point Assem- bly was that the grounds should be closed to outsiders on Sundays – an innovation for which he was roundly criticized by the locals. In an era when working men and women typically labored 60 to 72 hours a week or more in shops and factories, Sundays were

135 their only day of leisure. Closing the gates to Sunday patrons in effect limited the audience to an upper-middle class clientele and was a de facto form of economic segregation, with behavioral ramifications to be explored in the next chapter. Yet another quote from 1874 suggests an element of social stratification, and perhaps also some of the exhaustion seen elsewhere in the second-generation camp meeting movement as the ardor cooled: Everything is running smoothly in a groove, and we have as yet had no crowds of transient guests to throw us out of it.…it is evident that the Sunday School Association has affected the attendance greatly, although many of those who are kept away by this meeting, are those that can well be spared. (JDJ 9 July 1874) “Transient guests” – day-trippers, Sunday seekers, and socializers, were apparently less than welcome by this third CLCM season; the camp meeting’s patronage was growing self-selective. Permanent cottages yielded a community that begrudged the disruptions of the “tourists” upon whom the Association depended for its survival, who were in fact the foundation of the meeting. The truly devoted, or the summer-long cottager, lived on the grounds for the duration – a possibility for middle class vacationers, though not for laborers. With a developing sense of community on the grounds came restrictions on personal behaviors. One was no longer among relative strangers and at liberty to express spiritual exaltation; one’s behaviors by firelight at the altar were topics of conversation around the breakfast table in the small homes and the larger boarding tent. Public salvations waned – only one was reported for the 1874 session. The Jamestown, New York, paper regularly exhorted its readers to attend as a matter of civic pride. One tongue-in-cheek example, among many, noted that one of the many steamships that plied Chautauqua Lake “landed a number of Jamestown people who with firm determination in their eyes resolved to save the credit of their native town, even should they be obliged to let down their back hair and swim in a scene of sangui- nary gore to do it.” (JDJ 13 July 1874) That 1874 season was marked by torrential rains and the campgrounds, by the time the Jamestown day-trippers arrived, had been churned

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into a sea of mud. A few days previous, the same writer pointedly noted Jamestowners who “[kept] a sharp eye out for the steamboat” rather than camping for the duration. “This is the way with nearly all who dwell within the precincts of that faith-abandoned city, and perhaps it is just as well that it is soon to be delivered into the remorseless fangs of the rulers on Dog Street,” he prophecies.18 These observations must be played against the drumbeat of ambiguous news coming out of the oil regions – almost daily notices of another murder, another robbery, another catastrophic fire set side-by-side with the CLCM briefs. The clear intent was to portray the Chautauqua region as a place of morality, in contrast to the turpitude of Petrolia. Jamestowners, alas, declined to play their assigned roles to the degree the local boosters would have preferred. Drunken brawls and dog fight were common in the streets of Jamestown, got up for the amusement of passers-by. Riverboat gamblers occasionally fleeced the unwary on trips over the lake, and soiled doves were being turned out of their nests along the Chadakoin. (By the end of the century they would roost in greater numbers around Celeron Park.) That Petrolia should send train-loads of pastors and patrons to the CLCM (that it should indeed even have Churches, pastors and congregations!), that it should dominate the real estate market about the lake, and generally schedule the significant social activities of the summer season, must have been a matter of no small dismay to the local boosters. The Connecticut Puritans who settled Chautauqua County collided with the Appalachian Scots-Irish stock of the oil region, and a conflict of regional folkways unfolded alongside a complex economic relationship. The 1874 CLCM session, held but a month before the initial Fair Point Sunday School Assembly, gave little reason for optimism to its partisans. Certainly a great unknowing loomed on their horizon: a successful Sunday School Assembly might be the end of the CLCM as it absconded with the social energy and capital; a poor Assembly would almost certainly bankrupt the local organization. The hoped-for revival in the spirit of Jonathan Edwards and James McGready never took fire. Neither Christian holiness nor old-fashioned salvation theology had taken hold at the meeting; handfuls, rather than hundreds, found salvation and sanctification. The Jamestown M.E. congregation had split, and Rev. Wyatt was brought in from his New York City pulpit to effect a recon-

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ciliation. (One might wonder whether and to what extent factions for and against facilitating the Assembly affected the schism, and how the issue of sanctification, which tore apart many a church, troubled congregational polity.) The weather was catastrophically poor and attendance was miserable. For the locals, the novelty was gone; their tent meeting had substantially been replaced by a cottage community that could be less than welcoming; their lake had substantially been taken over by outsiders; the preachers seemed at odds with one another and bandied theological issues back and forth from the pulpit; and even the steamboats captains, for reasons unexplained, ran on a schedule convenient to none. Immediately following the 1874 session, an exchange appeared in the Jamestown Daily Journal in which long-festering concerns broke out into the open. A close reading of the daily accounts from that penultimate season reflects the dissension in the ranks; perhaps the center was no longer holding. “Ajax,” offered a sustained critique of the 1874 CLCM session, rendering some sharp criticisms of the experience in the guise of a common travelogue. Based upon his concern for property values and prices (wrapped in religious language), I suspect that his interest was more than spiritual. After grumbling about the admissions fee, he notes: “Accommodations are high but poor, board is high but it was miserable hash, and I heard one gentleman in truth and veracity say that he bought straw enough to fill a bed, of the Secretary at the rate of $1,000 a ton.” Ajax was of the opinion that prices were out of line with the locale, a critique from the first season that is still valid today. “The object should be, how cheap they can afford things, and not how much money they can make. They must make the world believe they are working ‘not for power nor for profit,’ but for the honor and glory of God.” Ajax ends with a lecture recognizing that tourism was becoming a vital force in the local economy, and invokes God, country, and the Methodist Episcopal Church to see that the CLCM did right for the community: Many people will visit our Lake and Fair Point … for the first time. See to it that they leave with a favorable impression. To secure this the churches, the County, the State, the United States are interested…. These grounds are a new thing, and of course per-

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fection could not be reached at once, but it is for the interest of the land holders on the Point who have and are erecting pleasant cottages in which to glory God, for the interest of the M. E. Church, for the interest of the founders and instigators of the movement, that such rules, regulations and principles shall be established, that generations to come shall bless, not curse, the founders of the Fair Point Camping Grounds. A response, bearing more than a little sarcasm, quickly followed, offered by

“***.” Of the admissions fee and prices for commodities, he counters that Hundreds and even thousands of dollars have been ex- pended in the improvement of the grounds, in building an expensive dock, and in a multitude of other improvements, and for these purposes the association has always been, and is now in debt, and probably will be for a long time to come. The writer has clearly lost patience with complaints over the gate fee, noting (erroneously) that no public collection has ever been taken on the grounds. He finally observes that all places of public worship expect some assistance from their patrons in some way. His broad generalization turns sharply personal: As to the question of which is the better plan, a small admission fee, or continual public collections, as in all other questions probably we should find a difference of opinion, and there may very likely be such a bond of union between the pocket book of our critic and the payment of fifteen cents, as to determine which side he would favor, as there is always to be found persons in the church and out, who when a little money is wanted, are so very de- votional in mind, that their happy spirits could not by any possibility be brought in contact with the gross consideration of dollars and cents.

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The respondent suggests that, now that the CLCM is a “grand success,” unwar- ranted criticisms and cries of “mercenary speculation” are suddenly being aired. A more convincing response answers Ajax’s critique in capitalist terms: for individuals, at least, speculation is to be approved of: …if our critic shall hereafter do as other persons have already done, purchase a lot of the association at a low price, and subsequently sell the same to some other person for three or four times its cost will the association be to blame? Property will rise in value as circumstances surrounding it changes for the better, and in this all men rejoice and should rejoice. This very enterprise at Fair Point has brought half the increase, or more, of the business that is upon our beautiful lake to day, and what we have already beheld is but a moiety of what our eyes shall still behold hereafter. No talk of salvation or sanctification, in this final analysis. Capitalism apparently is not only the American way, but God’s way; the Puritan ethic of working hard and seeing your just and divine reward ends the argument (JDJ 16, 17 July 1874). As noted at the beginning of this chapter, another poorly-attended session of the CLCM would be held the following year before it was “crushed out of existence,” though the Sunday School Assembly would take place under the aegis of the CLCM charter until 1876. The grounds, an undeveloped scrub-ridden spit of land purchased for $10,000 in 1871, after much improvement and the erection of a modest cottage community would be acquired by the Assembly “in fee simple for the nominal sum of one dollar.”19

CHAPTER 4. THE FAIR POINT SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSEMBLY

Last night the Methodist Camp Meeting on Fair Point was formally opened with a grand sermon by one of the big guns of the M. E. Church, Rev. Dr. Vincent of New York, editor of the Sunday School Journal, the Bureau Series of Sunday School Sermons, and one of the great Sunday School workers of the country. He was here on matters connected with the Sunday School, and in order to get a word from him the regular program was set aside, Rev. H. H. Moore giving place to Dr. Vincent… -- Jamestown Daily Journal 1873

If you will allow me to say it as a Presbyterian, I should call this and other similar phenomena of the good old Methodist camp- meetings, become nationalized, and greatly enjoyed by even the bluest Presbyterian. -- Rev. Dr. Ellinwood Chautauqua Amphitheater dedication, 1879.

Fair Point had previously been used by the Chautauqua Camp Meeting Association, of which Mr. [Lewis] Miller was one of the incorporators. Camp meetings were still a country-wide religious institution. Their primary purpose was emotional exhortations to conversion, and many people who lived colorless lives in remoter districts were glad to see and take part in the frenzied excitement they furnished. Mr. Miller was strongly religious and was also a believer in the salutary influence of woods and nature, but, characteristically, he had definite ideas as to how a camp meeting

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should be reformed…. As a matter of fact, he and Dr. Vincent “reformed” the camp meeting out of existence when they secured the site for their Normal Assembly, and as camp meetings were probably even more obnoxious to Dr. Vincent that to his friend, they did everything to make their Assembly as unlike one as possible…. The Assembly took over such Camp Meeting equipment as there was, chiefly a speaker’s stand down on the point and a ramshackle structure called the Hotel -- Rebecca Richmond Invitation to Chautauqua1 “Not a Camp Meeting!” Rebecca Richmond’s quote from a 1953 pamphlet – the distillation of almost eight decades of Chautauqua Institution propaganda – admirably serves, in its misin- formed glory, to open a discussion of the transition from the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting into what would become the Chautauqua Institution. First, a few gentle correc- tions: As demonstrated in a previous chapter, though camp meetings of the 1870s had their emotional moments, broadly ecstatic performances were clearly in decline. The sanctification experience was marked, not by uncontrolled shouting and flailing, but by an internal spiritual process to be described – so far as possible – after the fact. The patrons at the latter day encampments of the Eastern United States were substantially urbanites; camp sites were selected as much with an eye to convenient commuter services as to scenic vistas. Such concerns would have been either inconceivable or irrelevant to organizers and patrons of the first generation camps. Though it is not possible to accurately assess the demographics of the CLCM, the clientele was certainly made of town- folk as well as farmers. Two special trains from Meadville swelled the Sunday session of the CLCM in 1873; other accounts mention excursion trains from Buffalo, and “all of Titusville” could be found on Chautauqua Lake on sunny Sunday afternoons. These were hardly “people who lived colorless lives in remoter districts.” If anything, a day or two at Fair Point would have been a welcome respite from their usual travails.

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Insofar as John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller “secured the site,” it was likely through a rather mundane rental agreement vouchsafed by Miller. The Fair Point Assem- bly operated until 1876 under the charter of the CLCM. Miller, indeed, clarifies the chronology in his preface to Vincent’s The Chautauqua Movement: “The Chautauqua Camp-meeting Managers gave the Assembly movement a most hearty welcome, and, when permanence was assured, deeded over their charter with its privileges and all the property to the Managers of the Sunday School Assembly.” (viii) In the initial sessions, the Assembly was the lessee of the CLCM Association. Though it was immediately apparent that the Assembly would be a huge success, and it quickly outgrew its parent organization, at the start of the Assembly there was no ambiguity over ownership of the site. Though Richmond expresses a long-standing conceit that Chautauqua Institution “reformed” the camp meeting, historian Kenneth Brown more persuasively identifies the Chautauqua Movement as a branch or subset of a camp meeting movement which was evolving (and continues to evolve) in a number of directions (Holy Ground 58). Though the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting wilted under shadow of the Assembly, the camp meeting movement continues without interruption to this day. While many camps adopted the progressive Chautauqua Movement principles, probably an equal or greater number did not. Of the traveling chautauqua-circuit sites and daughter organizations, an overwhelming number failed in the great depression or soon thereafter; “old-fashioned” camp meetings have, to a remarkable degree, stayed with their mission, and indeed continue to add new sites. (See Brown, Holy Ground 237-325 for an exhaustive listing.) The 50-acre CLCM grounds had been initially purchased in 1871 for $10,000 by the CLCM. At that time it was virtually a wilderness of trash wood and brambles. As noted at the end of the previous chapter, for the princely sum of one dollar the Assembly acquired an improved tract of land with a number of permanent cottages as well as an auditorium, a dining hall, streets, and at least the beginnings of a water supply system. Many intangibles also came with the purchase: a recognized organization with a regional clientele; lessees with an interest in the long-term improvement of the site; tents and fittings; local suppliers with established means of servicing the grounds; transportation

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merchants with prepared schedules and connections. Estimating the site’s value after improvements is difficult from our vantage, but given the explosion in popularity of Chautauqua Lake as a resort area, market value for the site at the time of the transfer may have approached $100,000. If Lewis Miller had reservations about camp meetings, he displayed them in a rather counterproductive fashion: while on the board of Mt. Union College in Alliance, Ohio, in 1867, Miller was party to holiness revivals on that campus held by none other than B. W. Gorham, one of the leading proponents of camp meetings. Miller would become board chairman at Mt. Union in the following year, a post he would hold for the next three decades, and Alliance, in eastern Ohio, would become an important center for the holiness movement and its associated encampments. In 1870, Gorham held a five-day revival in Alliance at which a number would profess conversion and sanctification. The most enduring fruit of this meeting would be the formation of the Ohio State Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness. Lewis Miller served as the association’s treas- urer; Ephraim Ball, the Association’s president, was Miller’s former business partner.2 The state of Ohio would eventually sustain the most significant holiness organization after the National Association. Information on Miller’s early association with the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meet- ing is scarce. Miller was an incorporator of the CLCM, though there is no notice of his involvement in the local press in the earliest days – he is significantly absent from the donor list as funds were being assembled for the purchase of the grounds in 1871. Indeed, no public notice of Miller in connection with the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting is found before his first visit with Vincent in 1873 – and he is then introduced as a new- comer, and his name misspelled “Louis.” Miller’s early association with the CLCM was certainly a quiet interest.3 By all accounts, Miller first proposed a camp meeting devoted specifically to Sunday schools while attending a Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness in Can- ton, Ohio, in August, 1872. Miller’s work in the Sunday school movement is well known; his “Akron plan” for a church structure that would accommodate many small Sunday school classes was widely admired and imitated. Indeed, Miller learned from the holiness

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camp meeting experience that general encampments could be turned to a specific purpose. The holiness movement was increasingly evangelizing children via Sunday schools; children raised in evangelical homes and Sunday schools would not, in the thinking of the era, require the dramatic salvation experience that typified that “old time religion”(See Lippy 15-16). Miller saw an opportunity to advance the Sunday school movement through the mechanism of the camp meeting. His idea was one of some currency among Sunday school proponents; a correspondent to the Sunday School Journal, Silas Farmer, proposed just such a venture in April, 1871. Farmer indeed lays out the structure of what would become the Chautauqua Assembly in its earliest iteration, and ends with a challenge: “What state or district will have the first ‘camp meeting institute.’” (John Heyl Vincent, to his credit, quotes Farmer at some length in The Chautauqua Movement – from which I drew this citation. 20-21.) In that same volume, Vincent quite fairly said of Miller, in regard to camp meetings, that he was … a friend of the camp-meeting, but believed that the institution could be improved by changing the evangelical phase, to which was always given great prominence, to one that should enlarge the outlook of the already consecrated church member. He believed that at the encampment advanced thought should be discussed, new methods of church-work developed by representatives of the several denominations, and that the various antagonizing schools of thought should be fairly and thoroughly met. (Vincent 19-20) There can be no doubt, then, that Lewis Miller was generally sympathetic to camp meetings. He recognized a need and an opportunity for the further advancement of camps; he was hardly a radical reformer plotting their demise. Miller, with Vincent and many others, also recognized that evangelical Protestantism was beginning to fracture under the stresses of the holiness movement and sought means to heal the growing rift. Were John Heyl Vincent particularly averse to camp meetings, he likewise expressed his distaste in a rather ambivalent fashion. Due to his rigorous travel schedule of conference visits and Sunday school institutes (which were often held in conjunction with

145 camp meetings, extended meetings, quarterly meetings, and revivals – the boundaries are quite porous), he was certainly a familiar figure at Methodist gatherings.4 Vincent was a traveling companion with holiness giants John Inskip and William McDonald in their great 1871 western tour, as they famously took the holiness movement to California. There they held a series of very successful tent revivals before traveling into the heart of Mormon country (Brown, Inskip 189; Jones 22).Vincent preached at the CLCM in 1874 and 1875; Miller conducted children’s services at the same meetings. The Assembly founders invited some of the biggest names of the holiness and camp meeting movement to the inaugural season of the Fair Point Sunday School Assembly, and offered them the privilege of the speakers’ platform. These include Bishop Matthew Simpson, possibly the era’s most prominent religious figure and a camp meeting regular.5 Also appearing was Bishop Charles H. Fowler, likewise a well-known, well-regarded figure in the camp meeting movement who was, indeed, elected president of the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness in the same month as he appeared at the Fair Point Assembly. Yet another figure of interest is Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing, sister of Charles Fowler, and in her own right an important personality in the holiness movement. Willing would be significant in the founding of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement; she was the first woman to speak from the Fair Point platform and is among contemporary evangelical Protestants something of a feminist icon. These high-profile camp meeting enthusiasts seem unlikely guests at a gathering held with a purported intent to “reform the camp meeting out of business.” At a “practical discussion on amusements” at the 1874 Assembly session (held in lieu of a lecture in the auditorium due to a down- pour) an open forum turned on questions of church picnics, festivals, tableaux vivants and their flirtations with the theater, and sundry other subjects. Apparently, and significantly, no critiques of camp meetings were ventured (JDJ 11 Aug. 1874). Indeed, the Chautauqua Assembly Herald – the official organ of the Assembly – would in 1876 contradictorily opine that “Fair Point is regarded as a new thing in the world, and as having a broader base and wider scope than any other grove gathering in the nation.” (4 Aug. 1876) Despite its claim of being a “new thing,” the Assembly was still understood to be a “grove gathering” in the camp meeting tradition; one young branch, as it were,

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among many. The closer one gets to both John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller, the less strident becomes their opposition to camp meetings. Leon Vincent, son of John, notes that “[John Vincent] admired trees but had no passion for living in the woods. And being out of sympathy with camp meetings in general, he feared that the Institute would suffer not a little if held in such a place and its purpose would be misunderstood.” (103) This hardly constitutes a radical opposition to encampments – he was simply recognizing, as did many of his peers who were likewise “out of sympathy,” the well-known limitations and problems with general camp meetings. Leon Vincent offers further clarifications: “[John Vincent] recognized their value and at the same time made careful distinctions. He certainly did not approve of them as, in the old days, they used to be conducted.” John Heyl Vincent, born in 1832 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, would have been exposed to the early encampments and their attendant histrionics. Such “distaste” that he bore was likely a product of those early experiences: In his boyhood and youth he had seen many a convert made through the agency of terror, and he knew the evil of it. He puts the matter thus: “Terror may arrest attention. So far so good. But terror must be allayed before its subject is able calmly, deliberately, and effectively to make the choice that tells on character." (247) These comments are of a kind with many in the holiness camp meeting movement, as noted in the previous chapter. (They may also reflect John Heyl Vincent’s association with Universalism as a young man growing up in east-central Pennsylvania, and the incorporation of John Murray’s dictum to “Give them hope, not hell” into his personal theology.) At mid-century, when John Vincent took up the cloth, attitudes within the Methodist Episcopal church were somewhat mixed toward camp meetings. Clearly, the great encampments were declining in popularity, but the milieu in which they had flourished was disappearing also. The denomination was growing and fracturing over the slavery issue; local revivals, quarterly meetings, and extended meetings had in many locales taken the place of camps, and respected voices in the denomination were calling for their end. On the other hand, thanks to the work of B. W. Gorham, Walter and Phoebe

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Palmer, Sarah Lankford, John and Martha Inskip, Thomas Upham, and others, the field was being prepared for the great holiness meetings to come. Leon Vincent notes of his father that “it perplexed and disturbed him to find that he had no skill in promoting [camps].” Perhaps a better assessment might be that John Heyl Vincent, who preferred careful planning and execution of events, was uncomfort- able with the loose structure of the first-generation camps even after they had developed a degree of order. His discomfort with traditional camp meeting spontaneity, coupled with a distaste for their flamboyance, was likely displaced into “doubts as to the wisdom of those methods.” Always a teacher, with a keen interest in the moral development of youth, he firmly believed that “the young should be safeguarded against all that savored of superficiality and sensationalism.” These issues were, not coincidentally, the most notably criticized aspects of the traditional camp meeting. Vincent’s doubts did not substantially differ from even the most enthused camp meeting apologist in the holiness movement: “For the professional revivalists who employed unseemly antics to attract attention he had a contempt that he made little effort to conceal. Buffoonery, he thought, could be depended on to draw a gaping crowd [but] as an aid to genuine religion it was valueless. No man was ever really converted by seeing another man jump.” (Leon Vincent 246-248) In sum, Vincent’s distrust of histrionics was generally consonant with his peers in the Methodist Episcopal denomination, and, indeed, concerned laity and ministers in many evangelical Protestant denominations who were party to camp meetings.

Some Comparisons with Camp Meetings Misgivings about camp meetings aside, Vincent was not reluctant to claim the mantle of the camp meeting ecumenicalism when it suited his purposes. In The Chautau- qua Movement he offers his own history of camp meetings, mentioning the works of the brothers “M’Gee” and James “M’Greedy,” though avoiding specific reference to the notorious Cane Ridge: Presbyterians and Methodists united in the conduct of these meetings. “Because of this union of sects in their support, they were

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called ‘general camp-meetings’.… A Presbyterian minister calculated that there were at least twenty thousand persons present at one time at a meeting held in Kentucky.” Thus it appears that they had at least a denominational unity and enthusiasm of Chautauqua, in 1799. (23. Source of internal quote unstated.) Thus Vincent assumed for his Assembly the dynamic history of the camp meeting tradition, while at the same time distancing himself and his organization from those aspects with which he was less than enthused. By John Heyl Vincent’s accounting, the opening words of the first Assembly were from the Bible; the Jamestown Daily Journal correspondent reported that Vincent “briefly welcomed the people and gave them some wholesome advice regarding the manner in which they were to conduct themselves while here.” (Vincent, Chautauqua Move- ment 18; JDJ 5 Aug. 1874) Apparently no one troubled to record the precise opening scriptural reference; such invocations, after all, are still commonplace at religious gatherings. More significantly, the site had already been sanctified by the founders of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting three years earlier, as Vincent, the Journal correspondent, and most of the assembled audience knew. The site had already been made sacred; there was in little need to dwell further on the topic aside from a symbolic and traditional opening invocation. More notable to the correspondent is that Vincent’s first words were behavioral directives, though these specifics also were not recorded. John Heyl Vincent’s own recollection contrasting the first Assembly with a generic camp meeting are equivocal: [The Assembly] was called by some a “camp-meeting.” But a “camp-meeting” it was not, in any sense, except that the most of us lived in tents. There were few sermons preached, and no so-called “evangelistic” services held. It was simply a Sunday-school institute, a protracted institute held in the woods. We called it at the first “The Chautauqua Sunday School Assembly.” (16) By “few sermons” Vincent apparently meant but one or two daily, in contrast to the six or more that might be heard each day at holiness camps. Vincent would at other points go

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into some depth on the intent of his Sunday school institute; these were a recognized entity among evangelical Protestant denominations and had been established at least a decade earlier. Vincent’s words, written twelve years after the founding of the Assembly, hardly convey a visceral distaste for camp meetings. Vincent provides a further historical context and distinction: There had been before the Assembly a camp-meeting at “Fair Point,” the old name of the present “Chautauqua.”…. It was during the session of the camp-meeting of 1873, that Mr. Miller and [Vin- cent] visited “Fair Point,” and selected it as the place for our “As- sembly.” And the Assembly was totally unlike the camp-meeting. We did our best to make it so. (16) The intent was clearly to carve out a conceptual space for the Sunday School Assembly as a distinct entity, though located on the camp meeting grounds. Within a few years, the original “Fair Point Sunday School Assembly” would, with its articles of incorporation, be retitled “Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly,” shortened to “Chautauqua Assembly,” and, after the turn of the twentieth century, renamed yet again “The Chautau- qua Institution.” Ironically, the “Assembly” – Vincent and Miller’s claim to para-ecclesiastical distinction – would be totally lost in the onomastic evolution. Sunday school history in many respects parallels that of the camp meeting. Partisans point to their origin in the ancient near east, citing a Mosaic injunction (Deut. 6: 6-7), and pointing to its authentic practice in Flavius Josephus’ comments about the education of children in Israel at the beginning of the common era (Antiquities 4.8.12). Jesus, of course, had much to say about children and their appropriate upbringing (Matt. 18), themes that also underscored the Sunday school movement. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) can also be reasonably applied to teaching the gospel to children. There are suggestions of a Sunday school at the Plymouth colony as early as 1669. Given the Puritan’s devotion to learning, as well as their child-rearing philosophy centered on “breaking the will” of young demons, one may expect a separate Sunday session for those too young to endure the five or six hours of sermonizing enjoyed by their elders each sabbath.6 There had been occasional national conference of Sunday

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school teachers since the 1830s, and Methodist circuit riders often established Sunday schools as a part of their ministry. John Heyl Vincent was instrumental in the creation and organization of a “universal” system of Sunday school education, whereby all subscribing congregations would undertake the same lessons each week. The approach was highly ecumenical; extended to adults as an early “life-long learning” initiative, it became the Chautauqua Movement. Leon Vincent’s comments on his father’s efforts toward a universal Sunday School are instructive: John Vincent was early convinced of the necessity of ap- plying to Sunday-schools "all the most advanced methods of the public school." … …Among his favorite figures of speech was that of the Church was a school with many departments, each well equipped and well officered, all working in harmony. From the pastor in the pulpit to the parents in the home the adults were nothing less than members of a faculty. Their business was to instruct, and they should know the best way of going about that business. (82) Educated adults were needed to foster educated children; the Chautauqua Move- ment determined to educate the adults. Vincent craved “working in harmony,” and this was, in his view, best done under clear-sighted, wide-ranging leadership. Not surprisingly, Vincent’s management was all-encompassing in the organization and execution of the Fair Point Assembly; his method of organizing and running the Assembly seems to have been drawn from the experience of the national camp meetings under the direction of John Inskip. Of the latter, it was grudgingly observed by one critic that The management is a despotism. Everybody and everything must bow to the control of one master mind…. These meetings, arbitrary as are their rules, have become models of management, good order, and the highest social privilege. But obstinate, narrow-minded men find them too exacting, and should either stay away or yield at once. (Wallace, 29, 31. Ctd. in Brown, Inskip 187-188) If Vincent “had no skill” in promoting the old style camps, he certainly found his calling

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– following the example of John Inskip – in shaping his new Assembly, and borrowed shamelessly from the latter-day holiness camp meeting’s organizational structure, its tight grip on the order of events, and the behavior of the masses. Following in the path of camp meeting innovator Peter Cartwright, Vincent prohibited standing in aisles: “In the auditorium no person is allowed to stand up in the aisles, on the seats, to hold up umbrellas, to talk, or in any way obstruct the hearing or seeing of persons in the rear.” (The injunction against umbrellas is clearly contradicted in other accounts.) Democratically, the constables …enforce discipline, but in a mild and gentlemanly manner. And the best thing of all is, the conference is without regard to class or condition. They treat all alike. It is amusing to see the dignified air some assume when spoken to. They seem to imagine they have an inherent right to stand where they please and in front of whom they please. But how ever this may be, they are not transparent and the authorities are aware of the fact. (JDJ Aug. 1874) The democratic quality of the camp meeting is cited many times in both newspaper and fictional accounts. In Aldren’s Four Girls at Chautauqua, one of the young women is quite surprised to discover that the choice campsites had been taken by, in order, the invited speakers, and then by those who had first made reservations. No financial incen- tive would suffice to gain a preferred spot. (In a later object lesson in the novel, the “hotel” – a simple dining hall with long tables and bench seating – demonstrates that all participants shared their meals in common spaces. 75-76; 104.) The Daily Journal account from the 6 August 1874, elaborated on the orderliness of the Assembly: “Everything is systematized…. Each day’s life out of the fifteen is kindly regulated by the efficient board of managers in this wise, and all are expected to obey it implicitly.” The daily schedule mimicked that of the typical holiness camp meeting. Following the model of John Inskip, little time was left for “lallygagging”; the day’s schedule started early and finished late. A generic day ran as follows: 6:00 o’clock a. m. – morning bell. 6:30 to 8 o’clock a. m – breakfast.

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8 o’clock a. m. – morning worship and Bible reading. 8:30 o’clock a. m. – song practice; second conductor’s conference. 9 o’clock a. m. – sectional normal classes. 10:30 o’clock a. m. – addresses. 12 o’clock m. – dinner. 2 o’clock p. m. – practical session. 6 o’clock p. m. – supper. 7:30 o’clock p. m. – vesper service. 8 o’clock p. m. – sermon. 10 o’clock p. m. – night bell. The only significant difference from a holiness camp meeting schedule is that the morning sessions are given over to “addresses” which were nearly indistinguishable from didactic sermons in the JDJ accounts. At the holiness camps, the first sermons of the day were typically didactic in nature, specifically tailored to the needs of young ministers and the recently converted. The Assembly’s morning “addresses” do not therefore represent a radical change. The Assembly’s afternoon was devoted to “practical sessions,” and this marks the most significant departure from the camp meeting schedule. In place of “society meetings” were found “institutional meetings” on the various specialties of Sunday school pedagogy. These were apparently small-group sessions carried out in what would have previously been known as “society tents.” Though the traditional camp meeting sermons were turned into lectures, the sermon-and-exhortation format would sometimes reappear. Indeed, this format was not entirely set aside in religious services: the first Sunday session at the Assembly ended with “a telling sermon” by Dr. Willing, “and Dr. Ives at the close exhorted.” A rehearsed choir had been implemented in the final years of the CLCM under R. M. Warren; though their rehearsal and performance times are here listed as part of the daily schedule, this addition merely formalizes what was already practiced. On several evenings were held “stereopticon views,” travelogue lectures which probably could not have begun much before 9:30 p.m. in the long northern twilight. These lectures were notable, according to the JDJ correspondent, for their tedium among the adults and titillation among the adolescents, who crowded the darker fringes of the

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auditorium to press their flirtations.7 One notable change from the CLCM schedule is the elimination of late-night prayer meetings, and the enforcement of a 10 p.m. curfew: “…when at ten o’clock this bell is heard woe betide him who is found prowling around the ground with no other object in view than pleasure.” (JDJ 6 Aug. 1874) Vincent’s discipline extended to ministers. He determined to keep the speaker’s platform clear of extra parties. (A camp meeting tradition permitted all clergy to sit on the dais. Thus the mention of 50 or more pastors on the dais with Gorham at the Manheim, Pennsylvania, meeting of 1868.) At the first Sunday session, when a number of dignitar- ies wished to offer a word, Vincent imposed a ten-minute limit on their sermons and all without exception accommodated the restriction.8 Though the Assembly took over and substantially upgraded the CLCM auditorium with an extended speaker’s platform and backs for the audience’s benches, the foot- print of the space remained substantially the same. The general camp meeting’s physical configuration was a true innovation; through the largess of Lewis Miller the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting’s auditorium was substantially and materially improved, but the Assembly undeniably maintained the basic arrangement. The camp meeting’s distinctive raised dais for the speaker further characterized the first covered Amphitheater on the Chautauqua site, built over a ravine to the south of the initial auditorium site in 1879, and was repeated in the second (and current) Amphitheater, dedicated in 1893.9 In accordance with the principles of the holiness meetings, the gates and dock of Fair Point were closed to incoming and outgoing traffic for the Sunday sessions. There was certainly no civil law requiring the closing of the gates on Sundays; the CLCM threw them open, though it limited vending to meals at the dining hall. The Biblical injunction to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 8:10) underlay the thinking of the holiness proponents; the effect, as noted in the previous chapter, was an economic segregation of the holiness camps. The Assembly policy was announced in advance of the session and strictly enforced. Of that first Sunday session, the Daily Journal correspondent observed that “many attempts were made by the small boats to land yesterday, but I think it is safe to say not a single boat landed within the limits of the grounds.” Later, in a conflation of issues of security with the Sunday closing policy, he noted “It

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was no great task to ‘steal’ on to the grounds yesterday. The stragglers that thronged the woods were many, but great was the look of astonishment in their faces as some modest (?) policeman would step up and ask them for their tickets.” (Many of the “policemen” were in fact boys and young men deputized for the duration of the camp. To the wonder of all, they made a good accounting of themselves as vigilantes.) Their officiousness, perhaps coupled with a determination to set an unambiguous example, accounts for the reverend gentleman who “…left his season ticket at his tent and went in quest of berries. In his eagerness he climbed the forbidden fence, and when he presented himself at the gate all his dignified air and look of injured innocence would not suffice. He couldn’t convince them, and spent the night at the hotel in Mayville.” (JDJ 11 Aug. 1874) During that first Sunday session Vincent held what would in modern understanding be a “press conference” at the dock to explain the intent of the management in locking out the Sunday seekers: When men come and tell me that there are good Christian men at the gates waiting to come in and worship God, it grieves me… While my inclination would lead me to tell the gate keepers, let every one in today free of charge, my duty compels me to say no one shall enter. It seems mighty hard that a man who would drink of the waters freely would be denied the privilege. But over and above us all there is law. We enjoy the greatest freedom when we obey the law… Vincent makes a curious, though probably not accidental, conflation of civil law, religious dictates, and the rules of the Assembly in his rationale. John Heyl Vincent and The Law were seemingly one at Chautauqua, or at any rate, he was a firm believer in the power of law: “[Chautauquans] believe so firmly in the kingdom and patience of our Lord, that obedience is worth more than comfort and faith, a firmer foundation than sight or feeling” he intones in The Chautauqua Movement (18). Obedience to the law as the final arbiter of behavior was certainly a useful strategy for settling the many contending theologies and interests at the early Assembly. Though such an emphasis on legalism seems outside the traditional Christian understanding, this trend emerged at the holiness

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camps, where “controversy” of any kind was strongly discouraged. One either abided by the stated rules of behavior and decorum or one went elsewhere. Vincent, in his further explanation behind the Sunday closing, stated a familiar truth, and called to witness an unusual yet credible source: The great majority of people who come to these grounds on this day, come not to worship, but for picnics and carousels. The captain of one of the boats told me – and he is not particularly noted for piety either – that the greater part of the people he would bring on Sunday would come for no good purpose. Thus it is the case as in many others that few must suffer for the transgressions of many. (JDJ 11 Aug. 1874) Despite the complaints, and the unquestionable reduction of income due to lost admission fees, the gates remained closed on Sundays for many years. Though cottages were in the ascendant, the influx of patrons to the Assembly required a substantial number of tents to accommodate the masses, recalling yet another camp meeting tradition. “Many and strange are the experiences of afflicted mortals who sleep in close proximity to shawls and quilt partitioning,” noted the JDJ correspondent. “It is no pleasant thing to be told in the morning all you said in your sleep and how loud you snore.” (JDJ 11 Aug. 1874) This was of course a part of the camp meeting experience.10 Patrons ate together, worshipped and studied together, and but for thin canvas walls, essentially slept together in a grand liminal event. In an era that defined itself by the strict separation of genders and social status, this must have been quite a remarkable circumstance. The casual heterosexual mixing must be played against the strict patrolling of the boundary fences, Sunday gate closings, and other separations from the outside world. Within the Assembly boundaries the common societal expectations and distinctions of sex and class were nominally set aside. At the early (post-Cane Ridge) camp meetings, the relatively small altar area marked the boundaries of extreme liminality, general societal restrictions were restored once one returned to the circle of tents. (Chaos, however, apparently reigned in the woods beyond the camp-site, where the ruffians dwelt. The circle of tents mediated between the poles of the sacred and the profane

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chaos.) The Assembly apparently gave the altar over to children (in an oddly vicarious remant of its sacrificial origin), who were invited down front for special sermons; general liminality was extended to the limits of the gates and fences, which were more carefully patrolled than they had been at the earlier camps. Gate-keepers and on-site patrols, along with the economic segregation, served to separate the sheep from the goats; earnest workers devoted to their cause were thus free to set aside conventional, “worldly” restrictions. This was, again, accompanied by a loss of some of the more extremes of emotions and generally more restrictions on the range of acceptable behaviors with the boundary. In another view, the very siting of the sacred precinct provided a “psychic dislo- cation to aid religious experience. The passage [from the outside world to the camp site] increased the distance from the worldly matters, and the sound of lapping waters on shore close to the preaching area added to the joyous mixture of natural sensations.” (Weiss 12) A breakdown of societal restrictions on personal space and gender separation contributed to the “psychic dislocations.” Despite their best efforts, the first Assembly session was not without its excite- ments, though these tended to be of a childish sort. Croquet wickets were hurled “hundreds of feet into the air” by unknown parties “when darkness had covered the earth with her mantle.” Slightly more seriously, pranksters in 1874 stretched strings from tree to tree across walking paths, pitching unfortunate pilgrims into the dirt; consequently, “for many rods the earth was strewn with false teeth, handkerchiefs, traveling bags, and all movable paraphernalia that men and women are supposed to have around them at a time like this.” (JDJ 11 Aug. 1874; the same stunts were noted in 1887.) The Chautauqua County Sher- iff, or one of his deputies, was reportedly on the grounds at all times, in accompaniment to R. M. Warren and his young deputies, to keep an eye on malingerers. Thus, when a report was received from Buffalo that “a number of sports at the close of the races, had started for Fair Point to make prey upon the people here,” the Assembly’s finest were ready for them: “Thirteen suspicious looking visitors who arrived in the evening were taken care of by our vigilant guardians, and allowed to depart from the grounds in the morning.” The article further notes, “During the week a number have been arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy and sent to the jail at Mayville.” (JDJ 10 Aug. 1874) A note

157 from the following day continued on this theme: “Suspicious characters prowling around the camp, are nightly taken in charge by our police. As yet there have been no sufferers from their depredations, and extra precautions are taken that no one shall.” (JDJ 11 Aug. 1874)11 Though deliberate theft was apparently rare thanks to the efforts of the constabulary, there were nevertheless problems with pilfering: “Dr. Vincent cautioned the audience to have care how they conduct themselves in Palestine [Park], remarking that one good woman was giving a house to each of her children, a generosity they could not afford to foster.” (JDJ 10 Aug. 1874) Despite their best efforts, gate crashing was a problem, as no means had been determined to separate those with day-passes from those who had purchased season tickets.12 A related issue concerned lessees who resided on the grounds for the summer and might contrive never to leave for the duration of the Assem- bly session. A late-night ticket check in 1875, undertaken to separate “the Jew and the Greek,” was so poorly received that the management promised never to attempt that operation again. As most lessees had acquired their sites prior to the first Assembly, and apparently enjoyed free passage through the gates at their convenience, their protest and dismay at having, first of all, to pay to gain access to their own cottages must have been something of a shock, compounded by restrictions on their (and their guests’) comings and goings on Sundays also. Many lease-holders were clergymen who had traditionally enjoyed free passes to any and all camps, perhaps they were the greatest, or at least most notorious, offenders, and the loudest in their protests (Warren 23-25). In light of the above, a re-assessment of the beginnings of the Fair Point Assem- bly is in order. Vincent and Miller were clearly present at and participating in the CLCM during the 1873 and 1874 seasons; they undoubtedly observed a regional camp meeting organized along the typical lines of such events. Their projected Sunday School Assem- bly was welcomed as an independent, experimental operation; it was a parallel gathering with a distinct orientation serving a distinct subset of the larger movements in Protestant evangelical Christianity in the late nineteenth century. The above examples – and many more may be found – challenge the notion that the Fair Point Sunday School Assembly represented any sort of revolutionary, foucauldian disjuncture with its camp meeting

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predecessors, despite the polemics of later apologists. Historian Charles Edwin Jones notes that camp meetings by that era “specialized in evangelizing the children and calling the devout to perfection” (20) – themes at the very heart of the Fair Point Assembly. The articulated intent at Fair Point was in evangelizing children; though the Assembly spoke little of holiness – the topic was controversial and indeed divisive within and among the evangelical denominations – a variation of the holiness understanding clearly underlay what would become the Chautauqua Movement. Fair Point, then, was the logical outgrowth of several movements within evangelical Protestantism, including a recognition of the limitations, if not the exhaustion, of the general camp meeting format, and the importance of the growing Sunday school movement for the future vitality of the denominations. Vincent and Miller took this latter movement, conflated it with a vibrant Lyceum circuit, and created the Chautauqua Movement. Though the connections seem obvious from our vantage, in their era the Chautauqua Movement represented quite a conceptual advance, and credit is due to the founders for their insight and efforts. (They, of course, gave all credit to God.) Nevertheless, clearly the Chautauqua Institution and Chautauqua Movement, as an outgrowth and conflation of several movements at large in late-nineteenth-century America, was an evolutionary – rather than revolutionary – development.

The Chautauqua Movement By 1873 John Heyl Vincent had built a national reputation as an editor and lec- turer in the Sunday school movement; his influence had been felt in the Chautauqua region for some years. An 1868 convention of Sunday school teachers in Jamestown offered an elaborate series of recommendations for the improvement of children’s religious education, and near the conclusion recognized the author: Rev. Mr. VINCENT, the Sunday School agent of the M. E. Church has been working out these ideas in a practical system of education for Sunday Schools. He has organized classes in some of these branches, chiefly sacred history and geography, composed of teachers and scholars of all denominations, and led them through a

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course of study, with marked success. He has now undertaken to develop his ideas by founding normal schools in every church or city, and a normal college at New York, to which these shall have relation. (Jamestown Journal 24 April 1868. Emphases in original.) Clearly, in Chautauqua County, and across the nation, the theological ground had been prepared for an extended Sunday school Institute or “Assembly”; the final question was simply a matter of location. Few would have anticipated that Vincent’s “normal college” would land on the shores of Chautauqua Lake – certainly not Vincent, by most accounts. Through the labors of many local boosters and the accidents of geography, the Chautau- qua Lake region and the Fair Point site had likewise been prepared over the course of many years for just such an eventuality: a charming rural vacation site with ideal facilities for a socio-religious gathering in the heart of an urbanizing nation, with excellent rail connections to the major eastern and mid-western cities. Had Vincent and Miller not landed at the CLCM, likely another promoter or speculator would have, given the explosion of interest in the area in the mid-1870s. As late as 1875, the CLCM was attempting to lure the National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness to its site; they may well have succeeded but for the presence of the Assembly, and the complaints that would have surely followed had two such significant religious meetings been held in the same locale.13 Vincent was by all accounts a brilliant orator, and his 1873 sermon at the CLCM introduced themes of what would come to be known as the Chautauqua Movement: He gave the long-faced Christians several very good bouts, and it is to be hoped that some whose faces are so long that their diges- tion is poor will start to cry of reform, for the good of the Method- ist Camp Meeting. His doctrine was a little off to some of them who believe it a vice to laugh, or joke, or that a smile even will do the work of a live hornet and break up a camp meeting. The Dr. advised a better study of the Bible for the good of the man, and said that Christianity needed a little common sense as well as the

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business affairs of life – needed it for success. He would have a piety that people could inspect, and would carry his religion with him every day. (JDJ 13 Aug. 1873) Of interest to this study are the contrasting behaviors of “long-faced Christians” and those displaying the more cheerful countenance of “winsome Christianity.” Though the intent of camp meeting salvation, and later, Christian perfection, was the spiritual transformation of the believer, in practice the tendency was for participants to “get a supply” of religion in periodic doses, with little visible effect in their daily life. In some cases, the highly idiosyncratic conversion and sanctification experiences led to authentic spiritual advances, but more often the converted settled into a sort of sentimental spirituality characterized by attention to forms of worship and social appearance – the “long- faced Christians” that still grace our society. Probably still more commonly, the “saved” slid, with varying degrees of rapidity, back into their worldly ways until the next camp meeting or revival rolled around. A cheerful Christian countenance was clearly in the fore at the first Assembly in 1874; examples of humor are found in many – if not most – lectures. Frank Beard, a prominent sketch artist of the day who became an Assembly regular, spoke on “long- faced Christians” at the impromptu discussion mentioned above. His remarks address the contending discourses of appropriate Christian behaviors in the era, contrasting the one hand the serious demeanor cultivated in the Puritan tradition against an approach more in keeping with our contemporary views of child-rearing. Beard’s remarks bear repeating at length: If everything good and beautiful and entertaining and interesting to the children is to be done away with, and we are to have only the day and often too much talked of subject to children, of the Savior, of His death, crucifixion and resurrection; of his great love for little children; we shall utterly fail to interest them. Children cannot appreciate long-faced christianity, we must pave the way for the children in the most pleasant and interesting manner possible, teach them to love christians, christianity, and Christ. (JDJ 11 Aug.

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1874) The next logical step would be to carry these interests to a maturing population. Vin- cent’s intent was to bring religion, and knowledge gained through the lens of Christianity, into the everyday life of the believer. This, in his view, would better address the problem of backsliding for the saved and sanctified. If all knowledge and experience could be shaped through the lens of the Christian experience, the participant would continuously align herself or himself with appropriate behaviors as a product of reflection and understanding, rather than through the religious strictures of “long-faced” ecclesiastics. Ken- neth Brown observes of the Chautauqua experiment that “…the leaders of Chautauqua … saw that people needed to grow and develop in all of life, or conversion might simply just become a bump in the road. Is it not similar to giving a person a fish, or teaching one HOW to fish? .... Camp meeting revivalism gave people a fish. Chautauqua tried to teach them how to interpret the Bible AND their own Christian lives in view of life itself. Much about the camp meeting was based on emotion. Chautauqua … tried to build up people's faith. 14 To the end of faith-building, Vincent cultivated learning for its own sake (though always through a Protestant perspective) and particularly the study of classical Greek and Roman history and literature along with European history, politics, philosophy, and science – the foundations of a liberal arts education.15 Insofar as Vincent was reacting against traditional, emotional, camp meeting spirituality, his reaction was not to put an end to emo- tionalism, but to shape it by reflection and test it against experience; to give Christianity some “common sense” as a foundation of faith. In this regard his views paralleled the works of Hannah Whitall Smith as propounded in The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1874).16 The Assembly’s larger intent was the integration of continuous learning informed by Biblical principles into the life of the individual. In The Chautauqua Move- ment, the definitive statement of his theory, Vincent wrote, The theory of Chautauqua is that life is one, and that religion belongs everywhere. Our people, young and old, should consider

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educational advantages as so many religious opportunities. Every day should be sacred. The schoolhouse should be God’s house. There should be no break between Sabbaths. The cable of divine motive should stretch through seven days, touching with its sancti- fying power every hour of every day.17 From the church and Sunday school, to the secular classroom, the advancing educational opportunities were to be extended into the home. The notion of “separate spheres” between men and women was still strong in the era; though Vincent seemed to be speaking in generic terms, the Victorians would have understood comments such as these as addressed particularly to women: “So general a scheme of education must increase the refining and ennobling influence of home life, promoting self-control and dignity of deportment, mutual respect and affection, a laudable family pride, and true social ambition…” Women were still the center of the home, and Vincent’s proclamation by no means challenged that understanding. But continuous learning would have an encul- turating effect on the home life, “…giving the whole house an air of refinement; touching with artistic skill floors, walls, and windows; finding the right place and the right light for the right picture; putting the right book on shelf and table…” Such improvements to the physical realm would undoubtedly bring advanced behavioral changes by … furnishing a wider range of topics for home conversation; crowding out frivolity and gossip; removing sources of unrest and discontent in the home; making evenings there more agreeable than life on the street; creating a real independence of the outside world, and making one’s own house the centre of the whole world of science, literature, art, and society. (Vincent, Chautauqua Movement 6-7) Such themes had been bruited for some time, and from some rather surprising quarters. An unattributed editorial in the Jamestown Journal (23 Apr. 1868) set forth the aesthetic sensibilities that would inform the “revolutionary” Chautauqua Movement, though the topic of the essay was young men: …you may preach on the duty of citizens to live in the country,

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you may picture the farmers’ independence and security, until the cracks of doom, and you make no head against the evil so long as country houses and country life are allowed to remain tasteless and repulsive. To this end your surest way is to cultivate in every young scientific farmer that love of the true, the beautiful, and the good which God has given him. Cultivate his feeling for art, and especially architecture, and he will work our rural landscape to make it attractive; cultivate his feeling for manly literature, and he will work on rural society to make it attractive. Give the young farmer such general resources in himself that he will not be obliged to seek city amusements to satisfy his mental and æsthetic cravings. To do this, equip your institutions where agriculture is studied, with means and men to give the student a well-rounded general education, suited to the needs of his land and time, as well as that sharp special education suited to the profession. Make your student a master-farmer or master-mechanic; but make him a master-man. Such thinking represented a step beyond the Mechanics Institutes of the era, which were centers of vocational education, and a trend toward the liberal arts education. Rural living, in the essay, is clearly superior to “city amusements.” The “master-man” is clearly the partner to the enlightened home-maker that Vincent conjured; each had her or his complementary sphere and, working in tandem, they would create a wholesome, vigorous, virtuous society. Refined settings, whether domestic interiors or artistic landscapes, imbued morality on those fortunate enough to dwell in them. Thus the continued reference in Chautauqua Lake literature to the scenic farmsteads and lovely vistas, and to the widespread siting of the holiness camp sites on seashores, lakes, rivers, and other places of remarkable scenic interest at some remove from the demoralizing cities. Thus also the continued reference to the squalor and slap-dash carpentry of the oil district in conjunction with its mayhem and immorality; references that were applied with equal propriety to the squalor of urban slums and industrial sites. The era’s more enlightened industrial-

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ists understood the value of tasteful surroundings as improving the life and productivity of their workers; the City Beautiful movement would also soon emerge from this philosophy.18 Thus in the Chautauqua Movement John Heyl Vincent addressed and confirmed certain social understandings. At the same time he attempted to bridge a number of late- Victorian issues, including the widening disparity between religion and science, the aspirations of an emerging middle class in search of cultural advantage versus the realities of limited educational opportunities, and the tensions within evangelical Protestantism’s camp meeting movement. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, general camp meetings were, on the one hand, more and more preaching to a select audience of the converted, and on the other, fracturing under the stresses of the holiness movement and related theological advances and, concurrently, to partisans of “that old time religion” who opposed any sort of accommodation to modernism. The rapid, widespread acceptance of the Chautauqua Movement demonstrated the power of Vincent’s innovations as an idea whose time had come. Evangelical’s struggle against “modernism” remains as contentious as ever and even in this day Chautauqua Institution is regarded by some as an unholy accommodation to the secular world. 19 Vincent and Miller’s progressive theology was accompanied by progressively more sophisticated behavioral displays. These were, again, of a kind with the evolving behaviors of the holiness movement, characterized by the increasing internalization of responses. Whereas the early camp meetings had permitted highly spectacular idiosyncratic behaviors – though these admittedly fell into broadly conventional lines – the increasingly sophisticated holiness theology was manifested in progressively more discrete behaviors requiring, on the part of the observers, a higher degree of sophistication to interpret them.20 As noted above, “long-faced Christians” of the Puritanical stripe were made distinctly unfashionable by the early Chautauquans. Cheerfulness (though carefully distinguished from giddiness) was encouraged as an example of one’s true religious demeanor. “Earnestness” was an even more popular theme: “earnest workers,” “earnest, enthusiastic and sensible,” “earnest, eager people, who seemed to have no thought of yawns or

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weariness” pepper Isabella Alden’s Four Girls at Chautauqua, in which “earnest” references spring forth on nearly every page. “Did you ever hear yourself prayed for by an earnest, reverent, pleading voice?” the omniscient narrator asks in one passage. Such an experience would mark a spiritual turning-point for one of The Girls. Themes of earnestness drew upon an understanding that was gaining ground in that strait-laced era: the deliberate setting-aside of social conventions revealed the authentic expression of one’s internal spirituality, and could be marked by the delicacy and sublimity of their expression.21 True Christians are “straightforward” and democratic; hypocrites are forever “curling” their noses and lips at breaches of acceptable behavior in an “aristocratic” display. To a degree, the conventions of melodrama shaped the idealized behaviors. The truly spiritual beings of melodrama recognize each other across lines of class and race; the hypocrite holds to conventions and appearances as the final arbiter of behavior. Thus in Four Girls, an off-the-cuff remark by an unknown man triggers a cascade of reflections “pressuring the surface of reality” in Peter Brooks’ phrase: “It was rather startling to be addressed by a strange young gentleman, or would have been it his voice had not been so quiet and dignified, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to compare notes with one who had just come out from the great meeting.” The “strange young gentleman” would have a significant role to play through the remainder of the novel; his quiet dignity would serve as the touchstone by which other young men – shallow, boorish, or hypocritical – would be compared. The conversation on a prayer meeting would of course turn to the Christian God: He turned toward her a pleasant face and said, earnestly: "You would not be afraid of your father, would you? Well, God is my Father, my reconciled Father;" And then, after a moment, he added: "If I were not at peace with him, and had reason to think that he was angry with me, then it would be different. Then I suppose I should be afraid; at least I think it would be reasonable to be." (65)

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The cheerful countenance, then, signifies one “at peace” with his spiritual father, whereas “long-faced” Christians assume a solemn visage to mask internal doubts. In the Christian understanding of the era, the young man (Evan Roberts) had received the “second blessing,” though this theme was seldom overtly discussed at the Assembly. So complete is his identification with God that Evan can only surmise spiritual separation; he must reason out what emotions he might have in such a circumstance. True Christians, then, must engage all their faculties, the intellect as well as the emotions, in their spiritual endeavor. Such casual conversation between unknown persons could not be permitted by the hypocritical Marion, who, upon realizing the situation, separates the pair. Later dialogue reveals Marion’s skewed sense of propriety: "What a foolish, heedless little mouse you are! I wonder that your mother let you go from her sight. Don't you know that you mustn't get up conversations with strange young men in that fashion?" Flossy had not thought of it at all: but now she said a little drearily, as if the subject did not interest her: "But I have often held conversations with strange young men at the dancing-hall, you know, and danced with them, too, when everything I knew about them was their names, and generally I forgot that." Marion gave a light laugh. "That is different," she said, letting her lip curl in the darkness over the folly of her own words. "What is proper at a dance in very improper coming home from prayer-meeting, don't you see?" (66-67) Of course, just the contrary is true, as Marion herself recognizes. That “modern” women were free to move unescorted through the public sphere and converse with unfamiliar men if they chose heralded the advanced state of American society. Marion’s sanctimony is sharply contrasted with the “earnest” conversation of the Flossy and Evan. A later event raises the specter of racism as a manifestation of sanctimony and hypocrisy. Eurie writes to a friend:

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“We are to have a sensation this afternoon in the shape of a troupe of singers called the Tennesseeans – negroes, you know, and they are to give slave-cabin songs and the like. I expect to enjoy it thoroughly, but you ought to see Ruth curl her aristocratic nose at the thought. “‘Such a vulgar idea! and altogether inappropriate to the occasion.’ She likes to see things in keeping. ‘If it is a religious gathering let them keep it such, and not introduce negro minstrels for the sake of calling a low crowd together, and making a little more money.’” (198) Two contending discourses are apparent in this epistolary passage: Ruth, the offstage character, offers the “respectable” view in contrast to Eurie, whose unstated romanticism – if not colonialism – toward the minstrels typifies progressive thinking in the era. Ruth’s perceptions may have been shaped by minstrel shows and the “low” crowds of the theater, though more likely the understanding was that Blacks, by their very presence, would diminish her exalted spiritual sensibility. Their appearance must therefore have been undertaken with a monetary, rather than spiritual, intent. “Real Chautauquans” in the novel recognized true spirituality across any divide of race or class (though the real Chautauqua’s history of race relations is less than progressive.) The conversion experience modeled at the Assembly suggests the most radical departure from the camp meeting tradition. Whereas the early camp meetings cultivated broad histrionic displays, and the holiness revivals promoted a relatively quiet, yet still public, “baptism by fire,” conversions at the Assembly were private – or at least, semi- private – affairs. They nevertheless still fall in the realm of performance, one engaged in for the benefit of the actor and, presumably, her or his spiritual Father. The formulaic confession of faith and acceptance of the Savior is still a significant part of evangelical Christianity, and although one may be “called to witness” one’s faith on any occasion, the actual salvation experience is rarely seen in public. (Even the altar calls of contemporary religious broadcasts specify that respondents will consummate their salvation experience ob skene, under the ministrations of counselors.) The performance of salvation, then, was

168 displaced into the later witnessing stage, or manifested in acts of philanthropy and social activism. Lippy notes, in this regard, that Christ was reconceived as “the model of ethical behavior more than as the source of individual salvation” (14), thus providing a theological foundation to the Social Gospel movement. Witnessing and social acts became an ongoing obligation, regardless of how many times one had been born. Flossy’s salvation experience from Alden’s Four Girls, previously mentioned, supports and extends the observations. Flossy overhears, from the next tent, Evan’s inter- cessory prayer on her behalf: She felt sorry to be unwittingly a listener to a prayer that the maker evidently thought was being heard only by his Savior. But she could not shut out the low and yet wonderfully distinct sentences, and presently she ceased to wish to, for it became certain that he was praying for her. … Did you ever hear yourself prayed for by an earnest, reverent, pleading voice? Then perhaps you know something of Flossy's feelings as she lay there in the darkness. She had never heard any one pray for her before. So destitute was she of real friends that she doubted much whether there were one person living who had ever before earnestly asked God to make her his child. …. “Show her her need of thee, blessed Jesus,” thus the prayer ran. And oh! hadn't he showed her that? It flashed over her troubled brain then and there: “It is Jesus that I need. It is he who can help me. I believe he can. I believe he is the only one who can.” This was her confession of faith. “Then lead her to ask the help of thee that she needs. Just to come to thee as the little child would go to her mother, and say, ‘Jesus, take me; make me thy child.’” Only that? Was it such a little, little thing to do? How wonderful!... Another few minutes of stillness and irresolution. Then a white-robed figure slipped softly and quietly to the floor and on

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her knees, and a low-whispered voice repeated again and again these words: “Jesus, take me; make me thy child.” It wasn't very long afterward that she lay quietly down on her pillow, and earth went on exactly as if nothing at all had happened – knew nothing at all about it – even the sleeper by her side was totally ignorant of the wonderful tableau that had been acted all about her that evening. (126-128) Though nominally private moments on the part of both Flossy and Evan, the liminality of the adjoining tents provoked this “wonderful tableau.” (Such melodramatic coincidences demonstrate the all-pervading presence of the Divine in the world.) For Victorian-era readers who vicariously witnessed the scene, and with whom there was a shared understanding of religious tableaux, there stood a broad invitation to imitate the modeled behavior. From the spectacular shouting, writhing, barking, and convulsing that demonstrated salvation at Cane Ridge, the salvation experience is reduced and refined to a whispered prayer in the still night on the banks of Chautauqua Lake.22 The post-conversion experience at Cane Ridge was seldom traced, though the record suggests little in the way permanent improvement for many, if not most, of the “saved.” Alden’s novel would explore the manifestations of Flossy’s experience as she took on the education of several waifs who somehow gained entrance into the Assembly. Behaviors, once again, were modeled for the readers, and the movement was clearly toward quiet acts of beneficence to one’s fellows as manifestations of spirituality.23 Lest it seem that too much is being made of these novels, one should be reminded that such semi-fictions as Alden’s Four Girls series of novels and Moore’s Ida Norton were didactic efforts; their intent was not only to express and promote Chautauqua’s version of evangelical Christianity through object lessons, but to provide models of behavior for seekers after the Chautauqua Movement. While the official Chautauqua narratives dwelled (with but a few exceptions) upon the words and works of Great Men, as also did the newspaper accounts, it was left to novelists and fiction writers to address the concerns and behaviors of the average women who substantially populated Chautau-

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qua, made up the later reading circles, and supported ancillary movements such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and an array of women’s clubs and organizations.

Summation The Chautauqua Movement served to reorient concerns for transient fashion into more enduring beliefs. Even the Jamestown correspondent noted of Chautauquans, who had to tramp through a good deal of mud during their two-week session of 1874, “As far as residents are concerned fashion retires discomfited, and though she still retains her sway over those who make us a few hour’s visit, yet all the finery produces not one thought of envy in the minds of our female campers.” (JDJ 7 Aug. 1874. Even the newspaper correspondent has taken to modeling behaviors. A contrast with the mud of Petrolia apparently escaped the notice of contemporary commentators.) Chautauquans had better, more earnest, things on their minds.24 To this end, Vincent cultivated a communitarian ideal, in contrast to the radical individuality that characterized the earlier era. In the grandest terms, he conceived a radically democratic, nationwide Institution that “…stretches over the land a magnificent temple, broad as the continent, lofty as the heavens, into which homes, churches, schools, and shops may build themselves as parts of a splendid university in which people of all ages and conditions may be enrolled as students.” Such an institution would, in Foucault’s terms, serve to “normalize” the population; in Vincent’s more splendid diction it would “Unify such eager and various multitudes. Let them read the same books, think along the same lines, sing the same songs, observe the same sacred days, – days consecrated to the delights of a lofty intellectual and spiritual life.” (Chautauqua Movement 6) Such a notion was a continuation of Vincent’s “universal” ecumenical non-denominational Sunday school lessons, begun over a decade earlier. Rieser develops in some detail the further political ramifications of such universal schemes carried to the level of civic religion by way of liberal democracy. Such a project was a reflection of some larger social concerns, particularly as the “separate spheres” concept – which was likely never so rigidly observed as the idealists would have preferred – began to fracture under the influence of women moving inde- pendently in the public. Feminist critic Amy Richter asks, “If home was the site of com-

171 fort and womanly influence sequestered from the competitive, diverse, and morally suspect world of men, how could someone expect to feel ‘at home’ in public?” The answer, says Richter, is that women essentially dragged domestic respectability into public with them. Though she speaks of the social accommodations necessary for rail travel, Rich- ter’s insights can productively be read into the Chautauqua experience: “In the confined spaces of the railroad, women and men renegotiated the boundary between private and public. They shaped life to their will, reimagining it as a realm of moral and physical comfort, transplanting the values and expectations of the private/feminine home onto the public/manly world on rails…” Richter speaks further of the growing presence of women as public consumers; her comments again are germane to the vision of life presented at the Chautauqua Assembly: “the midcentury understanding of public life as uncertain, dangerous, and masculine was replaced with a modern ideal of ‘public domesticity’ – a vision of an orderly, comfortable, and safe realm that, while not feminized, was no longer solely masculine.” (7-8) Jeanne Halgren Kilde notes (following Linda K. Kerber and Karen Halttunen) in a complementary view that whereas the Victorian parlor was traditionally seen as the locus of women’s power, women also regularly transgressed into “male-gendered” public spaces. Insofar as women “dragged their respectability with them,” they seemingly extended their parlors into the public sphere. The Fair Point Assembly experience, which seems to have been dominated by women as participants, arguably created a giant Victorian parlor of the 50-acre site. Seemingly, the very presence of respectable women, like the presence of scenic vistas and artfully arranged nature, ennobled society as a whole. Thus, again, the “revolution” that was the Chautauqua Movement appears, on closer inspection, to be a logical progression – an evolution – of a number of influences and movements already well underway in the late-nineteenth century. The movement’s true success was in the synthe- sis of these movements into a grand scheme of public advancement.

CONCLUSION

The Chautauqua Idea is the predominance of the feminine… Man has a subdued look, no matter his pounds or whiskers, at Chautauqua. --“A Sinful Man at Chautauqua,” 1909

It’s a gentle place, a stereotypically feminine place. It’s no accident that the big Greek Revival-style house that dominates the waterfront belongs to the powerful Women’s Club of Chautauqua. Everything is geared to order and tidiness. Even cats have to wear a collar and a bell, to give the birds a fighting chance, and dogs can be walked only on designated paths. The town is like one big, feminine drawing room, a monument to the nineteenth century alliance between middle class women and Protestant religious ideals of respectability, virtue, and good works. The community’s daily newspaper ignores the rest of the world, and reports only good news of Chautauqua. It scarcely needs saying that there are no poor people, no muggers, and no beggars. The hard work is done by clean cut, smiling, white college students…. -- David Bouchier, 20071

By the start of the Chautauqua Assembly the ecstatic celebrations of an earlier era had been tamed and sublimated into social action; learning for its own sake became a social statement, an effort toward Christian perfection. Salvation ideally occurred, not in the pressure cooker of a prayer meeting’s exhortation to holiness, but in a private moment between the Savior and the saved, and was manifested in quiet acts of volunteerism and charity. The performance of sanctification and Christian perfection that might be modeled

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at Chautauqua would ideally be taken out and practiced in the world, supported by one’s reading circle and a steady flow of Chautauqua Assembly publications.2 Beyond the reversal of performance strategies, one may trace further contrasts between the early camp meetings and the Chautauqua Movement: the androcentric radical individualism of the American frontier evolved into heterosexual communitarian- ism as the markers of masculinity changed from hard drinking and fisticuffs to quiet earnestness and an accommodating “manliness of spirit”; women, little more than beasts of burden on the trans-Appalachian frontier, grew into a collective political force under the aegis of the same evangelical religion that once “kept them in their place.” Thanks particularly to the efforts of women, the culture of dipsomania gave way to the temperance and women’s suffrage movements. Concurrently, transient meetings sites became permanent encampments; from bare-bones sites hacked from the wilderness evolved villages noted for their architectural distinction. An uncouth rural population proud of their ignorance gave way to sentimental, sophisticated urban patrons devoted to education, for “All knowledge, religious or secular, is sacred to him who reverently surrenders himself to God, according to the divinely appointed process for building character.”(Vincent, Chautauqua Movement 13) Out of the chaotic liminality of the earlier camp meetings and the new-found freedom of the “American Girl” would grow the “New Woman” of the early twentieth century. The heterosexual mixing that occurred at Chautauqua, indeed the gynocentric atmosphere continuously observed on the Institution grounds since the very start, stood in stark contrast to the radical gender separation – separate spheres ad absurdum– that characterized the oil district. Women in the era traveled unescorted from distant places to attend a range of sites from fashionable watering holes to religious, educational, and social gatherings such as were found at Chautauqua. Women freely and safely intermingled with men at these sites to a degree that would have been unconscionable in their usual late-Victorian communities. The individual’s experience of the “power of the Holy Spirit” was gathered into collective political and social power for women.

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Despite their claims to a sacred site devoted to moral improvement, Chautauquans recognized the need to attract the filthy lucre of the oil district. A pragmatist as well as a preacher, John Heyl Vincent recognized as much when he observed that People who for summer rest settled for the season in the grove by the lake, could not all be interested in Sunday-school discussion or in biblical studies. The large population within easy reach of the Chautauqua gates and dock needed some other attraction to bring them to our Assembly. And we needed for our more radical work their financial support; while they needed more than they desired, the quickening and awakening which come from great ideas… (30) Though he couched his rationalizations in evangelical terms, Vincent’s understanding was clearly that in order to prosper the Assembly needed to engage the moneyed crowd to guarantee its financial security. The closest moneyed crowd – one which already bore a keen interest in Chautauqua Lake – was in Petrolia. In time, vacationers as well as evangelists and Sunday school teachers would venture from further afield, and within a few years a remarkable travel schedule would be arranged whereby patrons from as far as New York City, Chicago, and St. Louis could arrive on the doorstep of Chautauqua “without change of cars.” The simple moral dichotomy with the oil region which defined the CLCM was expanded into a broader generalized social menace for the benefit of the young Assem- bly, a menace which, coincidentally, could never be tapped dry. The evils of urbanization, and particularly of alcohol, were constant themes from the Chautauqua platform. Though the first sessions were nominally devoted to Sunday school pedagogy, the topic of many an address was demon rum. Other concerns of the more pervasive evil afoot included Spiritualism, Papism, Mormonism, and other competing religious novelties.3 Anthony Comstock, the great moral watchdog of the late Victorian era, would become a regular fixture on the Chautauqua platform. The social gospel movement took on an array of urban ills beyond temperance: abandoned children in need of orphanages or adoptive parents, child labor in factories, sweatshops, the breaking of the industrial monopolies (though trade unionism was a

175 delicate topic), consumer product safety, civic sanitation projects, civil rights, and the emerging City Beautiful Movement, in which Chautauqua would play a significant role. Though these lay in Chautauqua’s future, the principal, critical polarity resided in the distinction between the pure and healthful Chautauqua Lake in contrast with the filth and corruption of urban living. As Rieser examines in some detail, the Chautauqua Movement in many respects never met its early promises of equality and democracy for all. On matters of race, Chautauquans simply fell short. The Methodist Episcopal Church with much fanfare welcomed former slaves as delegates in 1868, yet as Blacks gained economic advantage, the gates of Chautauqua were quietly shut.4 Several of my informants “of advanced years” recall a time when Blacks – mostly domestic workers – were not permitted at large on the grounds after dark. The Institution in this regard seems to have been at odds with the region; locally, the Black population appears to have been generally liked and respected, at least by the lights of the era. (Italian immigrants, on the other hand, were positively hated by many, and denied basic services.) Why African-Americans were not welcomed at Chautauqua is a complex issue; I suspect Richter’s analysis of race relations in railroad travel may serve as well in the Chautauqua experience: Young urban middle class Black women – typically from the South – demanded recognition as “ladies” rather than “negroes” in rail travel; demanded, in fact, a color-blind treatment in which they received treatment equal to White women of comparable status. (First class accommodations originated as a means of protecting “respectable women” from the unwanted advances of unknown men. Eventually gender segregation would give way to economic segregation, and first class would be open to anyone who could afford the ticket.) Creep- ing Jim Crow legislation, which followed the earlier logic of legalized gender segregation, eventually forced Black women into racially segregated cars “for the comfort” of the (White) passengers. Such an avoidance of collisions among the races was proffered as a means to protect the “peace and order.” (Richter 93-103) Much the same logic may have prevailed at Chautauqua: for the “comfort” of White patrons, minorities may have been made unwelcome at the gate.

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Revelation In early June of 2007, in final preparation of this dissertation, I wandered through the maze that is the Chautauqua County courthouse and discovered, after many wrong turns, the impressive chamber containing the county’s real estate transaction records. I was in search of Chautauqua Institution’s ground zero: the “sale” of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting grounds to the new Fair Point Sunday School Association for One Dollar. Eventually I held Liber 157, an accounting of the “indentures” and transactions of various Chautauqua Camp Meeting Association plots, begun in 1871. The experience called to mind the usual clichés of “touching history.” Names grown familiar from years of research in connection with the Camp Meeting and early Assembly– Chapin, Scofield, Miller, Warren, Gerrans, Norton (and a real surprise – my wife’s family name) were animated in Victorian flourishes. A surprising number of women were sole lessees, or joint lessees with other women. Erie County, Pennsylvania, was better represented than I would have expected, as were Midwestern states; Petrolians were common, Buffalo was nearly absent. I chanced into conversation with Bill Howe, a casual gentleman whose bearing recalls Spencer Tracy. He had been in the records business, I learned, for 35 years. What was I looking for? “The record of the sale of the old camp meeting to Chautauqua Institution.” “You won’t find it.” Pause. “It never happened.” I don’t recall what I said next; I have no idea what my face betrayed. Apparently, from a legal standpoint, at least, the transaction amounted to little more than a change of name; one “eleemosynary corporation” became, through an act of the state legislature, another. The Camp Meeting Association was “authorized to transfer and convey in fee simple for the nominal sum of one dollar, unto the ‘Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly,’ … the property now owned and possessed by said Association.” Not precisely sold – transferred. Lease-holders and voting members of the old corporation “voted with” the new board on matters of “boarding and other privileges,” on the “adoption of the amended bylaws,” and, most significantly, “They not only accepted the offer of membership, but they also acted as such corporators at all the annual elections of the ‘Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly’ held since the year 1876.” (History 52-53)

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The “sale” was a corporate shuffle of a type still common today; many of the corporators were the same between the two bodies. The new Assembly’s Articles of Incorporation were reworded, though the ramifications of the emendations can only be assessed in retrospect. “The Camp Meeting is dead – Long Live the Camp Meeting” may have been the thinking at the time. The Association’s debts were carried over – Judge John McCalmont of Franklin, Pennsylvania – the first president of the CLCMA – exchanged one plot of land and his surety bond in the Fair Point property for another choice bit of real estate (Liber 157.85). Others exchanged properties, sold out to newcomers, snapped up plots on speculation. The marriage was not happy; legal jostling, sabre-rattling, and personal animosities went on for years. In the 1889 the Assembly board saw fit to publish in its History, Legislation, By-Laws, Rules and Regulations the legal history of the camp meeting (including its articles of incorporation and by-laws), along with the legislative record enabling the transfer of property. The History culminates in the record of a complicated lawsuit between the Assembly and Ethan L. Alling. The defendant apparently had no legal right to the property under any lease, but nevertheless attempted to run a boarding house in defiance of both Camp Meeting and Assembly rules. To my reading, after a judgment and an appeal against the defendant, the ruling states that those “covenants and agreements” in place at the granting of the lease by the Camp Meeting Association were enforceable into the Assembly era, enforceable, indeed, until such time as the Assembly redeemed the lease, though “new and additional restrictions created by” the Assembly were not binding on the earlier lessees. Apparently, the Assembly’s legal accession of the Camp Meeting was somewhat less than complete and total until, at least theoretically, the 99-year leases ran out in the 1970s. In the face of this ambiguous ruling, the Assembly declared victory, immediately concluding: By the record of the Chautauqua Assembly it will be seen that nearly all the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting lease holders have attended the meetings of the Chautauqua Assembly, and acted with that corporation. It cannot be doubted but that all such persons

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are bound by the By-Laws of the Chautauqua Assembly, even though they contain new and additional restrictions. (61) On its faced this conclusion – that those who participated in the corporate actions of the Assembly were by default members of the Assembly and consequently bound by its bylaws – seems apparent enough, though how this conclusion follows from a legal ruling on wholly unrelated matters is not at all clear. Several pages earlier, much the same conclusion was drawn from equally ambivalent evidence. An Assembly By-Law stating “You [lessees] shall be members of the corporation” is glossed as “no more than an offer to make the then existing leaseholders members.” (55) Either logic was not a strong suit of the early Assembly, or they were engaging in the sort of legal duplicity that still attends corporate shuffles. Nevertheless, their intent was clear: to bring those original lessees who were less than enamored of the new Assembly’s rules under the jurisdiction of the Assembly board, though, one suspects, without providing the dissenters with sufficient representational standing to overrule the new regime.

For Further Study Though further discussion of such legal abstractions is beyond the scope of this document, they indicate further avenues of investigation. I strongly suspect that such wrangling, which went on for years and must have grown quite tedious and likely expensive for the Institution, underlies the particular animosity displayed toward the CLCM by Hurlbut and other late writers, and may be the real genesis of the “historic” antipathy of Vincent and Miller to camp meetings. The legal challenges, particularly after the fire of 1887 swept away many of the CLCM-era cottages and the Assembly pressed the lessees for the redemption of their plots, have the makings of an entertaining courtroom drama at the least. In a slightly broader though related context, the Institution’s relationship with the regional population has seldom been better than ambiguous. Editorials decrying the philistinism of the locals – who clearly did not appreciate either their beautiful lake or the benevolence of the Assembly – appeared from the very first in the Chautauqua Assembly Herald. The attitude continues in various guises to this day; a survey tracing this rhetori-

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cal positioning would be a welcome addition to the history of the Chautauqua region and Institution. Indeed, an expanded effort to contextualize Chautauqua Institution with the region is long overdue. This study in fact was first conceived as an effort to limn the relationship between the Institution on the upper lake with Celeron Park (an early amusement park) on the lower lake at the turn of the twentieth century. This work still needs to be done. On a related note, a relatively simple (though time-consuming) task would be to trace the contemporary observations about the Chautauqua region, Camp Meeting, and Assembly, in regional papers. Sustained research in the papers of Petrolia an Pittsburgh, Erie, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, and Chicago would certainly further enrich the discussion about the foundational narratives of the Chautauqua Institution. Following the examples of Richter, Sterngass, and others, the social aspects of traveling to resorts – and particularly to Chautauqua – would benefit from a sustained review. Numerous railroad histories and social histories are available, though none target the Chautauqua region or the larger Chautauqua Movement. In particular, the relationship of interurban transit systems, regional mass transit schemes, and packaged rail travel plans in the early twentieth century with all things Chautauquan warrants consideration. The general camp meeting movement’s response to the Chautauqua Movement in the late 1800s was less than universally positive. So far as I know, the record of the evangelical response to Chautauqua has never been systematically traced and interpreted. Such an effort should accompany a broader scholarly treatment of the sanctification movement and the late-century camp meetings it spawned. In an influential article published in 1988, Donald Dayton indicates how poorly represented this aspect of the American experience is in the academic record. He recounts assembling 6000 books of holiness theology in preparation for his dissertation at the University of Chicago, and inviting Martin Marty, one of the era’s leading scholars of American religion, in to review the collection. Some of the books in question had sold hundreds of thousands of copies, been though dozens of editions, were still in print after a century. Marty asked Dayton “why he – surely one of the most informed persons about the nooks and crannies of American religion – had never seen or heard of these books. Why was [Marty] virtually ignorant of one of the most massive religious propaganda campaigns in American

180 religious history?”(95) Though the situation may have improved slightly since Dayton’s writing, a vast body of research and re-interpretation remains to be done, particularly as conservative Christianity continues to dominate religious, social, and political discourse in our culture, yet remains at the fringe of mainstream academic research. The Chautauqua heterotopia, ever containing and excluding the larger American culture, continues to re-invent itself. With the growing popularity of Chautauqua Institu- tion, new markers of status inevitably appeared. With status symbols came a creeping conservatism; by the 1950s wags would describe the Institution as “a place where old ladies vacation with their mothers.” The Institution became increasingly ecumenical, eventually welcoming Roman Catholics and Jews. (Black tourists remain something of a curiosity on the Chautauqua grounds.) It also became increasingly secularized, so much so that its religious orientation has become secondary to its advertised mission as a center for arts and culture. As I write this in the 2007 season, alcoholic beverages may for the first time be legally sold on the grounds; the gates have long been thrown open to Sunday visitors. Chautauqua – both the Institution grounds and the region – remains a pilgrimage of sorts for thousands. Chautauqua Institution continues to trade on its curiously half- sentimental, half-invented history as a “radical innovation” of its era, from its earliest conceptions projecting a sentimental vision of itself at once into the future and on to its future past.

Twilight The old cottages, and many of the old cottagers, remain about this Auditorium, – reminders of the old times, and the oldest times, of Chautauqua, when the first vesper service announced that “The Day Goeth Away,” and the “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” rang out under these forest arches. Who was there that can ever forget that hour? The altars were aglow that night, and hearts on fire…. The time will come when the remaining sharers in that first feast in the evening light will be very few, and the last of them will receive honor, and the children of Chautauqua will listen to their story as

181 with quivering lips and kindling eye they speak about that first evening under the trees, the words that broke the sacred silence, the songs that bore praise and wonder and joy to the heavens, and the friendships that were formed there never to be broken (Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement 49-50).

APPENDIX A METHODIST DENOMINATIONS Virtually every subset of Methodism at some point lays claim to the vere ikon of founder John Wesley. The Methodist Episcopal denomination at the heart of this dissertation began in 1784 and substantially ceased to exist as an independent entity in 1939. Rigorously distinguishing the various Methodist denominations lies outside the purview of this work. For purposes of general information, a brief unofficial history of flavors of Methodism: 1784 – Methodist Episcopal Church (ME) began at the Christmas Confer- ence in Baltimore. Thomas Coke, who had been ordained as Bishop by John Wesley in England, at that session ordained Fran- cis Asbury as co-Bishop of the American followers of Methodism. The Methodist’s reluctant separation from the Anglican “mother church” was a consequence of Anglican polity complicated by the American Revolution. 1800 – The United Brethren Church officially organized, though in practice the congregations had been in existence for over three decades. This group, with strong affinities to the German immigrant population, claims the honor of being the first denomination to wholly spring from American soil. After numerous permutations and changes of name, the Evangelical United Brethren would, in 1968, merge with the Methodist Church to form the present-day United Methodist denomination. 1816 – The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) was founded in Philadelphia by Richard Allen over the poor treatment of Blacks in that city’s St. George M. E. Church. Now open to all races, the church retains an allegiance to Wesley’s teachings and an Episco- pal form of governance. 1821 – African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ) officially organized in 1821, though it enjoyed an unofficial existence for at least two decades previous. Like its Philadelphia cousin, AMEZ was founded in New York City over the poor treatment of Blacks at Methodist denominations in that city, and particularly at the John Street Methodist Church. 1828 – The Methodist Protestant Church (MPC) organized by former members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, retaining Wesleyan principles of doctrine and worship while adopting Congregational governance. This group would substantially re-unite with the Methodist’s main body in 1939, though several dozen congregations in the American South retain the MPC distinction. 1843 – Wesleyan Methodist Church split from the Methodist General Conference over the issue of slavery. Christian Holiness was and is a central tenet of this denomination. Organizing in Utica, New

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York, the young denomination would host the famous Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights. Wesleyans would in 1856 ordain the first woman minister in America, at Oberlin College. In 1867, the denomination would vote in support of the rights of women and Black freedman to vote. In 1968 the Wesleyan Methodists merged with the Pilgrim Holiness Church to form the Wesleyan Church. 1844 – Methodist Episcopal Church – South separated from the main body over the question of slavery. Their rationale turned on the right of the General Conference to discipline local bishops for their ownership of slaves. 1860 – Free Methodist Church split from the General Conference over the latter body’s reluctance to meaningfully address slavery. A secondary issue was over the “rental” of church pews as a fund-raising scheme among the Methodist Episcopals, a “free from sin” perfec- tionist theology, “free” congregational worship, etc. (See Dayton 89). 1897 – Pilgrim Holiness Church left the Methodist General Conference over the issue of sanctification. Founded in Cincinnati by Method- ist and Quaker ministers, the denomination would substantially merge with the Wesleyans in 1968. An independent splinter group remains, allied with the loosely organized Conservative Holiness Movement and the Interchurch Holiness Convention, organized in 1952 to strengthen the various holiness bodies. 1907-08 – A complicated series of mergers between splinter groups and “come outers” would culminate in the Church of the Nazarene, founded on Wesleyan principles and with an emphasis on sanctification. 1939 – The Methodist Church formed from the merger of the northern and southern branches of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Church. 1968 – The United Methodist Church formed through the merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren.

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APPENDIX B

“THE HIGHEST NAVIGABLE WATER ON THE GLOBE”

Several clippings on the remarkable elevation of Chautauqua Lake. This is by no means an exhaustive list: We crossed Chautauque [sic] Lake by moonlight, and as we looked out on that beautiful body of water, which was as quiet and peaceful as a babe sleeping upon its mother’s bosom, we thought how many persons there are in this country who visit Scotland and Switzerland to see lakes that bear no comparison in beauty to Chautauque. It may not generally be known that this lake is the highest navigable water on the globe, being considerably higher than Lake Como in Switzerland. (Warren Ledger. Ctd. in Carlson.)

Fair Point, on this lake, is where the Methodists have purchased a tract of land, and laid it out into building lots, reserving the center ground for camp meeting purposes. This colony in the woods looks very picturesque and inviting. Arrangements are now being made for a ten days or two weeks meeting at Fair Point. Long Point is another beautiful point. This has been purchased by a club from Titusville, who contemplate erecting a fine hotel upon the point another season. Three miles from Mayville is a view well worth the trouble to go and see. Looking back is seen the silver sheet of water lying, as it were, upon a plain, while beyond is seen Lake Erie, seven hundred and fifty feet below. Chautauqua Lake, with but one exception, is the highest body of water on the continent, and it seems singular that it should be 750 feet higher than Lake Erie, with only a few miles intervening. (Elmira Gazette. Ctd. in JDJ 28 July 1873)

[T]he beautiful and enchanting … Chautauqua Lake, with an altitude of over seven hundred feet above Lake Erie…. is with one exception, the highest navigable water on the continent…. On either shore are woodland and field and gracefully sloping hill, with here and there a high point of land piercing its way far into out into the clear and mirror-faced waters. Save an occasional brook that empties into the lake, it has no inlet, but its supply of cool, pure water, is fed from living springs beneath its surface. Its outlet is a winding stream that flows through the very heart of Jamestown, and is finally lost in the waters of Allegheny River.… (Atlantic and Great Western Railroad promotional brochure. Ctd.

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in JDJ 24 July 1873)

With the exception of Lake Tahoe, California, Chautauqua Lake is the highest body of navigable fresh water in the United States, it being 1,200 feet above the level of the Atlantic and 726 feet higher than Lake Erie, only a few miles to the north of it, and is rightly considered the most beautiful of our inland lakes. It is already becoming a noted summer resort. (New York World. Ctd. in JDJ 28 Aug. 1874)

The surface of Lake Chautauqua is 1350 feet above the level of the ocean; said to be the highest navigable water in the United States. This is not strictly correct, for Lake Tahoe on the boundary between Nevada and California is more that 6000 feet above sea-level. But Tahoe is navigated only by motor-boats and small steamers; while Lake Chautauqua, having a considerable town, Mayville, at its northern end, Jamestown, a flourishing city at its outlet, and its shores fringed with villages, bears upon its bosom many sizable steam-vessels. It is remarkable that while Lake Erie falls into the St. Law- rence and empties into the Atlantic at iceberg-mantled Labrador and Newfoundland, Lake Chautauqua only seven miles distant, and of more than seven hundred feet higher altitude, finds its resting place in the warm Gulf of Mexico. Between these two lakes is the watershed for this part of the continent. An old barn is pointed out, five miles from Lake Chautauqua, whereof it is said that the rain falling on one side of its roof runs into Lake Erie and the St. Law- rence, while the drops on the other side through the pebbly brook find their way by Lake Chautauqua into the Mississippi (Hurlbut 4- 5).

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APPENDIX C

THE 1873 NATIONAL GUARD ENCAMPMENT ON CHAUTAUQUA LAKE

As the interest of the oil district in Chautauqua Lake has not otherwise been remarked upon to my knowledge, I would like to offer a few more citations regarding this 1873 encampment. Note the effort on the part of the Jamestown editor to associate that city with the luster of the petroleum fortunes, and the cultivation of the newspapermen of the oil district: At Mayville, the Corps was enthusiastically received by their many friends who had assembled from Titusville and other points, and they were handsomely entertained. They don’t do things by halves, but set out the best there is and enjoy themselves “as through the world they go.” On the evening train from [Oil C]reek were representatives from Titusville and vicinity, who had come for the evening’s entertainment and to take part in the exercises of to-day. Titusville’s fair women – the brave men of course belong to the Corps – were there, and the party was one of the great events of the encampment. Among the guests were Cadet Geo. R. Smith, of Jamestown, now on leave of absence from West Point. Not until three o’clock this morning did the party break up, when the Col. Phillips was again brought into requisition to carry the boys back to their quarters at Camp Byrom. The morning train from Titusville brought to Mayville a large party of ladies and gentlemen who were on their way to the front at Camp Byrom. Among these are the Common Council of Titusville, M. N. Allen, of the Titusville Courier, W. H. Abbott, W. W. Bloss, of the Press, and others. They are to pass the day in Camp, and in the evening many of them will return to Mayville and other points, and spend several days on the Lake. THE REGATTA This afternoon the Regatta under the auspices of the Citizen’s Corps is given on the lower lake, and under the management of Capt. Byrom will be a success – the weather and wind considered. All the fastest boats on the lake are making preparations to enter for the honors. This morning the [steamboat] Jamestown towed the Happy Jack, America, Neptune, Idler, and Spray from Jamestown to the narrows, and the Aquarius and Brilliant, owned by Titusville parties, are at the point. The Naiad owned by P. O. Sherwin, of Fluvanna, and the James Patterson, owned by C. G. Harmon, of Corry, will also be entered. Mr. Harmon is spending the summer, with his family, at Fair Point. Many other boats are expected to enter, and a big race is looked for. The point is crowded with people, Titusville and Jamestown being well represented, and among

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whom are the members of the city governments, who are the guests of the Corps to-day. It is a big day for Bemus Point, and with the race, the soldiers, and the representatives of civil government, it will be quite an event in life on the Lake. Worth noting is the conflation of C. G. Harmon, of Corry, Pennsylvania – a substantial oil refining and transshipment point – with both the Titusville paramilitary contingent and the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting.

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APPENDIX D

APPALACHIAN PLAIN-FOLK CULTURE

Though not directly bearing on the present study, a few comments of he plain-folk culture in the trans-Appalachian region will help contextualize the changes that followed later in the nineteenth century. As has been generally observed, the region’s culture is a study in contradictions. Theirs was an isolated frontier life, fraught with dangers from outlaws, Indians, wild animals, starvation, disease, and an array of potential natural catastrophes. Individuality was proclaimed as the goal and birthright of the male, whose identity was founded on the proposition that he was a man “because he was not a woman and not a slave.” Historian David Hackett Fischer notes that “male children were taught to be self-asserting; female children were taught to be self-denying” (687). Masculine culture was devoted to subsistence farming, hunting, fishing, heavy drinking, games, gambling, horse-racing, and tests of strength and skill. (The extravagances of this widely diffused male-dominated culture would be concentrated in the Pennsylvania oil district; the two regions shared a common culture.) Historian Dickson Bruce notes that many of these behaviors, along with conspicuous consumption and slave-holding, were the domain of the elite planters. Participation in these behaviors by the plain-folk suggests a degree of imitative role modeling, through which one might assume the prerogatives of the elite. Concurrently, imprecations toward these activities on moral grounds disguise a “protest morality of the disinherited” (47). Thus were the contradictions of trans-Appala- chian culture expressed in religious and social registers. At the same time, the limited social contacts could be behaviorally restrictive. Family and clan were extremely important to the culture, so much so that anyone not related and not a neighbor was labeled a “foreigner.” Being and keeping “good neighbors” was necessary for survival, creating considerable social inhibitions to avoid shunning. These restrictions were particularly borne by the frontier women, whose traditional duties of stockpiling food and maintaining the homestead often required group efforts in the form of “bees.” Women, as the help-mate of men, joined in all manual labor; indeed, upon women “devolved almost every task of mean and painful drudgery.” Their identity was submerged in their husband and children. Emma Bell Miles, who provides an intimate portrait of mountain life in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, observed of gender relations that “[man’s] ambition leads him to make drain after drain on the strength of his silent wingless mate. Her position means sacrifice, sacrifice and every sacrifice, for her man first, and then for her sons” (70. Ctd. in Fischer 679; see also 765-771).

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APPENDIX E CLCM LEASE-HOLDERS—NOTES AND COMMENTARY

The Jamestown Daily Journal in 1874 provided a short list of lease-holders and their improvement: Of these cottages Mr. James Patterson, of Corry, has erected the most expensive one, a two-story frame building with a wing; at a cost of about $1,500. The cottage is conveniently divided into large rooms, is lathed and plastered with the wood work painted inside and outside and is a cosy establishment. Mr. Patterson occupies it with his family the season through. Rev. F. A. Archibald, of Rus- selburg, Pa., has a neat little cottage nearly completed, and Rev. Joseph Leslie, of Corry, Reno and Burgess, of Randolph, and Seymour and Mills, of Mayville, have cottages completed. Rev. H. W. Leslie, of Sinclairville, Rev. R. W. Scott, of Mayville, and Rev. R. M. Warren, S. B. Winsor & Co., Charles Jeffords and M. Bai- ley, of [Jamestown], have cottages in process of construction. Sar- dius Steward, of Harmony, President of the association, has a cottage nearly completed, and among others who have cottages completed and in the process of construction are Fisher, Jack & Frank- lin, Corry; C. Hatch, Corry; M. W. Moffitt, Corry; Rev. J. E. Cha- pin, of Ripley, has three cottages; First M. E. Church, Sherman; R. R. Brummagin, Summerdale; Mead & Miner, Youngsville, Pa.; W. S. Gleason, Mayville; Eaton & Markham, Frewsburg; Owens & Flagler, the former of Buffalo and the latter of Jamestown; N. Hurlburt, Ashville; Brown, Wright & Blodgett, Farmington, Pa.; Klock, Pickard & Klock, Ellery; M. McCullough, Sinclairville, and Rev. H. H. Moore, Panama. (JDJ 15 July 1873) A few observations: Five lease-holders hail from nearby Mayville, or the town- ships of Harmony or Ellery adjoining the lake, suggesting that their intent may also have been to rent for at least a portion of the season. Indeed, as plans for the first National Sunday School Assembly on the CLCM site were being publicly aired, cottage-owners were urged to make their dwellings available for the anticipated hordes – presumably at a modest profit. Most striking to me is that nearly a third of the listed cottagers are from Corry, and another is from Youngsville, Pennsylvania. This latter town sits on the northern fringe of the early oil pool, and was also a transshipment point. Though Buffalo is the nearest substantial city, only one cottager, and that one on shares, is listed. The capital was clearly flowing north, out of Pennsylvania. Curiously, no lease-holders from the North East or Erie, Pennsylvania, are listed, though they clearly held indentures to a number of plots. The number of ministers investing in the grounds is striking. Chapin, with three cottages, is apparently building “on spec” or intends to rent cabins. By the time the grounds were transfered to the Assembly, Chapin would hold 99-year leases on nearly a dozen properties (Liber 157).

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The Chautauqua Lake Journal in 1873 offered that “any church that will put up, this year, a tabernacle for use of its society, will receive a lease for a lot for 99 years at a nominal rent.” (1.1.1) As noted above, The M. E. church from nearby Sherman has invested in a cottage, perhaps in response to the Association’s offer. These “tabernacles” were a continuation of the longstanding tradition of churches maintaining large “society tents,” and anticipate the large denominational houses that still dominate portions of the Institution grounds. The Jamestown Swede Church had a “Mission Hall” in place by 1874. (JDJ 13 July 1874).

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APPENDIX F

THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT

The entire Chautauqua movement is based upon the following propositions: 1. The whole of life is a school, with educating agencies and influences all the while at work, form the earliest moment to the day of death. These agencies and influences should be wisely and continuously applied by and in behalf of each individual, through life, according to circumstances, capacities, and conditions. 2. The true basis of education is religious. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, – the recognition of the Divine existence, and of his claims upon us as moral beings; the unity and brotherhood of the race, with all that brotherhood involves; harmony with the Divine character as the ideal of all for time and eternity; and the pursuit and use of all science in personal culture, the increase in reverent love for God, and of affectionate self-sacrifice and labor for the well-being of man. 3. All knowledge, religious or secular, is sacred to him who reverently surrenders himself to God, according to the divinely appointed process for building character. And he has a right to all at- tainments and enjoyments in the realm of knowledge, for the possession of which he has capacity and opportunity. Science, travel, literature, the works of art, the glories of nature, – all things are his who is one with God. This law applies to the poor and lowly, as well as to the rich and so-called “favored classes” of society. It gives lofty ideals to a lowly life, and transforms humble homes into places of aspiration and blessedness. 4. In mature life, beyond the limits of the usual school period, the intellect is at its best for purposes of reading, reflection, and production. While the training of the schools may discipline the juvenile mind, the discipline of every-day life, in solving problems of existence, support, and business, gives a certain advantage to the so-called uneducated mind during the middle period of life. Between the ages of twenty and eighty lie a person’s best intellectual and educational opportunities; and he needs direction, encouragement, and assistance, in order to use them effectively. 5. Early lack of culture, felt by full-grown people, begets a certain exaltation of its value and desirability, and a craving for its possession. This craving creates intellectual susceptability and re-

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ceptivity, and renders the more easy the acquisition of knowledge. Mere verbal memory may be less efficient in these adult years, but the power of reasoning, and of utilizing knowledge for practical results, is much greater than in the early years. 6. The necessity for wise direction, assistance, and encouragement of this mature intellectual power and desire is as great as in the period of youth and of school life. Therefore grown people need courses of study outlined, books for reading indicated, questions answered, associations formed, and all the conditions guar- anteed which tend to promote hope, confidence, ambition, and strong purpose. 7. Where a mature mind desires to use its energies and opportunities to the maximum of its possibility, and to do thorough intellectual work of the most exacting sort, the influence of the best teachers may be brought to bear upon him by frequent correspondence, including questions, answers, praxes, theses, and final written examinations of the most exhaustive and crucial character. To such persistent purpose and faithful effort, after rigid testing, there should come the testimonials and honors in diploma and degree, to which any student anywhere else, or at any other period of life, would be entitled. 8. The advantage of mental attrition by personal recitation and conversation is a large factor in the schools. This advantage may be enjoyed by voluntary associations, local circles, contact with resident scholars, occasional attendance upon special lectures, and class recitations in local high-schools, seminaries and colleges, and at summer homes and assemblies. These are some of the fundamental thoughts on which the Chautauqua movement is based. It is a school for people out of school who can no longer attend school, – a college for one’s own home; and leads to the dedication of every-day life to educational purposes. (Chautauqua Movement 12-15)

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APPENDIX G: Permissions

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NOTES

Notes to Introduction 1 Epigrammatic citations, in order: Alden, Four Girls 58; Talmage, Christian at Work (July 1874), ctd. in JDJ 10 July 1874. (An edited version is found in Morrison 33); Rieser, Chautauqua Moment 1.

2 See Appendix A for a brief denominational history of Methodism. For the sake of brevity I shall refer to the 1870-1873 Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting as CLCM, or occasionally as “Camp.” This “Camp” designation in no way implies a connection with the present-day “Camp Chautauqua,” an ongoing commercial establishment with no bearing on this study. I shall usually refer to the organizational structure founded by Rev. John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller in 1874 as the Chautauqua Institution or “Institu- tion.” When I wish to indicate the earliest days of the Vincent-Miller experiment, I may resort to its original title of “Assembly.” Vincent and Miller’s organization went through several changes of name before arriving at its present form of Chautauqua Institution; keeping track of them in this work would be much aggravation for little profit. A brief onomastic history as listed in Alfreda Irwin (1977.19), though subject to debate: 1874-1876: Fair Point Sunday School Assembly (under the charter of the Chau- tauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association) 1876-1883: Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly 1883-1902: The Chautauqua Assembly 1902-present: The Chautauqua Institution. (A slightly abbreviated form, “The Chautauqua Institute,” has fallen out of favor in recent years.)

3 Following Peter Brooks’ analysis as presented in The Melodramatic Imagination vii. Though not central to my thesis, I shall from time to time note the convergence of things Chautauquan with Brooks’ interpretation of melodrama.

5 To again recall Peter Brooks: “The melodramatic body is a body seized by meaning. Since melodrama’s simple, unadulterated message must be made absolutely clear, visually present to the audience, bodies of victims and villains must unambiguously signify their status.” (“Melodrama” 18)

6 For a full discussion of the early American factors that contributed to the development of camp meetings, see Kenneth O. Brown, Holy Ground 25-58. Fischer argues that camp meetings originated in the British Isles (703-708).

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7 Jackson 77. Even if not a part of the camp’s title, a distinct “grove” is often found within the camps. Chautauqua Institution has “St. Paul’s Grove”; the Baptist-run Point Chautauqua boasted a “Corinthian Grove”; Lilydale Assembly (with but a slight shift in nomenclature) still features its grove, “Leolyn Woods,” complete with “Inspira- tion Stump.”

8 “Christians will be delivered from all known wrong. [Sinful cravings] . . . will be so completely counteracted by Christ that … [a person] will cease from all voluntary transgressions of the Law. The Christian’s life [will] … potentially become one of endless victory over every form of temptation and moral weakness.” (Boardman ii) This reduction appears in Wegter’s 2002 essay critical of the holiness movement.

9 Even the most supportive patrons of camp meetings, including Methodist historian Nathan Bangs and B. W. Gorham (who literally wrote the book on how to conduct a camp meeting), noted the tendency of meetings to attract both the intellectual scoffer and the less savory elements of society. In defense of camp meetings, Bangs observes: Often those very persons who were most violent in their opposition, most vociferous in their hard speeches against what they de- nominated “wild fire,” would become so warmed by its heat, that their hearts were melted within them, and “falling down on their faces, they would worship God, and report that God was in them in truth.” This argument was irresistible. It was demonstration. And many such were presented during the progress of these meetings. In such cases, those who before had been blasphemers, and mock- ers, persecutors, and bigoted dogmatizers, were not only struck dumb, but the “tongue of the dumb was made to sing,” and those very opposers of the work became the living witnesses for its divine and genuine character, and stood forth as its bold and fearless defender. (106-107)

10 Warren 37-43; Hurlbut 29. The impromptu song-leader of the narrative was apparently Joseph Hillman, president of the Round Lake, New York Camp Meeting Asso- ciation. Soon after, Hillman recognized the distinction between an “Assembly” and a camp meeting, and invited Vincent to bring his methods to Round Lake. At the time Hillman would have been accorded more respect than Hurlbut, writing decades after the fact, accords him. Hillman’s abrubt departure from Chautauqua must have caused more than a little hand-wringing.

11 Many ongoing camps and new meetings adopted the Chautauqua Institution model; between these annual events and traveling circuit shows, “chautauqua” became a common noun describing their particular blend of religion, lectures, and light entertainment.

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12 Western New York was variously known as the “scorched ground,” “burnt-over district” and like phrases for the “fire and brimstone” style of preaching that characterized the region and the era. Religion and social movements as diverse as Spiritualism, Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), the Oneida Community, the Roycroft Guild, the Grange (Patrons of Husbandry), the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, the women’s suffrage movement, many anti-slavery groups, and an array of smaller movements, cooperative societies, communes, and monastic settlements started in this region in the 19th century, and are not rare today.

13 Ida Norton is an unusual book in many respects. The Chautauqua Press dealt almost exclusively in reprints of non-fictional works of educational merit; this novel is a rare example of an original fictional work from that publisher. I have not been able to determine how widely read was Ida Norton. The novel turns up often enough in Chau- tauqua collections to suggest a fair distribution, though there is no indication of a second printing.

14 Roberto Camagni notes, “regions, unlike nations, more or less can go out of business, becoming so depleted by outmigration that they are at a long-run competitive disadvantage.” (Ctd. in Malecki 1102)

15 To quote Anatole Broyard: In anthropology now, the term “thick description” refers to a dense accumulation of ordinary information about a culture, as opposed to abstract or theoretical analysis. It means observing the details of life until they begin to coagulate or cohere into an interpretation…. I’d like to see thick description make a comeback. Apart from sheer sensuous pleasure, it gives you the comforting feeling that you’re not altogether adrift, that at least you have an actual context to enter into and real things to grapple with. (Ctd. in Heat-Moon 8)

16 I won’t attempt to describe the interpenetration of myth with physical landscape that Lévi-Strauss manages; the Euro-American presence in the region is far too brief for these to emerge and Native versions have no bearing on this study. However, his rumina- tions on these relationships have significantly impacted my analysis of the Chautauqua region, and indeed my day-to-day perceptions as I live, work, and travel in the region. I share with anthropologist Edmund Leach the recognition that “Lévi-Strauss manages to give me ideas even when I don’t really know what he’s saying.” Leach continues: It is not a matter of Lévi-Strauss being right or Lévi-Strauss being wrong; it is more like literary or dramatic criticism. Faced with the challenge of a new point of view one is suddenly able to see the familiar in quite a different way and to understand something

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which was previously invisible. (xvii-xviii)

Notes to Chapter 1: The Pennsylvania Oil District and the Chautauqua Region

1 Epigrammatic citations, in order: Holmes, ctd.in Richmond, Chautauqua 28; Corry Republican extract in JDJ 7 Feb. 1871.

2 A “Letter from Pithole” in the heart of Petrolia observes that “If the fee simple of lots had been sold here, instead of giving out short leases at such extravagant rates, we should soon have had [a] substantial borough here, instead of a shanty city. (Titusville Herald 12 July 1865. Herald Facsimile). The establishment of long-term (99-year) leases at the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting marked the beginning of true enduring investment in the site – the construction of permanent cottages and the creation of the “city in the woods” still found there. 3 Titusville Herald 1 June 1869. (Herald Facsimile.) This incident has passed into urban legend, and has been since attributed to virtually every railroad that crosses northwestern Pennsylvania. 4 A few more of Bone’s observations of the mud: He who essays the “middle passage” between Shaeffer’s Farm (the present terminus of the Oil Creek Railroad) and Oil City, must prepare himself for an experience for which life in the city affords but poor preparation. The second step from the hotel at Shaeffer’s plunges the pedestrian into a sea of mud which extends with varying depth to Oil City, more than twelve miles distant, with scarcely a friendly rock on which to rest the sole of the foot. Mud everywhere, illimitable, unfathomable. Let him who thinks he can make the passage by turning up his trowsers over his ankles and picking his way, at once disabuse himself of the idea. If he does not, ten steps from Person’s Hotel at the Shaeffer will do it for him …. Strike out boldly on foot, and pull your legs up when they disap- pear from sight, remembering that if you descend deep enough you may strike oil. There is a choice of paths in going down and up the Creek, the difference being that each is muddier than the other, and that you are certain to select the muddiest. (Ctd. in Giddens 274- 275)

Here we came across a team stuck in the mudhole, the fore-wheels clear under and the hind-wheels invisible to the hub. The teamster, who, judging from that portion of him above the ground, was probably a six-footer, stood contemplating the situation with dismay. In passing we ventured to remark, “Mister, I guess you are

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stuck.” It was a daring remark to make under the circumstances, and nothing could be expected in response less than a volley of curses, deep and dire. That such a proceeding suggested itself to the mind of the teamster was evident by the look in his eye, but, after revolving the whole matter, he concluded he could not do justice to the subject, and with one look at the stalled team and another at us, he gave a heavy groan, and responded, “Well it looks like it!” (Ctd. in Giddens 278)

5 An example, one of many, of the profligacy of the early oil boom: Samuel Downer, Esq., later the proprietor of the Downer Oil Works at Corry, was one day standing at the discharge end of the leading trough, which had half an hour before been thrown from a flat boat just filled. The oil was running into the Creek in a volume as large as the trough would hold. “See here,” said Mr. Downer, “don’t you know you are wasting a hundred barrels an hour here?” “Yes,” said the interested party addressed, “but what am I to do with it? You won’t give me five cents a barrel for it; and I can stand the loss of five dollars an hour rather than let you have it at that price!” (J.T. Henry. Ctd. in Giddens 217) Though there’s no record that oil ever sold as low as a nickel a barrel, the tremendous oil flows of the mid-1860s drove down prices to the extent that wooden barrels were worth far more than their contents, and the cost of transport exceeded the value of the goods sold many times over.

6 See McLaurin (ch. 13) for explosions in Petrolia. On the intermingling of houses and wells: …we crossed the stream to the G. W. McClintock farm, where the throng of derricks, and clustered houses, and the flag- pole in front of a tavern, marked the presence of “Petroleum Cen- tre.” Here the wells are crowded as thickly as houses in the most populous part of the city, dwellings and engine houses being mixed up in such inextricable confusion that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other without entering, and not always then. (Bone. Ctd. in Giddens 275) Such intermingling remains common in Petrolia. The oldest active well in Bradford, Pennsylvania may be admired behind the McDonald’s Restaurant in the downtown. One must circle around the pump when using the drive-through.

7 I can scarcely improve upon Ida Tarbell’s description of the transformation of the oil region: One of the busiest corners of the globe at the opening of the year

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1872 was a strip of Northwestern Pennsylvania, not over fifty miles long, known the world over as the Oil Regions. Twelve years before this strip of land had been but little better than a wilderness; its chief inhabitants the lumbermen, who every season cut great swaths of primeval pine and hemlock from its hills, and in the spring floated them down the Allegheny River to Pittsburg. The great tides of Western emigration had shunned the spot for years as too rugged and unfriendly for settlement, and yet in twelve years this region avoided by men had been transformed into a bustling trade centre, where towns elbowed each other for place, into which three great trunk railroads had built branches, and every foot of whose soil was fought for by capitalists. It was the discovery and development of a new raw product, petroleum, which had made this change from wilderness to market-place. (3)

8 Chautauqua saw some benefit also, at least in the summer: The “oil trade,” as it is termed by the proprietors, is not the most available custom [at Chautauqua], owing to the fact that the head of the family is obliged to be “on the creek” nearly all of the time, as a simple turn of the market may have the effect of rendering him incapacitated to enjoy a summer anywhere out of the poor house, or a day’s absence lose him a handsome competence. As a rule the oil man sees his family comfortably fixed at the lake, and generally contrives to spend Sunday with the “old folks at home.” (Titusville Herald. Ctd. in JDJ 30 June 1871)

9 Unless otherwise noted all emphases are in the original. Morris. Ctd. in Giddens 208.

10 New York Commercial Advertiser 24 Oct. 1865. Ctd. in Black 186.

11 Miller, “John Wilkes Booth.” Tintypes 40-41. Many have observed that, had Booth’s Dramatic Oil Company found success in Petrolia, American history would be quite different.

12 JDJ 18 July 1871. “Claims” are the contractual right to seek for minerals on a plot of ground. The disappointed husband in this narrative gives up his “claim” to his spouse, suggesting an adolescent pun on the right to “drill.” Many remark on how the language of oil pervaded daily conversation and even somniloquence in the oil district. Renting space in a hotel or getting a table in a restaurant was to “stake a claim”; one might also “have an interest” or “buy a share” in all nature of real or putative property.

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13 Oil City Derrick 22 Jan. 1889; ctd. in Giddens 292-296. Also, Miller, Early Daze 52-54 and Tintypes 65-80. Rascal that he undoubtedly was, Hogan was also somewhat of an ironic folk-hero in the region. His concert saloons were as likely to be robbed or rioted as any, and the accounting he made of himself as a pugilist during these epi- sodes were as well-reported as any of his adventures in the boxing ring. See Titusville Herald 14 May 1869 (Herald Facsimile) for an example.

14 As women were in short supply in the otherwise rural oil district, novel means were employed to enlist new help to serve the clientele. A common ruse was to engage “respectable but needy young girls under the pretext of employing them as hotel wait- resses, and placed them in such situations as to make their ruin inevitable….” But this is not the worst, for, when the girls are once within the saloon everything but personal violence (and for all we know, that too) is used to keep them there…. It frequently happens that if the girls arrive at the saloon they are without money, and subsequently without means of turning from whence they are unless they receive assistance from outside the saloon, and ruin is only a question of a few hours. The pal- try sums that the girls are allowed per week are withheld from them if they have any desire to escape…(Titusville Herald 18 Mar.1869. Herald Facsimile.) Though saloonkeepers Louis and Gus Rhiel were the subject of the above narrative, Ben Hogan also tried the ruse. On at least one occasion word of the young woman’s situation made its way back to the waif’s parents in Buffalo who, with the help of a Pithole City preacher and several Civil War veterans, extracted their daughter at gunpoint “before her ruin.” “Intelligence Offices” in Buffalo seemed to be a regular source for the trade in Buffalo Gals, though probably every major city and much of the rural countryside outside the immediate vicinity contributed their share. Many female war veterans likely made the trip to Petrolia.

15 Titusville Morning Herald 19 July 1865. Ctd. in Miller, Early Daze 47.

16 J. R. G. Hazzard. Ctd. in Titusville Morning Herald 8 Aug. 1868. Ctd. in Gid- dens 342. The hint of a feminine presence seems to have been a common advertising ploy. The improbably-named “Temple of Fashion” was one of the more notorious saloons in Petroleum Centre (Herald Facsimile).

17 JDJ 27 Mar. 1871. Note the many Irish-Catholic names appearing in these accounts, in an era of rabid anti-Catholic sentiment.

18 Under the title of “MORE ‘LIVELY’ TIMES IN TITUSVILLE” we learn: Two young men named John Daily and Ed. Cozzens were

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frightfully pounded over the head by unknown parties in Titusville on Saturday night. An unsuccessful attempt was made to break into the house of Mr. Barney Bosch, of Titusville, on Sunday last, by a couple of ruffians while the family were at church. The robbers were fright- ened off by the servant girls employed in the house. In Titusville on Sunday night, a man named Thompson, the keeper of a low saloon, received a frightful stab in the head. A man named Sweeney was arrested, after making a desperate resistance, and charged with the commission of the offense. Two others still at large are also implicated. (JDJ 7 March 1871.)

19 Anonymous. Ctd. in Morris 209; Bone 275.

20 Titusville Gazette; reprinted in Crawford Journal 4 Sept. 1860. Ctd. in Giddens 206. Yet another observer drew parallels between the earlier whaling industry and the petroleum business that spelled its demise. Though statistics are hard to find, certainly some displaced whalers made their way to the oil region, and a few tongue-in-cheek amateur geologists suggested that petroleum was the residue of antediluvian whales buried about the time of Noah’s flood. Here I am more in the heart of the oily dominions than elsewhere. I find that New Bedford and Nantucket, heretofore oildom, has been unsuccessful for years past, and is coming here with its millions of money and hordes of vessel officers, to harpoon the old mother of all whales (earth) and draw her blubber by the force of steam, which must eventually injure whaling oildom very much (T. S. Scoville. Ctd. in Morris 41-43. Ctd. in Giddens 216-217. 216).

21 Cone and Johns 257, 260, 265.

22 Bone 276. Between Sigmund Freud and Jed Clampett, one scarcely knows where to begin with this fantastic dream and the well that it inspired. The chthonic native with phallic arrow – a father-figure? a Jungian shadow? —is overcome through the ministrations of the courtesan. The earth is penetrated and out rushes liquid – symbolic blood? – “with such violence” that the ground is saturated. The dreamer became, in life, a wealthy man. A number of wells were apparently sited on the basis of dreams, Spiritualist trances (most famously, the Harmonial Well) and the advice of a curious family of diviners and “well-sniffers.”

23 Titusville Gazette, ctd. in Crawford Journal 4 Sept 1860. Ctd. in Giddens 206; Gale, in Giddens 204-205.

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24 Dimick, ctd. in Henry 337-340. Ctd. in Giddens 214-215.

25 Kirkpatrick, ctd. in J. D. Henry 157-160. Ctd. in Giddens 95.

26 Epigrammatic references, in order: Sterngass, First Resorts 4; Barry, n.p.; The Chautauquan 1 Aug. 1887; Vincent, Chautauqua Movement 44-45. For a few more quotes on the virtues of Chautauqua Lake, with emphasis on its remarkable elevation, see Appendix B. I am indebted to Norman P. Carlson for bringing this tradition of hyperbole to my attention.

27 The east-west trunk lines were the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern (later, the New York Central); the Atlantic & Great Western, later consolidated with the Erie Railroad, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose northern branch passed through Warren County, Pennsylvania. Feeder routes through Chautauqua County include “the Crosscut” connecting Titusville with Buffalo via Mayville and Chautauqua Lake, the Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley & Pittsburgh, which, to the east of the Crosscut, also connected Petro- lia with Buffalo, and the Buffalo & Jamestown Railroad which, though originally projected to run into Pennsylvania, never made it south of Chautauqua County. In later decades the Jamestown, Westfield, & North West (notorious in Chautauqua lore as the “Jesus Wept & No Wonder”) would run up the east side of Chautauqua Lake, and a stub of this road would run from Mayville to the Chautauqua grounds. An electric trolley line ran up the west side of the lake after the turn of the twentieth century; its Institution station is now the Chautauqua welcoming center and main entrance.

28 A further note on the efforts of a railroad to boost the Chautauqua Lake tourist trade: the following appeared in the JDJ 14 Aug. 1873; it probably originated in the Meadville Sentinal. Note the appeal to class-conscious tourists with an eye for a bargain: The excursion announced by the A. & G. W., next Sunday to the M. E. Camp Meeting at Chautauqua Lake, is the first of its kind ever attempted in this city. We trust it will surpass expectations of the Railroad officials, both in numbers, and in the social standing of the excursionists. Of course the question to be looked at is, will these excursions be patronized liberally? And second, will the better class of people patronize them? We believe both questions will be answered in the affirmative. We come to this conclusion for the following reasons : First, Chautauqua Lake is the only popular resort, within reach of the city, where a party can be properly entertained. Second. The trip to or from the Lake is made in about two and a half hours, this giving from 7 to 10 hours for recreation or amusement, and return home by nightfall.

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Third. It is cheap. It is much cheaper than a carriage ride, a horse and buggy ordinarily costing four or five dollars per day. Fourth. It is romantic. The lake is one of the most picturesque in the country, surrounded by excellent hotels, pretty little villages, and well cultivated farms, while on the Lake are to [be] found all the necessary facilities for comfort and pleasure in the way of boats of all sizes and descriptions.

29 According to Helen Ebersole, a Dr. J. M. Kenyon of Buffalo, who occasionally came to Chautauqua to fish, recommended to his patients that they stay on Chautauqua Lake during the worst of the outbreaks. For the modest sum of $2.50 a week, several families from Buffalo summered on the Lake late in the 1820s, earning the distinction of being Chautauqua’s first seasonal boarders. (Carlson indicates that Ebersole cites George Byrne Smith’s Cicerone without attribution) An author from the east coast, Levi Beardsley, mentions traveling to Chautauqua to escape an epidemic during an even earlier era (Ctd. in Carlson 5). The earliest hotel on the Lake, on the north side of the lower basin in Fluvanna (near Jamestown), opened in 1836, and served mostly fisherman, local trade, and the early tourists. Those early visitors reportedly became annual patrons, “taking word back to the city of the moderate climate, the clean air, and the absence of mosquitoes.” Local produce filled the tables and “strict temperance principles” were observed. As shall be discussed later, the Chautauqua region would have a significant place in the Temperance movement. Chautauqua Lake’s second major hotel was at the northern end of the lake, at Mayville. The Chautauqua House opened in 1868, not coincidentally in association with the completion of the Buffalo, Oil Creek and Crosscut railroad. Petroleum and petro- dollars, as well as tourists, had a direct route to Chautauqua Lake’s northern end on the way to Buffalo. A note from the era indicates the growing the popularity of Chautauqua Lake and the distant places to which its fame had spread: “Nearly all of the available rooms at the Chautauqua House have been taken for the season by parties from the oil region, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cincinnati and even points as far west as St. Louis…” (Titusville Herald. In JDJ 30 June 1871) Lakeview (after 1880, Lakewood), on the southern shore of Chautauqua Lake, was served by the Atlantic and Great Western (later, Erie) Railroad. The village gained its first major hotel in 1870. Like the Fluvanna House, the Cowing House (renamed Lakeview House in 1872) maintained temperance principles. A number of major hotels would follow into the next century: The Sterlingworth (later Waldemere) replaced the Lakeview House; the Kent House (also run on Temperance principles, though patrons could carry in their own bottles), and the Lakewood Country Club were also significant hotels. At the peak of the Chautauqua region as a tourist destination, a dozen trains a day might stop at Lakewood. Eleven hundred passengers reportedly disgorged from one excursion train in 1889 (Ebersole 18).

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30 The longing to believe some rather harmless claims underlies and sustains the rhetoric of Chautauqua. Shortly after moving to the Chautauqua region in the mid-1980s I was soberly informed that Chautauqua Lake is among the highest lakes in the world, second only to Lake Titicaca in South America. I expressed some doubt – surely Lake Mead is higher, or the Great Salt Lake, or Great Slave Lake in Canada, or Crater Lake…. “I meant ‘natural lake,’” was followed in turn by “fresh-water lake,” further elaborated as “navigated by steamboats.” Other informants volunteered that Chautauqua Lake was – and is – “the second highest body of water with a ferry boat – a cable-ferry boat….” Or “a paddle-wheeled steamboat…” The refinements grew more elaborate: “The oldest continuously operating cable-ferry boat on a lake of such elevation in the nation, if not the world… or at least in New York.” Quite clearly, in the local imagination there exists the idea of a special claim about Chautauqua Lake’s elevation. In 1990, Carlson considered the history of the debate and declared that Chautauqua Lake was the second highest lake navigated by steam in Chautauqua County. (Findley Lake, less than 20 miles to the east, lies over 100 feet higher. Though never crossed by ferry, at one time steam yachts undoubtedly plied its surface.)

31 Warren 76. In an article at once more rhapsodical and more practical, the Chau- tauqua Assembly Herald expanded on the topic: We heard it stated the other day that the drinking water for [Chautauqua Institution] was taken from the lake. Well, it might be drawn from much worse sources than a lake twenty miles long, several hundred feet deep, fed by 10,000 springs, and drained by a large outlet. But in reality it comes from an even better source than the lake. Three years ago an inch well was put down near the engine house, and a vein of water struck which, on analysis, was found to contain traces of iron, sulphur and magnesia…. This year the old wells were re-sunk and two new ones put down, the depth of each being between thirty and forty feet, and there are now near the first mentioned five artesian wells, each throwing up a three-inch stream of water pure as a crystal and almost as cold as ice…. A large pump was put in and the water pumped over the grounds by steam power, so that to-day the water supply is at once pure, wholesome and inexhaustible. (Chautauqua Assembly Herald 5 Aug. 1887) By way of clarification, Chautauqua Lake rarely exceeds a depth of 80 feet in the upper basin, nor 20 feet in the lower; though there are many springs around and under the lake, “10,000 springs" seems somewhat fanciful. The wholesome and inexhaustible artesian wells proved insufficient for demand within a few years and pure and healthful lake water, after processing, has served the grounds ever after.

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33 Conkling 47. Unless otherwise noted, information about Point Chautauqua is either directly drawn from or confirmed by this author. Ebersole, the occasional contemporary newspaper account, and personal observations are other sources.

34 The Packard family had wide-ranging interests in retail, timber, steel, and the manufacture of electrical products. Among their commercial endeavors was the supply of railroad ties to the burgeoning railroad industry. As Warren, Ohio was served by the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, the Packards likely had commercial dealings with that road. Through their influence, Warren, Ohio became the nation’s first city to be illuminated with electrical lighting. As the Atheneum Hotel at Chautauqua was reportedly the first commercial structure to be so illumined (1881), the Packards undoubtedly had an interest in the proceedings. The Packard brothers would grow to later fame as founders of the Packard Motorcar Company; the family clearly had commercial and social connections with automaker Clem Studebaker, who would serve briefly as president of Chau- tauqua Institution.

35 From the Buffalo Courier: … an encampment of a portion of the National Guard will take place at Chautauqua Lake in August next. The command will be composed of four companies, and the title of the “Independent Bat- tallion [sic] National Guard” has been selected. It will leave here August 19th, and return on the 26th. Liet. Col. Wm. S. Bull, A. A. G. 31st brigade, goes as commander, and the members will find in him one versed in all the minutiæ of Military science, and in every way worthy of their respect and confidence. The camp will be located near Mayville, in Chautauqua county, and in one of the most delightful spots on the continent. It is to be governed by the rules and regulations of the service, and will afford a splendid opportunity for our soldiery to become familiar with camp life. At the same time there will be many means of enjoyment. The citizens of that vicinity have already made many very generous offers. Sena- tor R. E. Fenton has, with his usual cordiality, tendered the hospi- tality of his house to the men, and the use of a steamboat for an excursion on the lake. It is expected that the 74th Regimental Band will accompany the party. (Buffalo Courier. Ctd. in JDJ 30 June 1871) See Appendix C for further comments on the National Guard presence on Chau- tauqua Lake in this era.

37 For want of a better place to mention him, I would also note that, but for his un-

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timely death in 1874, Col. William Phillips of Pittsburgh, an industrialist, politician, and philanthropist, might also have contributed to the Chautauqua experiment; he certainly contributed to the development of the Chautauqua region as a tourist destination. Phillips owned in part the Crosscut railroad connecting Pittsburgh, Petrolia, Mayville, and Buf- falo. The steamboat on Chautauqua Lake named in Phillips’ honor first transported Vincent and Miller to the CLCM site in 1873. In his obituary, Phillips was said to have “discovered” Chautauqua Lake for the Pittsbourgeois (Schock 30-31). Phillips had an amusing feud with Chautauqua booster Coleman Bishop when the latter was editor of the Oil City Derrick, as a consequence of which the newsman was banned from Phillips’ railroads and presumably needed to find alternate transportation to the Assembly.

38 Hannah Whitall Smith, who met Harris personally, devotes a chapter of Reli- gious Fanaticism to Harris and his commune. Strachey; also, Centennial History of Chautauqua County 937-941.

39 A local partisan offers and even earlier genesis for the WCTU: On the day following the famous march of the crusading women on the saloons of Fredonia [NY] in December 15, 1873, claimed by many authorities as the birth of the W.C.T.U., the temperance women of Jamestown met for prayer in the Congregational Church and from there went out two by two, headed by Mrs. Bailey, to pray in the local saloons and to petition for their closing. (Stone- house 78)

40 Ida Norton’s beau, a child-hood rescuer who made good in the California gold fields, is a properly fearless, brave and true Victorian hero-adventurer type. He distinguished himself as a mining engineer in California; he a saved a mule team and driver from a runaway load of nitroglycerine through an act of cool-headed bravery and remarkable physical strength; he does not hesitate to knock silly a bounder who speaks famil- iarly of Miss Norton on the Chautauqua grounds. In the tradition of Victorian novels, their romance has all the spice of a vanilla popsicle.

41 Also known as Yehsennohwehs, apparently her Iroquoian name.

42 Pulver 49. Some further observations to complete the tenor of Pulver’s description: At the top of the hill, screened by the woods from the gaze of the vulgar, stands the vast Amphitheater, while adown the vista may be seen the halls and temples, each with its devotees pursuing the path that leads, let us hope, to perfection. To the westward the waters, vexed by shoals and urged to action by the winds, are dash- ing spitefully against the shores, while above, as if to rebuke them,

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stands the College of Liberal Arts, in dignified silence…. Chau- tauqua, new birth of Athens, long may its devotees look on this picture; look and feel the force of new inspiration (50). Only a cynic would note that the vast Amphitheater sits in a gully rather than atop a hill, that the “halls and temples” sit atop a terrace above the Amphitheater; that the lake sits to the east, rather than west, of the Chautauqua grounds, is generally unvexed by shoals in this area and, due to the prevailing winds, more likely to slap than dash the shore, and that the College of Liberal Arts was on the same plain as the halls and temples though some distance north, was screened by houses and trees from the gaze of the vulgar as well as virtuous, and was thus unable to offer any rebuke (silent or otherwise). Such was the state of Chautauqua Institution romanticizing two decades after its founding.

43 In an address to a federal commission in opposition to the 1788 Phelps and Gorham purchase of tribal lands in western New York, Cornplanter is quoted in part: "One of our sachems has said he would ask you to put him out of pain. Another, who will not think of dying by the hand of his Father, has said he will retire to Jahdahgwah, eat of the fatal root, and sleep with his fathers in peace." (Turner. Also, JDJ 7 Jan. 1873; Powers 93) Though there are objections on linguistic terms – “ja da qua” does not so translate in any known language – that the tale should be set in the western fringe of the Five Nations Confederacy in the territory of the Senecas – the “Keepers of the Western Door” – is compelling. In traditional Senecan wisdom the west is “the place of repose,” i.e., death, serving much the same function as Tartarus (“west west”) did for Greeks or, for that matter, as “The Uttermost West” does in the works of Tolkien. In the early 1860s, Col. William H. C. Hosmer, a collector of Indian lore, set the myth in poetic form. The opening stanza reflects the tone of the entire opus: Ja-Da Qua Famous in the days of yore, Bright Ja-da-qua! was thy shore, And the stranger treasure yet Pebbles that thy waves have wet; For they catch an added glow From a tale of long ago, Ere the settlers's flashing steel Rang the green-wood's funeral peal, Or the ploughshare in the vale Blotted out the red man's trail. (225-26) From a structuralist perspective, the mythic form suggests a series of elaborations in which the young woman would plunge into a nether region, though much like our own in many respects. After some interactions and possibly marriage with humans or human- like creatures she would re-emerge into this realm, typically bearing some gift or advancement for humankind (though wielding it in an ambiguous fashion) before meeting a final demise at some notable landmark significant for its mediatory qualities. Chautauqua

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Lake is precisely the sort of landmark that might, in Native lore, attract such a narrative as a mediatory space between the Great Lake and Mississippi watersheds, as well as a political boundary between contentious Native groups. As a series of interconnected lakes, Chautauqua Lake reflects in one direction the smaller Cassadaga Lakes a dozen miles east and, further east in the valley of the Cone- wango Creek, a series of great swamps that seasonally filled with water; in the other direction lies the vast great lakes system, which would have been familiar to Natives through legend and trade. Chautauqua Lake is also the westernmost of the Finger Lakes, mediating between those bodies and the Great Lakes as Lake Champlain, or perhaps even Long Island Sound, mediates between the Atlantic and the inland bodies at the Eastern end of the series. The same mediatory quality may have been expressed also in the earlier account of the “strange fish” being transported from Chautauqua to Lake Erie. The Great Lake and the lake plain is in many respects a different world from the Appalachian plateau upon which lies Chautauqua Lake, one with different biota and even weather, though at once much like the upper lake also.

44 In passing, a few more observations on Ida Norton: The Norton family, which originated in nearby Sherman, was an early and significant contributor to Chautauqua. Norton Memorial Hall, at this writing the home of the Chautauqua Opera, was constructed on land donated by the Norton family. The Gerrans name was also familiar to the early Camp and Assembly, as a Gerrans owned and operated a hotel in Mayville and leased a plot from the CLCM. Probably the patient reader could extract other inside jokes from Ida Norton, further extending its heterotopic qualities.

Notes to Chapter 2: The Evolution of the Camp Meeting

1 Epigrammatic citations, in order: Inksip, Dedicatory address at the first National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness, Vineland, New Jersey, 1867. Penuel 16- 17; Vincent, JDJ 8 Aug. 1877; Lowry 97.

2 Dieter 110ff; Brown, Holy Ground 26-50. Much of the difference between the two perspectives comes down to a matter of semantics. For Johnson, camp meetings faded when churches and conferences began to acquire property and build permanent meeting places, cottages, etc.; that is, when the campers ceased to actually camp. Later commentators dismiss this distinction.

3 For ancient Hebrew references see Leviticus 23:34, 42. Methodist Episcopal Bishop Matthew Simpson (Introduction xi-xiii) provides the most exhaustive treatment of this topic, though it was taken up by a number of other apologists: We can scarcely wonder that in ancient times, even amidst

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the darkness of idolatry, the hill-tops and the groves were favorite places of religious worship. But, as from these summits the “host of heaven” was worshiped, or in the shade of the dense grove ado- ration was given to some idol, the Jews were commanded to break down the altars and to cut down the groves. In Northern Europe the strange service of the Druids was held only in the recesses of the forest, apart from the abodes of men. Their priests were supposed, in such places, to pass their time in communion with supernatural powers. The “Feast of the Tabernacles” among the Jews in some respects seems to be the precursor of our camp-meetings. It was held in the heat of summer, immediately after harvest. To it the multitude gathered from every part of Israel, even “from Dan to Beer- sheba”…. See also Gorham 30-31, who lards the first section of his Camp Meeting Manual with Biblical and quasi-historical references.

4 See Johnson 82 for further comments and references. On the creation and early development of camp meetings, several comparisons with melodrama come to mind: both were spontaneous popular movements that advanced through trial and error; both depended on the utter revelation of all that had previously been hidden; both posited a universe of total good and absolute evil, which could be easily and unambiguously read by the most naïve observer. A comparison between romanticism and the later holiness camps and the Chautauqua Movement easily follows: these were the products of cogita- tion, reflection, and theorizing by an intelligentsia, posited a more nuanced universe that admitted moral ambiguity, and depended on the discrete performance of internalized emotions for the benefit of a sophisticated audience.

5 Twenty thousand is the number offered by most camp meeting sympathizers. Frontier preacher and camp-meeting convert Peter Cartwright, who was not at Cane Ridge, offers “twelve to twenty-five thousand” – certainly a generous margin for error (Strickland 30). One might question whether there was sufficient population within a few days’ travel time to support this figure, or whether the rural infrastructure could accommodate such on mob even if everyone brought their own provisions – an extremely unlikely proposition – or indeed if any in this rural district were accustomed to crowds of more than a few hundred at a given time, and thus inclined to err on the side of exaggeration. Where precisely all these people would have stayed is somewhat of a mystery. Historian Paul Conkin notes that “an estimated 140 wagons, or over 800 people, camped on the grounds” at Cane Ridge. One can scarcely imagine that neighboring farmers put up a putative remaining 19,000 seekers in barn, parlor, and corn-crib. Conkin’s estimate is in line with eye-witness Robert Patterson, who judged “About 12,000 persons; 125 waggons; 8 carriages.” Patterson describes the rising ex-

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citement that culminated in “Kainridge” and provides reasonable estimates of the growing crowds (Patterson). By way of further example, William Burke, a participant at Cane Ridge, ventured that “by fair calculation ten thousand people” had gathered (“Autobiog- raphy of Rev. William Burke.” Finley, Sketches 78. Ctd. in Johnson 64).

6 See Appendix D for observations on the cultural context of the trans- Appalachian south in the nineteenth century.

7 See Fischer 715-727. JDJ in 1874 would observe of the early meetings, “Every- thing was of the rudest kind, from the ministers who sought to convince with sound when they lacked ideas, to the dogs who set up most formidable opposition to the howlings of their masters.” (15 July 1874) The correspondent had over the years leveled many of these criticisms at the CLCM.

8 Frances Trollope defines a mourner as “one who, becoming alarmed about the state of his soul, began to pray and seek deliverance from the bondage and domination of sin.” (236. Ctd. in Johnson 132)

9 A late example: “Eagle Hose Co. No. 2 [a volunteer fire brigade] is represented by delegation from the company who have rented a tent, and in the short time allotted are endeavoring to lay the organization’s winter supply of religion.” (JDJ 13 July 1874)

10 At CLCM “a number of people sport the luxury of horses and cows.” Stables were erected in the woods, probably close to the highway. “Milk is very scarce which of course makes life burdensome to the babies.” (JDJ 10 July 1874). Livestock would be banned in the coming Assembly.

11 Henry A. Miller, participating at a camp meeting as a young lad, recalls his search for “the peace that passeth all understanding” at an Iowa meeting in 1865: Occasionally, a good old sister would come along and put her soft, motherly hand on my head and ask if I had “seen the light” yet? “No, it’s all dark here.” I would murmer. “You haven’t given everything up yet, then, my dear. You must let everything go and give it all to the Lord. If you do that you see a great light and you will know that you are saved.” I couldn’t understand what she meant by “letting everything go,” for I didn’t have anything that I thought the Lord could possibly want. And it wasn’t the Lord I was interested in. It was the Devil that I was trying to get away from, and that bake-oven he was operating… Why crowding around the mercy seat would get me shut of the Devil I could not make out, but the preacher had said that it would work and I was willing to try anything once. (14)

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12 The tendency of Methodists – though they are hardly alone in this regard – to adjust their theology to fit their improved social circumstance is most apparent in the issue of slavery. In its earliest conception, Methodists were radically opposed to slavery, and slave-owners needed to free their chattels as a condition of membership. The centrist Methodist Episcopal Church relaxed the early prohibition and generally avoided discussing the issue. Nevertheless, the denomination fractured over slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War. The rift has never fully healed; in the Northeast, small towns that can barely support a single congregation still occasionally maintain Free, United, and Wesleyan Methodist Churches – sometimes on adjoining lots.

13 Noted one observer, Sometimes, when unable to stand or sit, they have the use of their hands, and can converse with perfect composure. In other cases, they are unable to speak, the pulse becomes weak, and they draw a difficult breath about once a minute; in some instances their ex- tremities become cold, and pulsation, breathing and all the signs of life, forsake them for nearly an hour. Persons who have been in this situation have uniformly avowed, that they felt no bodily pain; that they had the entire use of their reason and reflection, and when recovered, they could relate everything that had been said or done near them. (George Baxter 89-91. Ctd. with note in Johnson 57-58)

14 “Little children, young men and women, and old grey-headed people, persons of every description, white and black, were to be found in every part of the multitude … crying out for mercy in the most extreme distress.” On another occasion, “There you might see little children of 10, 11 and 12 years of age, praying and crying for redemption, in the blood of Jesus, in agonies of distress.” (McGready)

15 Johnson 57. At a Baltimore “Conference” Trollope noted that “The church was almost entirely filled with women, who vied with each other in howlings and contortions of the body; many of them tore their clothes nearly off.” A few nights previous, one woman in the throes of spiritual ecstasy fell from the balcony into the arms of fellow- seekers below. Such events were reportedly fairly common (Trollope ch. 19).

16 See Fischer 680ff. for sexually provocative dress and plain-folk attitudes toward nudity in the Appalachian back-country.

17 Johnson 93. Johnson offers several variations on the witticism, citing Herbert Ashbury’s “Then as now camp meetings were followed by a great increase in the number of illegitimate births” (442); also, James G. Leyburn’s “It has been suggested that at a camp meeting more souls were begotten than saved.” (197)

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18 In 1767 Charles Woodmason estimated that 94 percent of the brides whose marriages he formalized in one year were “large with child.” Woodmason 7. Ctd. in Fischer 681.

19 Johnson 54. Though premarital sex was apparently relatively common in the region, abandonment of “ruined” women was not, so perhaps Rev. Lyle’s grumbling is directed more at the schoolmaster. The latter may well have had to contend with the woman’s family, who would have been obligated to protect the family honor via one of the region’s notorious shotgun marriages – or by the payment of a bride price in lieu of the schoolmaster’s collecting Miss Bell. See Fischer 682-683.

20 The turnabout is quite striking in the case of Smith, as she and her husband were prominent in the holiness movement, and indeed carried it to England where they were influential in founding the Keswick Convention. This latter group soon quarreled with the American holiness proponents over doctrinal issues; the rift has never fully healed. Possibly Smith’s late antipathy to camps and sanctification was a result of this dispute, though perhaps it is equally a reflection of the bitterness she experienced in her later life due to her philandering husband and alienated children.

21 JDJ 9 July 1874. A mock parable from a few days later indicates that the “lally- gaggers” had arrived, and suggests also that flirtation rather than faith was on the minds of the “wise and foolish virgins”: And as darkness and rain fell upon the earth the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, that they might see. And they did go into the Swedish tabernacle and tarry long for their bridegroom, but he tarried, for behold his hands were encased in lavender kids so tight that he could not grasp an umbrella. Therefore these virgins waxed sad at the thought of ile [sic] wasted while their wise sisters whose lamps were empty rejoiced and were exceeding glad at the thought of the 10 cents kerosene that had been saved. And yet another note from that same issue: One young man disembarked from one of the steamers at the wharf to-day and after purchasing a ticket … sat down upon a log to study the mysterious letters on it, C. L. C. M. A. and the conclusion that he had trium- phantly reached as we passed him was, “come, love, come, mother’s away,” and he immediately repaired to the ticket office to see if in any way he could alleviate the loneliness of any forlorn young damsel’s position. He was referred to the Secretary’s office. (JDJ 11 July 1874) A later gloss on the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle was “Come, Love, Sit Closer.” (Rieser 219) Though I here anticipate later discussions, the attentions of young men dominate the novelized accounts of the early Chautauqua Assembly in Alden’s Four

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Girls and play no small part in Moore’s Ida Norton.

22 Other women of interest to this study, Hannah Whitall Smith, mentioned several times above; Jennie Willing, a holiness author and speaker, lectured at the first season of the Fair Point Sunday School Assembly. Like her husband, Jennie Willing was a licensed preacher, and engaged in the founding of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement. See Brown 71 for a more complete listing; also Stanley, Women. The influence of these early women in the Wesleyan Holiness movement is still felt and discussed today, particularly in feminist circles. See Stanley, “Empowered.”

23 At a camp meeting, “Tom Meriwether became alarmed, lest his wife’s love might be drawn away from him, and placed upon what he took no interest in. He seized her by the arm and led her forcibly away.” (Gilmer 117)

24 Cartwright, Autobiography 141, 270-72; Brunson, Journals and Letters Book 1, 250; Jacob Young, Autobiography of a Pioneer. Cincinnati:1857. 233-34. Citations in Johnson, 224. Conversely, Robert Baird blames the presence of city-folk for rowdiness (491).

25 President Andrew Jackson, a product of this backwoods culture, abducted his wife, Rachel Donelson Robards, from her previous husband in just such a raid. His rival never appeared in court to press a suit for kidnapping; he was at the appointed time being pursued by Jackson with the threat that the future president would “cut his ears out of his head” and worse. Jackson was subsequently free to marry the woman on grounds that she had been abandoned by her husband (Fischer 669-671).

26 See Waldrep 767-784. Also, Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor 46-48.

27 See Mangan for a development of this theme.

28 JDJ 15 July 1874. Yet another reminiscence on camp meeting rowdiness comes from the Chautauqua Assembly Herald: When we remember the Sundays spent at camp meetings years ago, as the rowdies of every nook and corner of the regions round about the encampment gathered in for a free and rolicksome time, order was at a discount, the meetings were frequently disturbed, fights were common, a preacher who interposed in the interest of propriety and peace was likely to be assaulted by a pugilist. We know preachers who bear marks of this sort of abuse to this day, and will carry them to their graves. (12 Aug. 1876)

29 Hogan’s religious career was not the financial equal of his former life, but he

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probably added several decades to his mortal existence in turning to the Lord. During this period he learned to read and write, composed his autobiography, and offered a number of interviews detailing his former activities. These provide a valuable insight into tenor of the age. Hogan’s most notorious mistress of his oildom days, “French Kate,” reportedly never repented and died a pauper (See Ernest Miller). Ellen Weiss provides another account of interest under this rubric, concerning the camp meetings in New England: The famed “Camp Meeting John Allen,” a “bold, blatant, rum drinking, fun making Universalist” in his youth, was converted at a meeting at Industry, Maine, in 1825. A figure at all New England revivals, he finally found Perfect Love at the first National Camp Meeting Association Holiness meeting in 1867. He died at 92 having attended 374 revivals. (21)

30 27. Gorham’s comments on persons of an excitable nature are equally instructive: “Some persons are inclined to make unnecessary ado any where and about any matter. Such persons, among others, attend Camp Meetings; and they are there what they are at home; excitable, headlong and vociferous.” While admitting that the histrionic characters have done “much to the injury of the solemnity and success of the Meeting,” he cautions that …neither the Camp Meeting nor any other meetings are intended to revolutionize the intellectual habits of men; and … what strikes many persons as disorder in a religious exercise, is, when rightly viewed, no more than a proper and scriptural instance of religious zeal. (53)

31 “…the preacher’s tent is the poorest shanty on the ground – a dry goods box would be a great improvement in the accommodations.” (JDJ 12 Aug. 1873)

32 Some comparisons with the Greek theater come to mind. The camp meeting’s speaker’s stand, elevated above the altar, recalls the relationship between the Greek skene and orkestra. The thymele at the center of the Greek orkestra is understood to be the place of an altar – the very term used to describe the American camp meeting site. For both the ancient Greeks and nineteenth-century Americans, the orkestra/altar was a liminal space: here one confronted, either personally or vicariously, the unknown. The Greek chorus typically represented the humblest of society; the camp meeting mourners were understood to “humble themselves” before God as the means to their salvation. The Greek chorus was chosen and rehearsed with care; camp meeting mourners were volunteers, though their actions increasingly took on conventionalized forms, and clearly there were many veteran performers. For both the Greek chorus and the evangelical mourner, the participant was subjected to scrutiny by both the audience behind in the auditorium and the ministers – the representatives of God – before them on the elevated stage.

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33 “To exhort” (from the Latin exhortari) is an incitement by verbal means to do laudable or commendable acts. By extension, it provides a caution against the contrary behavior. The term appears in 15 passages in the New Testament; its usage almost always suggests a public setting.

34 From the JDJ report on the CLCM meeting of 16 Aug. 1872: The sermon was followed with an exhortation by Rev. Smith, who is what is called an old fashioned shouting Methodist. He can shout, sing and pray all in the same breath, and is one of the best exhorters on the ground. His exhortation was mostly in song, but it carried conviction, and when a call was given for those who wanted an interest in Heaven to come forward around the pulpit, a half dozen took the first step. The prayer meeting that followed was the best yet, and a number got happy and shouted.

35 “Frequently, women were chosen to sing for those under stress in the altar area or mourner’s tents. Housewives were said to be particularly ‘good shout- ers.’” (Johnson 139)

36 JDJ 12 July 1874. The anonymous Daily Journal correspondent is disingenuous in his reporting. In prior years he had noted instances of “the power” coming down, either in the general meetings or in the prayer tents.

37 Silence and restraint characterized the services in particular of John Inskip, who was part of this event, and the clear leader of the holiness movement. Raymond Brown says of Inskip that he “was a master at keeping emotion under control in the vast assemblies. His prayers could lift a congregation to its feet in praise. His use of silence was almost overwhelming in its spiritual power….” Occasionally shouting was permitted at the great holiness meetings, but ever the message was to “confess Christ and profess holiness, and discharge … religious duties governed by faith, not feeling.” (Brown, Inskip 102-103, citing William McDonald in McClean 268) Hannah Whitall Smith and John Heyl Vincent would likewise diminish the earlier emphasis on emotion as a religious barometer.

38 The slightly tongue-in-cheek conclusion to a note in the Jamestown Journal (3 Apr. 1868) sharpens the controversy of probationary periods, and offers as well a critique of hot-house preaching: The Methodist, a religious weekly, publishes statistics of the M.E. Church which show that from 1850 to 1860 there applied for membership in that church 1,200,000 persons. These were placed on probation, and only 175,000, about one in seven, perse-

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vered in the intention by actually becoming members. More than one million turned back from their first purpose. We regard this not as an argument against the probationary plan – for we doubt if the church of the converts would have been better off if the whole number had been immediately received in full connections; if they couldn't live religion three months on trial they certainly could not for a life time. It is rather an illustration of the unabiding effects of sensational preaching and great revivals. In noticing this fact an exchange tells the irreverent anecdote of a young man who made application for membership of a church, and was placed on probation for the usual period. His conduct having been exemplary, he was notified that he would be received, but replied that he made up his mind to join a fire company.

39 Charles Finney provides four interrelated definitions of backsliding, and follows with 32 “evidences” of the backslidden heart. Of backsliding: 1. It consists in taking back that consecration to God and his service, that constitutes true conversion. 2. It is the leaving, by a Christian, of his first love. 3. It consists in the Christian’s withdrawing himself from that state of entire and universal devotion to God, which constitutes true religion, and coming again under the control of a self-pleasing spirit. 4. The text implies that there may be a backslidden heart, when the form of religion and obedience to God are maintained. As we know from consciousness that men perform the same, or similar acts from widely different, and often from opposite motives, we are certain that men may keep up all the outward forms and appearances of religion, when in fact, they are backslidden in heart. There is no doubt, that the most intense selfishness often takes on a religious type, and there are many considerations, that might lead a backslider in heart, to keep up the forms, while he had lost the power of godliness in his soul. (Finney 412-413)

40 My spouse, raised in the conservative Wesleyan tradition, recalls regularly joining in the altar calls of her youth. The transience of salvation was regularly emphasized in her home congregation; it might be lost in a moment of sin. “You can’t be too careful,” was her rationale at the time. Such emphasis directly followed the theology of Charles Finney, who noted in his Lectures on Revival of Religion (15.2.13), that A revival will decline and cease, unless Christians are frequently re-converted. By this I mean, that Christians, in order to keep in the spirit of a revival, commonly need to be frequently convicted, and humbled, and broken down before God, and re-converted. This is something which many do not understand, when we talk about a Christian’s being re-converted. But the fact is that in a revival the

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Christian’s heart is liable to get crusted over, and lose its exquisite relish for divine things; his unction and prevalence in prayer abates, and then he must be converted over again. It is impossible to keep him in such a state as not to do injury to the work, unless he pass through such a process every few days. I have never labored in revivals in company with any one who would keep in the work and be fit to manage a revival continually, who did not pass through this process of breaking down as often as once in two or three weeks.

41 Trollope on several occasions recounts these conventionalized attitudes of piety, assumed particularly by young women. A few pages earlier she observed of the Indiana camp meeting that It is certain that the combined voices of such a multitude, heard at dead of night, from the depths of their eternal forests, the many fair young faces turned upward, and looking paler and lovelier as they met the moon-beams, the dark figures of the officials in the middle of the circle, the lurid glare thrown by the altar-fires on the woods beyond, did altogether produce a fine and solemn effect, that I shall not easily forget…

42 Though I do not wish to enter into theological quibble with Wyatt, I doubt that many who have undergone a loss-of-faith experience would characterize it as a voluntary decision. Yet, having undergone such a loss, the individual has little choice but to maintain the forms of religion in the face of hypocrisy (see note 39, above) or throw the whole experience over and rejoin the ranks of the unrepentant. Or make another trip to the altar.

43 By contrast, desire was not sin; the sin lay in acting intemperately on desire or dwelling on and deliberately cultivating tempting thoughts. In this the Methodists distinguished themselves from the followers of Augustine, for whom “the natural desires out of which parental relations arise” were inherently sinful. See Lowry 83-84.

44 Radical anti-Catholicism was a driving force in American Protestantism and camp meetings throughout the era. Anything “not found in Scripture” was unceremoni- ously discarded. D. Holmes offers the following polemic in his introduction to a volume of didactic sermons published in 1853, and establishes the Bible as the source of all religious practice and innovation: The Popish and semi-Popish notion, that the Bible is not sufficient, taken alone, is discarded as unworthy a place in a Christian creed, and a virtual denial of the authority of Revelation. Tradition, however important as a portion of Church history, has neither a co- ordinate or subordinate authority, in anything essential in the doc-

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trine and government of the Church. What may have been said by Fathers, Popes, or Councils, is of very little consequence, unless confirmed by Holy Scriptures, notwithstanding their self-proclaimed infallibility. The Bible is more ancient than fathers, more wise than councils, and more infal- lible than Popes. It is the exact and perfect standard of truth; the unerring wisdom of God. Our religious views and practices are neither true nor useful, unless moulded and directed by its divine teachings, and moral power. (Hedding v)

45 Sanctification was, mirabile dictu, credited with the better behavior of the attendees at the holiness camp meetings. Notes Simpson: In some instances, doubtless, expressions have been uttered and views have been maintained for which we would be unwilling that the “National Camp-Meeting” should be responsible. It is, however, occasion of devout thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father that our meeting has been much less disturbed in the way intimated than ordinary camp-meetings frequently are. (12)

46 Christian holiness, though not a moribund topic in this day, has generally fallen out of theological fashion beyond the circle of its adherents. Nevertheless, it can still generate some hair-splitting (the uninitiated might say “head-splitting”) theological debate. See, for example, Deiter, et al. Five Views of Sanctification.

47 John Brinkerhoff Jackson observes with some disappointment that camp meeting sites in the south were often in mundane spaces utterly devoid of aesthetic interest despite the many scenic spots available. His interpretation is that, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, sites were rendered sacred by the actions that transpired there. This he contrasted with the Greek sense of sacred sites preexisting without human intervention. (On this line, see Scully.) Weiss contends that “shelter, privacy, and isolation were requirements for revival sites, not openness, drama, and splendid views.” (11) Both critics fail to account for the folkways of the Southeastern back-country, which had little regard for the aesthetics of the landscape, and concentrated instead on practicalities. See Fischer 759- 763.

48 To again quote Weiss: “Camp meeting at sites which had to be approached by water offered another range of psychic dislocations to aid religious experience. The passage increased the distance from the worldly matters, and the sound of lapping waters on shore close to the preaching area added to the joyous mixture of natural sensations.” (12)

49 See Weiss for the most considered discussion of this phenomenon.

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Notes to Chapter 3: The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting

1 “A number of young gentlemen from Buffalo are here on a camping-out expedition. They have their tent a little back from the general encampment, but so far as we can judge the religious services are but little observed under their canvass – it is not that kind of party.” (JDJ 11 July 1874)

2 A rather equivocal note from 1874 catches some of the concerns surrounding the admissions fee. It was argued that the gate fee in lieu of individual collections might have served to discourage both honest but poor seekers as well as those in search of some free entertainment: The first object that confronts the traveler to the new Jeru- salem is the gate keeper, who requires from each one passing on to the Holy ground ten cents for single admission and forty for the season. We heard one of the boys murmur, as he uneasily felt in his pocket for the desired change, that if this was the way the affair was to be managed he had rather be a door-keeper at the gates of the Lord than to go inside and dwell in the tents of the righteous. But he is a habitual grumbler, and of course could not be expected to see that there is a vast difference between charging an admission fee to a camp-meeting ground, and one to any other place of amusement. True, in response to these silencing arguments of ours, he howled out that “Salvation is free, to you and me,” but he does not understand that this idea is exploded, and that the rich man does not now meet with the difficulties we read of. (JDJ 8 July 1874) “Ajax,” CLCM’s harshest critic, said of the fifteen-cent daily charge that Of course, this is a moderate sum, but after this, to the sinners’ ear and sinner’ mind the eloquent discourses are as “sounding brass and tinkling cymbal,” and very inconsistent seems the words of the good old hymn “salvation is free &c.” be it sung never so sweetly. (JDJ 16 July 1874)

3 The committee’s specific charge: The resolutions on a camp ground, reported, by the committee and adopted item by item by the Convention, are as follows : 1. That this meeting at once take measures to secure and prepare a lot of ground on the shore of Chautauqua Lake. 2. That we appoint a committee of three to secure the refusal of a suitable site for said camp.

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3. That we appoint a committee of three to prepare a petition and secure a charter from the State Legislature by which the grounds may be controlled by an association – to be called the Erie Con- ference Association, and that we designate the following nine persons as charter members: Wm. Gifford, Darius Scofield, C. L. Jeffords, John P. Hall, John Smallwood, Isaac Moore, Alonzo Kent, Rev. J. E. Chapin and Rev. R. A. Caruthers. 4. That we instruct the Committee to petition for a charter, au- thorizing the Association to hold 100 acres of land, fixing the shares at $50 and the capital stock at $40,000. 5. That we appoint a committee consisting of the presiding elders to solicit subscriptions to the shares of stock to be paid when $5,000 is raised. 6. That the chairman of the committee on sale of stock be instructed to call a meeting within 60 days, or at such time as sufficient stock shall have been taken to warrant the purchase of the grounds.

4 The “Official Notice” of the CLCM appeared in the Jamestown Daily Journal of 2 June 1871, and reads in part: Boards for tent purposes can be had on the ground, or tents will be made to order for those desiring it, or they can be had to rent, or frames for muslin tents can be had. Persons desiring accommodations in either of the above ways will please correspond immediately with Hiram Pratt, Mayville, Chau. Co. N.Y. Any person desiring to keep boarding tents would do well to address the same. No huckstering will be allowed, nor sale of anything but what belongs legitimately to a boarding house.

5 The rapidity of the decision-making process was emphasized in the newspaper account: For weeks past, the principal topic of conversation among residents of this locality, and more especially among the Method- ists, has been the Camp Meeting at Fair Point, on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. This is chiefly due to the fact, of no Camp Meetings having been held in this section for a number of years, and they being a distinctive feature of Methodism, it was deemed advisable – both for the interest of the Church and community – that such a meeting be held. As this was determined on, measures were at once taken by a few active men to perfect arrangements for holding such a meeting, and accordingly an association was formed, a charter procured, and after careful examination of vari-

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ous points of land on the shore of the lake by a committee appointed for that purpose, Fair Point was selected as the place most desirable for holding such meetings. (JDJ 29 June 1871)

6 Homer H. Moore served in the Jamestown pulpit in 1847; his reminiscences can be found in local papers as late as 1908. “H. H. Moore” would report from several locales in Petrolia and nearby Ashville, Ellington, Frewsburg, Panama, and in nearby Salamanca, on the Seneca Indian Reservation (where he founded a church), all in New York. I have not been able to establish a relationship between Homer and Isaac Moore, a charter member of the CLCM (Stonehouse 146, 169).

7 The relationship between Meadville and Chautauqua has not, to my knowledge, been appropriately assessed. Judge John McCalmont, of Meadville and Franklin, Penn- sylvania, presided over the CLCM’s founding. Meadville was an important financial center and transshipment point for Pennsylvania oil, and was directly connected with Chautauqua via the Atlantic & Great Western (later Erie) Railroad. Travel time in the era was little more than two hours by train. The city would regularly send carloads of participants to the camp meeting sessions and the later Assembly. Meadville is home to Alle- gheny College, a Methodist-supported institution founded in 1815, and historically engaged with activities on Chautauqua Lake. As a student at Allegheny College, Ida Tarbell came under the influence of Theodore Flood and was soon reporting for the Chautauqua Assembly Herald.

8 Sessions expanded in future years. The daily schedule of 1873 consisted of a general prayer meeting at 6 o’clock, a conference and prayer meeting at 8 o’clock, preaching at 10 o’clock, and in the afternoon preaching at 2 o’clock, followed by exhortation and prayer meeting, social meetings in the tents at 6 o’clock, and preaching again at 7:30 in the evening. This programme of exercises will be carried out during the meeting, or added to as the occasion requires. Lest anyone harbored confusion, the correspondent cautioned that “The Methodists are assembled here for religious worship, and all the available time will be taken up in some service.” The schedule typified later camp-meetings, as “the Devil makes work for idle hands.”

9 The Chautauqua Lake Journal assured attendees that horses could be stabled free of charge for those who attended to their own stock, or “placed under care of trustworthy men, by whom they will be fed grain and hay as directed, at reasonable rates.” (1.1.1) Some of the notices are simply baffling to the modern reader, as they depend on colloquialisms of the era, or on inside jokes, or both: “Lo,” not an Indian, attended the encampment Sunday. A collec-

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tion was taken up for the Sailor’s Home, Cleveland, and the ministers who counted the proceeds went behind a pile of wood for that purpose. “Lo,” perceiving this, gathered a crowd around, and then shouted for a “police!” as a party of fellows behind that woodpile were playing “poker.” He “straddled” their “blind,” and they “saw” it. “Lo” was apparently Louis B. Sessions, a local judge. While the nomenclature of poker is accurately deployed, the joke simply makes no sense – unless (and until) some alternate meaning for “poker” comes to light. The special collection is worth noting; in future years the CLCM would, like many camp meetings, abandon such practices and depend wholly on admission fees, leases, commercial rentals, and benefaction to meet their financial obligations. (See JDJ 9 July 1873 for the specific decision to adopt this policy. See also Brown, Inskip for a more substantial discussion of the collection issue.)

10 See, for example, JDJ 16 July 1871. Waite’s efforts were in vain; Gillette still refused permission to have his Sunday sermons reported in the Daily.

11 Regionally, temperatures approach freezing on average 180 days of the year. The sheltered Chautauqua Institution site probably sees another month of frost annually. Snow may be observed any time between early September and mid-May across the southern shore of Lake Erie.

12 JDJ 6 July 1874; the travails of the recalcitrant planer – purchased by the association – were traced in subsequent editions. The clearing of brush and trash wood is often noted, so often, in fact, that I conclude that the grounds had been at least partially logged in previous decades. A climax forest has little undergrowth; heavy brush – sumac, sassafras, and the oft-mentioned berry brambles – indicates an open canopy, as these are the first to colonize a cleared forest.

13 Of the catastrophically rainy 1874 season, the Jamestown correspondent observed, “It was a fine test for the roofs of some of the new cottages, and the owners of those that were weighed and found dripping are this morning growling Biblical names and skirmishing around for more shingles.” (JDJ 8 July 1874) Apparently more than a few roofs had been shingled with the unseasoned wood.

14 As discussed elsewhere, Hurlbut, who was never a part of the original camp meeting, is the most dismissive of the CLCM: From time to time there have been fires, most of them a benefit in clearing away old shacks of the camp-meeting strata; and one took place on a night during the season of 1889. It swept away a row of small houses along the south-western border of Miller Park, toward the Land of Palestine. Their site was kept unoccupied, leaving a

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clear view of the lake… (245) The fire occurred on the night of March 19, 1887, not during the regular season. Fifty-five cottages were totally destroyed and another dozen were scorched; the loss was estimated at $75,000. Of interest to this study, H. H. Moore’s dwelling was a total loss; he was uninsured, as were most of the cottagers. Moore was by this date hailing from Pleasantville, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Petrolia. Though many lessees sold back their plots at “fair market value,” there were holdouts, worsening a long-standing antagonism between the Assembly and lessees who held prior claims from the CLCM era. (20 Mar. 1887 first reported the story; regular follow-ups would continue well into the summer.) The Evening Journal emphasized the economic loss to cottagers, many of whom held these dwellings as income properties. Given the crowds that were packing the lake during those summer seasons, there were questions of where visitors could be lodged given the loss of so many beds. No-one, apparently, suggested returning to tent living on the site.

15 Ctd. in JDJ 19 Aug. 1872; 6 July 1874; 15 July 1874. The Chautauqua Lake Journal mentions “25 or 30” cottages on the site in 1873. See Appendix E for an extended discussion of properties and owners from JDJ in that same year.

16 One should recall that in that great age of melodrama, sentiment served as a grounding agent for rootless populations. See Brooks, Melodramatic Imagination.

17 Swedes still make up the dominant ethnic group in Jamestown, and in the era they had their own M. E. congregation as well as the more usual Lutheran churches; they were clearly a significant presence at the CLCM. The absence of a Black contingent at the CLCM is surprising, given the Methodist Episcopal denomination’s very public welcoming of African-Americans, the generally good regard held for the region’s Afri- can-American minority population, and that group’s affinity for camp meetings dating from the ante-bellum era. This failure in race relations would carry through into the Assembly, and is the source of arguably the most pointed critique of the Chautauqua Movement: its failure to welcome or accommodate many outside its WASP cohort.

18 JDJ 11 July 1874. The main thoroughfare of Jamestown had been unofficially renamed in response to the many dogs and their continuous fighting in the city.

19 “Chapter 195, ‘An Act to authorize the “Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting As- sociation of the Erie Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church” to convey certain property.’ Passed May 2, 1876.” History 52-53. Though legislatively deeded in “fee simple,” there were clearly “conditions subsequent” to the acquisition: the site needed to remain a place of religious endeavor.

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Notes to Chapter 4: The Fair Point Sunday School Assembly

1 Epigrammatic citations, in order: JDJ 13 Aug. 1873; CAH 5 Aug. 1879; Rich- mond, Invitation 4.

2 Brown, Sychar 74. Ball was a significant party in the formation of Camp Sychar in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Founded in 1870, Camp Sychar is the oldest holiness meeting in continuous operation in the country, if not the world.

3 History 46; Henderick 159, 129. Henderick notes that Lewis Miller, with his brothers Jacob and Levi, shared in a lock and safe manufactory in Westfield, New York, in Chautauqua County, from 1869-71; it is possible that Miller gained an association with the CLCM founders and Chautauqua Lake (only a few miles south of Westfield) in this period, and given his support of such ventures – and an interest in speculation – he may have been an early investor. Henderick further notes that a lot was acquired on the CLCM grounds in the Miller family name as early as 1871, though such a transition is not found in Liber 157. JDJ notes in 1875 that Lewis Miller became board president of the CLCM; about this time also are found mentions of his association with the Erie Conference of the M.E. Church, the sponsoring body of the CLCM. Rebecca Richmond clearly drew some information from Henderick without cred- iting that author, and in the echo chamber that is Chautauqua Institution history, improved upon the founder’s alleged distaste for camp meetings.

4 According to Leon Vincent, J. H. Vincent logged over 17,000 miles on church business in 1871, and nearly as many in the following year (108).

5 Matthew Simpson (1811-1884) was most notably the orator at Lincoln’s funeral in Illinois; he was acquainted with President U. S. Grant, from whom he declined an ambassadorial post, as well as most leading Union politicians of the Civil War era. Simpson was also closely associated with the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Allegheny College in Meadville, where he served for a time as president. Both cities, needless to say, were relatively close to Chautauqua and could be depended on to send a delegation. Simpson was present at the dedication of the first Chautauqua Amphitheater in 1879, so this camp-meeting veteran clearly held a long-term interest in the Assembly.

6 Maxey offers the Puritan information without further attribution. Fischer, the more trustworthy source in my view, offers the supporting evidence here presented toward Puritan Sunday schools ( 97-102; 117-125), but makes no specific mention of Sunday schools anywhere in his 900 page tome.

7 From JDJ 10 Aug. 1874:

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-- Directly after the services were over last evening a strong calcium light in the back part of the ground was suddenly thrown upon the scene, and the “Oh mys” and “John, take your arm away, quick” that escaped from young people who imagined themselves in dark nooks gave something of an idea as to the object of the meeting. 8 The JDJ correspondent noted approvingly of this policy that “If such a place could be adopted at other meetings where there are a number who desire to speak, we believe it would be much more satisfactory to hearers.” (JDJ 11 Aug 1874) 9 See Gorham for several camp meeting layouts from the era; though historian and critic Jeanne Halgren Kilde confines her discussion to tent revivals (22-23), her observations on the physical arrangements and relationships are germane to camp meetings also.

10 W. W. Wythe was a notorious somniloquent – a peculiarity that occasioned some mirth at the CLCM, and likely carried through in later years. One quiet night in 1871 he was reported to loudly exclaim, “Haloo, there! What are you hanging your head down for? Why aren’t you up here exhorting, and put a proboscis on my sermon, and make an elephant of me?” (JDJ 29 June 1871)

11 Typically, there are reports that one doesn’t quite know what to make of, though I suspect that the mystery of the following account turns on the possession of alcoholic beverages: A number of Franklin, Pa., boys who have been camping out just above Lake View, have folded up their tents and stole away to this beautiful place. They are very comfortably situated, and from a distance can be seen their watchword suspended between two trees, the magic word “Eureka,” and from personal knowledge we can say that they do have it. (JDJ 12 Aug. 1874)

12 The issue of ticket-dodging was placed before the Jamestown public: People buying a single admission ticket for twenty cents would gain admittance to the grounds and remain there during the two weeks, the same as those possessing a season ticket and in the immense crowd it was impossible to detect them. Perhaps it would be a good idea for those who have nothing to do but find fault with the way affairs have been managed, to puzzle their brains over this matter and suggest some practicable method by which all money due could be collected. (JDJ 13 Aug. 1874) The “practicable method” still in force today requires everyone to show their tickets upon departing the grounds. To forestall those who arrive before the season starts and reside until after it closes, the management reserves the right to challenge anyone on the grounds to produce a valid gate pass at any time.

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13 The National Camp Meeting had by that year split into several regional meetings; were the CLCM board willing to make the necessary adjustments (specifically, Sunday gate-closing and the elimination of tobacco sales on the grounds), they might have had a reasonable chance at luring one of the National sessions but for the presence of the Assembly. Regionalism was clearly a factor in the siting of the NCMPH camps, and the locational benefits that so well served the Assembly certainly would have done as well for any national meeting on the site. Though not related to religious camps, in the same year (1874), local boosters were trying to lure national rowing championships to Chautauqua Lake; it was, in their eyes, “just a few hours more” travel time from Lake Champlain, its traditional home, and far more accessible to mid-westerners. Competitive rowing in the era was something of a national obsession. The first rail line down the western shore of Chautauqua Lake from Mayville to Fair Point was constructed so that racing fans would have a moving platform from which to observe a rowing competition.

14 Kenneth Brown, e-mail to author 27 June 2006. Brown is a most sympathetic participant in camp meetings; in the same exchange he offered the following perspective on the rupture between the Assembly and the traditional camp meeting partisans: Much of the problem came from the camp meeting folk. They never gave Chautauqua a fair chance. I know that Methodist reviv- alist Joseph H. Smith was strongly against Chautauqua simply because it was not, in his view, friendly to holiness revivalism of the camp meeting stripe. He considered Chautauqua a kind of per- version of the camp meeting idea! The holiness folk never seemed to "get it" that there were other valid points of view! Not everybody appreciated or even wanted their kind of evangelism….

15 In one of the opening sessions of the Fair Point Assembly, an elaborate sermon by L. F. Townsend (declared “one of the grandest lectures … ever heard” by the JDJ reporter) detailed the correspondence of the Bible with the known sciences (JDJ 8 Aug. 1874). This theme would echo from the Chautauqua platform for many seasons.

16 Smith’s Christian’s Secret remains in print and is considered a “Christian Clas- sic” (though it has its detractors); its mystical theology easily dovetails with Vincent’s holistic approach to spirituality. Smith’s association with the Women Christian Temper- ance Movement – a product of the first Chautauqua Assembly – points to Smith’s interest in that event, though I find no mention of her presence at that first Assembly.

17 Chautauqua Movement 4-5. Though often mentioned, the complete tenets of the Chautauqua Movement are rarely reproduced in full. Ergo, see Appendix F.

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18 George M. Pullman was clearly a leader in this trend, both as a taste-maker for the American public in his lavishly-appointed rail cars and in the Chicago community he erected for his laborers. “Throughout his professional life Pullman acted on his belief that a well-designed home environment, whether the intended inhabitants were middle-class railroad passengers or industrial workers, would foster conduct conducive to public harmony.” (Richter, 192, n. 68. See also Buder, Stanley. Pullman: An Experiment in Indus- trial Order and Community Planning, 1880-1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. 61-62.) Though I have not been able to determine a direct link between Pullman and the Chautauqua Movement, undoubtedly their views were substantially in harmony. Pullman was a product of Chautauqua County; his childhood home in Brocton lay less than ten miles to the north-east of the Chautauqua Lake. He clearly maintained an interest in the region and would lend his name to the occasional public works project.

19 See Lippy 10-17 for an excellent discussion of the bifurcation of evangelicalism in the late nineteenth century, and also an important reading of the emergence of the Chautauqua Movement.

20 Marion Wilbur, one of Alden’s “Four Girls,” wonders at the behaviors of Chau- tauquans: “What if they all had to wear badges," she said to herself, "badges that read 'I am a Christian,' I wonder how many of them it would influence to different words than they are speaking, or to different acts? I wonder if they do all wear them? I wonder if the distinction is really marked, so one looking on could detect the difference, though all of them are strangers?” (104-105) The sophisticated observer might detect Chautauqua Christians by their words and deeds, not their “badges.” Alden’s other “Girls” were Flossy Shipley, Ruth Erskine, and Eureka J. Mitchell, usually known as “Eurie.”

21 A few more thoughts from Vincent on authentic, as opposed to formalistic, religion: [Chautauquans] discriminate between … Divine possession which captures and sways intellect and will, weekdays and Sundays, in business and in church life, steadily and effectively, – and the mere spasms of resolution under the pressure of occasion, the selfish efforts over fancied personal security, the studied outward confor- mity to religious duties, according to the ebb and flow of religious emotion. (Chautauqua Movement 18) So far as I have been able to determine, these mild comments against camp-meeting histrionics are about as polemical as Vincent ever gets in contrasting behaviors at camp meetings and at the Assembly.

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22 Prayers at meals were equally subdued and discrete; only the patient and educated observer would detect them and recognize the significance: There was another little thing that interested Marion. …[S]he found herself watching curiously what proportion of the guests observed that instant of silent thanks with covered eyes. It was so brief, so slight a thing, I venture that scarcely a person there noticed it …(104)

23 This is not to suggest an end to public prayer; massed women who “dropped to their knees and prayed” in front of saloons were often a successful in the early Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

24 Similar expressions are found in Four Girls: "If you were at home you wouldn't think of going to church. Why, Flossy Shipley, I never knew you to go out in the rain! I thought you were always afraid you would spoil your clothes." "That was because I had none already spoiled to wear," Flossy answered, cheerily; "but that difficulty is obviated; I have spoiled two dresses since I have been here. This one now is indif- ferent to the rain, and will be for the future. I have an improvement on that plan, though; I mean to have a rainy-day dress as soon as I get home." (384)

Notes to Conclusion

1 Epigrammatic citations, in order: “A Sinful Man” 85-88. Qtd. in Kilde 451; Bouchier web-log 19 May 2007.

2 For a parallel view of this phenomenon as it unfolded on the shores of the Atlan- tic, see Troy Messenger’s Holy Leisure: Recreation and Religion in God’s Square Mile. My approach to performance issues at camp meetings and Chautauqua have been shaped by Messenger to a greater degree than references indicate. Lippy also presents a cogent summation of the changing performance behaviors.

3 Though little heard of in the first sessions, the establishment of a center for Spiritualism, Lilydale Assembly, but a few mile s to the east of Chautauqua Lake in 1879 was cause for substantial concern, and for some years the evils of communing with spirits were a regular topic from the Chautauqua podium. The very use of the term “Assembly” by the upstart Spiritualists must have been cause for some dismay.

4 Methodism was, as previously mentioned, staunchly anti-slavery in its earliest

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conception, though the Methodist Episcopals elected to avoid confronting the issue so far as possible in the pre-Civil War era. During the Civil War and in the post-war years the M.E. was a leader in reconstruction. A report from the M.E. quadrennial conference in Chicago (1868) notes: The Protestant Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Association Church, the African M. E. Church, and the African Zion Church were represented, either by delegates or petitions asking that steps be taken effect a union of the body they represented, and the M. E. Church. These delegates and petitions were received and responded to in a manly, cordial spirit, and the probability is that the three last mentioned churches and the M. E. Church will soon become one body. Somewhat later the report notes: Two colored ministers from Southern Conferences were present as delegates, and without the slightest opposition took their seats in the Confererence. Rev. Lynch, from Mississippi, one of the colored delegates, was also a member of the Republican Convention, and is a man of marked ability. (Jamestown Journal 21 May 1868) A clarification followed in another edition: “The rent made in the great Methodist Church some years ago by the schism of slavery” – the succession of the Southern Methodists in 1845 – “has not been healed…. The M. E. Church South must become purged of its pro-slaveryism and negro-degrading notions before it can desire or receive recognition by the parent body…. By the passage of two resolutions eight new Conferences were admitted to representation… The fact that some of the delegates were colored did not enter into the discussion at all. (Jamestown Journal 29 May 1868)

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NEWSPAPER REFERENCES, CITATIONS, NOTES, AND COMMENTARIES

Abbreviations: JDJ Jamestown Daily Journal JEJ Jamestown Evening Journal CAH Chautauqua Assembly Herald

The Jamestown Journal (a weekly founded in 1836) in most issues during the era under consideration contained a column of “Pennsylvania Locals” in which might be found tidbits from the oil district. Until January, 1868 this column is usually found on page three; it afterward moved to page five. There are also irregular multipage supple- ments, though none seem to have bearing on this study. Editions referenced are edited by Coleman Bishop, who would later become founding editor of the Oil City Derrick. Bishop remained a significant booster of the Chautauqua region; regrettably, I have not been able to consistently trace his coverage of things Chautauquan after his move to Petrolia except as they appeared as abstracts in a Jamestown paper. The Jamestown Daily Journal, founded in 1870, is overwhelmingly the source of day-to-day accounts of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting and earliest Assembly meetings. The correspondent(s?) are never named, and are only rarely designated by an improbable initial such as “X” before 1875. Article titles, and even complete notes and abstracts, may be duplicated between editions. The Daily Journal often includes undated extracts from other papers. When possible, I have attempted to site the originals. Items from Petrolia are typically found in the regular “Neighboring Localities” column; less often, items of interest to this study might be found in “Locals in the Small” (both usually on page four), or in feature stories. The Chautauqua Assembly Herald, founded in 1876, was the official organ of the Chautauqua Assembly in the era under consideration. The Herald, edited by Theodore Flood, provided daily editions during the official summer sessions and irregular monthly editions otherwise. Edition numbering can be irregular and duplicative. Of the other papers directly cited, the Jamestown Evening Journal, apparently a successor to the Jamestown Journal, had a target audience of the working-class patrons of that city. I was not able to peruse any editions before 1881.The Evening Journal provided excellent coverage of the Assembly’s 1887 fire and its aftermath. The weekly Chautauqua Democrat out of Mayville is, at least in microfilm, so poorly preserved that I seldom referenced it. I have listed items of interest, including many consulted though not necessarily directly cited, by order of paper, date, volume and issue numbers and, when available, article or column titles, and included occasional commentaries. Multiple entries might appear in a single issue. I have attempted to maintain the unorthodox punctuation of the originals, though not the liberal application of boldface and italics.

Jamestown Journal 25 Jan. 1867 (41.35.3 #2118). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Witty note on the formation of a “temperance society” in Pithole; membership is dependent on one purchasing his own drinks.; M. E. church founded in Petroleum Centre; $1700 “taken up” by the young congregation at the first service. By comparison,

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the dedication of the M. E. Church in Worksburg (now Falconer), New York), would do well to muster $685 at its dedication in 1876.

Jamestown Journal 8 Feb. 1867 (41.37.3 #2120). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Catholic church founded in Petroleum Centre.

Jamestown Journal 15 Feb. 1867 (41.42.3 #2125). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Revival in Corry; 22 “united with the Methodist Church Sunday”; over 80 in the two months prior.

Jamestown Journal 15 Mar. 1867 (41.42.3 #2125). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Revival in Titusville; 60 professed conversion.

Jamestown Journal 26 Mar. 1867 (41.44.3 #2127). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Eight-year old girl is reportedly the operating engineer of a well in Bennehoff Run (near Pe- troleum Centre), for which she is paid $3.00 a day. This equals “the salary of the best engineers.”

Jamestown Journal 19 Apr. 1867 (41.47.3 #2130). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Revival in Franklin; 259 joined the church.

Jamestown Journal 3 May 1867 (41.49.3). Review of Matthew Simpson’s lecture in Jamestown; “Pennsylvania Locals”: Fire in Petroleum Centre. Twenty-five buildings burned – approximately one-third of the town – as a result of “incendiarism” by the proprietors of the Union Hotel.

Jamestown Journal 31 May 1867 (42.1.3 #2132). “Completion of the Cross Cut R. R. ” Originally titled the “Buffalo & Oil Creek Cross Cut Rail Road” (B. & O.C.C.C.R.R), this perpetually troubled road most directly served northern Chau- tauqua Lake, including the CLCM and later Institution, and was the shortest route between Buffalo, NY, Petrolia, and Pittsburgh, PA. Of further interest to this study, officers of the road at the time of its completion include M. P. Bemis, the New York legislator who enabled the incorporation of CLCM and later CLSSA, and Amos K. Warren, active in the CLCM and an incorporator of the Assembly (and likely a relative of Rev. R. M. Warren, the last president of the CLCM and author of Chautauqua Sketches). William P. Whiteside, whose philanthropy enabled the original purchase of Fair Point from the Hunt family, was a director of the Cross Cut; Col. William Phillips was apparently a significant financial backer of the road; he had an eponymously-named commercial steamer on Chautauqua Lake. Another officer, A. R. Trew, also had a notable boat on Chautauqua Lake that bore his name.

Jamestown Journal 7 June 1867 (42.2.3 #2136). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Another fire in Petroleum Centre; 40 buildings burned at a loss of $40,000.

Jamestown Journal 26 July 1867. (42.9.3 #2144). “Pennsylvania Locals.” M. E. Church

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Erie District annual conference held in New Castle, Pennsylvania. Of interest to this study, H. H. Moore is assigned to Ellington, Chautauqua County, New York. The extensive swamplands near that district would be mentioned in Ida Norton.

Jamestown Journal 27 Sept. 1867. (42.18.1 #2153). “Addie” offers a long travelogue of Saratoga Springs, notable for its gossip, excess, bad water, etc.

Jamestown Journal 31 Jan. 1868 (42.32.3). Article on The Benninghoff Robbery near Petroleum Centre. Petrolia’s most famous theft; $200,000 was taken from the family safe. The story would become a regular feature for months as the family pursued a number of improbable leads in civil court.

Jamestown Journal 31 Jan. 1868 (42.36.5. #2171). “Pennsylvania Locals.” Note on prayer meeting in Warren, Pennsylvania.

Jamestown Journal 13 Mar. 1868 (42.42.5 #2177). “A New Watering Place.— ” Extract from Buffalo Courier: Frank Shaw of Jamestown proposes a hotel on Long Point on Chautauqua Lake (near Bemus Point). The 72-acre site of agricultural land is reportedly available for $12,000. The Courier encourages investment by Buffalo- nians in what is clearly an up-and-coming resort area only four hours (by train) from the city. (Long Point is now a state park.)

Jamestown Journal 3 Apr. 1868 (42.45.4, 6. #2180). “The Methodist, a religious…”; “The Evils of Controversy.”

Jamestown Journal 17 Apr. 1868 (42.47.5 #2182). “The Chautauqua County Baptist Sunday School Convention holds its annual meeting…”

Jamestown Journal 24 Apr. 1868 (42.48.8. #2183). “The Sabbath School Convention. – Improvements in Sabbath School Instruction.—”

Jamestown Journal 15 May 1868 (42.51.5 #2168). “Griffith’s Landing. – A Delightful Retreat.—” Items on area resorts, picnic places, and watering holes became a regular feature about this time.

Jamestown Journal 29 May 1868 (43.1.7, 8 #2188). “Errors Corrected – The M. E. Church South.—”

Jamestown Journal 26 June 1868 (43.5.5 #2192). “Findley’s Lake.—”

Jamestown Journal 3 July 1868. (43.6.4. #2193). “The Late Conference of the M. E. Church.”

Jamestown Journal 30 Oct. 1868 (43.23.8 #2210). “Sabbath School Convention.—”

Jamestown Journal 20 Nov. 1868 (43.26.3, 8 #2213). “The Object of a Lyceum.—“;

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“Remarks by the Journal.—”

Jamestown Journal 4 Dec. 1868 (43.28.8. #2215). “Methodist Sunday School Institute.”

Jamestown Journal 23 Apr. 1869 (44.48.8 #2225). “Sabbath School Institute.”

Jamestown Journal 28 Oct. 1870 (45.25.5 #2314). “—During the month of September 630 carloads of oil were carried over the Buffalo, Corry & Pittsburg R.R. [Cross Cut], at an average of 85 barrels to the car, making 53,500 barrels in all. The income of the road is now about $25,000 a month.”

Jamestown Journal 16 Dec. 1870 (45.32.8 #2321). “—Some fellow says ‘Forty-seven billard rooms, bowling alleys, drinking saloons, and the like, contribute to make Corry a moral city.”

JDJ 7 Feb. 1871 (2.32.3). Extract from Corry Republican: “—Titusville is at present enjoying a reign of terror…”

JDJ 9 Feb. 1871 (3.34.3). “A Woman Drugged.”: A “noted courtesan” from Hydetown (north of Titusville) was observed being drugged in a restaurant.

JDJ 1 Mar. 1871 (2.51.3). Anti-spiritualist letter; accusations that Spiritualists “burned a cat and a Bible” at a séance.

JDJ 8 Mar. 1871 (2.57.3). “Neighboring Localities.”

JDJ 13 Mar. 1871 (2.61.3). “Another Titusville Mystery.”: Body of deceased female found in advanced state of decay.

JDJ 26 Mar. 1871. (2.63.3). “Erie Conference Camp Meeting.—”

JDJ 15 Mar. 1871 (2.63.3). “Erie Conference Camp Meeting.--”; Also, abstract from Erie Dispatch on “‘Johnny’ Steel.” [sic] John Steele was the son of the Steele family of Petrolia; heir to a $3000-a-day fortune in oil, he squandered his windfall on extravagances in New York and Philadelphia in an orgy much covered in the regional press. He returned to Petrolia and took a series of menial jobs, also much covered by the regional press.

JDJ 16 Mar. 1871 (2.64.3). Notes on proposed camp meeting.

JDJ 18 Mar. 1871 (2.66.3). “More Spiritualist Humbug exposed.—”

JDJ 22 Mar. 1871 (2.69.3). “—On Thursday of last week, Mr. Bemus introduced in the [New York State] Assembly a bill to incorporate the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association.”

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JDJ 27 Mar. 1871. (2.73.3). “Neighboring Localities.”: “—A brute named Mike McCoy, living near Petroleum Centre…”

JDJ 28 Mar. 1871 (2.74.3). “Neighboring Localities.” Dead female child found in Titus- ville.

JDJ 30 Mar. 1871. (2.76.4). “A respectable-looking middle aged woman… in a state of beastly intoxication…” mugged in Titusville.

Jamestown Journal 31 Mar. 1871 (42.1.3 #2136). “Pennsylvania Locals.”

JDJ 7 Apr. 1871 (2.83.3). “More ‘Lively’ Times in Titusville.”

JDJ 12 Apr. 1871 (2. 88.2). Article on bonding of Cross Cut Railroad in Chautauqua County, and Rep. Bemus’ controversial funding mechanism.

JDJ 2 June 1871 (2.129.3). “Chaut. Lake Camp Meeting – Official Notice.—”

Chautauqua Democrat 18 June 1871 (20.1061.8). “—Mr. C. D. Angell sold interest in Chautauqua Lake Mills, at Mayville, to Messrs. Warren & Hammond, for $14,000.”

JDJ 22 June 1871 (2.146.3). “Proceedings of the Chautauqua County Baptist Sunday School Convention.—”

JDJ 28 June 1871 (2.151.3). “First Day of the Camp Meeting at Fair Point.”; “Neighbor- ing Localities.—”

JDJ 29 June 1871 (2.152.2, 3, 4). “The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting – The Grounds at Fair Point – Opening and attendance.”; “The Camp Meeting – Second Day’s Proceedings”; “Neighboring Localities.”

JDJ 30 June 1871 (2.153.3). “Camp Meeting Proceedings at Fair Point.”; “The Independ- ent Battalion N. G.—”; Extract of Titusville Herald: “The Coming Watering Place.”

JDJ 1 July 1871 (2.154.3). “Camp Meeting Proceedings at Fair Point.”

JDJ 3 July 1871 (2.155.1, 3). “Camp Meeting Notes.” “…not less than twelve hundred people…”

JDJ 5 July 1871 (2.156.3). “Great Crowd…” Due to heavy rain, meeting took place in “Angell House” (the dining hall); “Thus closed the first encampment on Fair Point. In point of attendance it can not be considered a success, neither can it be called a failure. Seven persons acknowledged themselves as being converted, and seven others as re-claimed, but its results for good can only be told in Eternity.”

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JDJ 6 July 1871 (2.157.3). Extracts of Corry Republican and Titusville Herald items on CLCM; Corry Blade is accused of plagiarizing JDJ reports.

JDJ 7 July 1871 (2.158.3). “– Note – Rev. E. S. Gillette has issued an order that the appointments of the M. E. Church be not published in this Church Directory any more…” A feud between Gillette and the JDJ erupted and was carried forward for some time; Free Methodists hold a camp meeting in Oil city.

JDJ 12 July 1871 (2.162.3). “Fair Point Methodist Camp Meeting Association.”

JDJ 16 July 1871 (2.166.3).. “Fair Point Camp Meeting Association.”

JDJ 18 July 1871 (2.167.3). “-- Nearly all of Titusville was on Chautauqua Lake last Sunday.”

JDJ 28 June 1871. (2.176.3). Extract of Dunkirk Journal: C[yrus] D. Angell is nominated for Congress.

JDJ 12 April 1872 (3.80.4) “Fire in Oil City.”

JDJ 10 June 1872 (3.139.4) P. T. Barnum’s circus arrives in Jamestown. “Barnum’s agent assures us that they have great difficulty in making people understand that that fifty-cent ticket admits to the entire exhibition, Museum, Menagerie, and Hippodrome. Such is the case, however, and after once gaining admission at the main gate one roams at leisure through this entire canvas city…. The Chautauqua Assembly would later claim precedence to the single admission ticket price (see Alfreda Irwin 8), a claim that does not withstand scrutiny beside either the holiness camp meetings, the CLCM, or, apparently, P. T. Barnum.

JDJ 10 Aug. 1872 (3.191.4). “Camp Meeting.” Steamer Jamestown offers special rates to CLCM patrons from Jamestown. From Jamestown and the southern basin, $1.00 round trip; from Bemus Point and Mayville, $.50.

JDJ 14 Aug. 1872 (3.194.4). “Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting.”

JDJ 15 Aug. 1872 (3.195.4). “Spiritualists and free-thinkers will hold a meeting in Good Templar’s Hall on Sunday, August 18, at 3 p. m.”

JDJ 16 Aug 1872 (3.196.4). “The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting.”

JDJ 18 July 1871 (3.197.2). “Neighboring Localities.”

JDJ 19 Aug. 1872 (3.198.4). “The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting – Saturday.”; “Dis- graceful Scene.”; “The Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association. -- Meeting

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of the Trustees.”

JDJ 7 Jan. 1873 (4.5.2). “Ja-Da-Qua.” Commentary in accompaniment to Hosmer’s poem, apparently originally printed in The Nation a decade earlier.

JDJ 21 Apr. 1873 (4.93.4). “Sabbath Schools.” Extract from Titusville Courier; a parody of the usual report. The barkeeper at a saloon in Petrolia squandered the “collection” at the race course.

JDJ 23 Apr. 1873 (4.95.4). “Home Matters.”: Col. William Phillips to “fit up” the second floor of the Mayville depot as a “summer resort” for family and friends. “Police.”: Prostitute in Jamestown fined $6.00, her john fined $7.

Chautauqua Lake Journal July, 1873 (1.1). Apparently the only number published of the official organ of the Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting Association. Several good copies are available for perusal in the Oliver Archives at Chautauqua Institution.

JDJ 9 July 1873 (4.159.4). “Chautauqua Lake Camp Meeting.”

JDJ 24 July 1873 (4.172.4). Extract of Atlantic & Great Western Railroad promotional brochure: “Chautauqua Lake and Jamestown as a Pleasant Resort”

JDJ 28 July 1873. (4.175.4). Extract from the Elmira Gazette: “Chautauqua Lake. – What an Outsider Thinks of us.”

JDJ 5 Aug. 1873 (4.182.4). “The Col. Wm. Phillips. Presentation of a Beautiful Stand of Colors from Col. Phillips – Her First Regular trip over the Lake.”

JDJ 12 Aug. 1873 (4.188.4). “Life on the Lake: Camping out on Bemus Point and Camp Meeting at Fair Point – Footprints in the Sand.”

JDJ 13 Aug. 1873 (4.189.4). “The Encampment on the Lake. Opening of the Methodist Camp Meeting – A Good attendance and a Common-Sense Sermon – How the Citizen-Soldiers Drive Dull Care Away – Fun Ahead.”

JDJ 14 Aug. 1873 (4.190.4). “The Lake. Driving Dull Care Away – Our Visitors and their Encampment – The Regatta.” Extract, probably from Meadville Sentinal: “The Excursion.”

JDJ 15 Aug. 1873 (4.191.4). The Lake: Camp Meeting and Camp Life. – More Rain and Less Fun. – The Citizens’ Corps Ball.”; “Couldn’t stand it.”

JDJ 16 Aug, 1873 (4.192.2). “The Fair Point Camp Meeting.”; Extract of New York Tribune article ambiguous about camp meetings and their excesses.

JDJ 18 Aug. 1873 (4.193.4). “The Camp Meeting. A Tremendous Crowd and an exciting

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Sunday – 10,000 People at Fair Point join in worshipping God.”

Chautauqua Democrat 12 Oct. 1873 (20.558.2). “A Horrible Murder in Titusville.”

JDJ 17 June 1874 (5.144.4). “Planing Mill at Fair Point.”; “A Stranger’s View of Our Locality and Surroundings.”

JDJ 22 June 1874 (5.148.4). “Lake View House”; “Fair Point Items.”

JDJ 25 June 1874 (5.151.4). “Fair Point Items.”

JDJ 26 June 1874 (5.152.4). “Fair Point Items.”: “Camp meeting begins July 8 and continues one week. Rev. R. M. Warren of the Erie District in charge. We hope Tuesday will find every tent-holder on the ground ready to begin work in earnest.”

JDJ 6 July 1874 (5.159.4). “Lake View House.” (Possibly an extract from another paper.); “Fair Point and its Improvements.”

JDJ 8 July 1874 (5.161.4). “Sunday School Teachers, -- Their Great Assembly at Chau- tauqua Lake Next Month.”; “Camp Meeting at Fair Point.” “Doings at Camp Meeting.”

JDJ 9 July 1874 (5.162.4). “Additional Local”: “Doings at Camp Meeting.”; “Camp Meeting at Fair Point.”

JDJ 10 July 1874 (5.163.4). “Additional Local.”: “Doings at Camp Meeting.” “Neighbor- ing Localities.”: Extract from Titusville Courier; “Camp Meeting. Life at Fair Point – The Crowd Enlarging – Arrival of Ministers, &c.”; “Sunday School Camp Meeting.”

JDJ 11 July 1874 (5.164.4). “Additional Local.”: Doings at Camp Meeting.”; “Camp Meeting. Any Amount of Moisture --- Damp Humanity – Services, Prayer Meet- ings, etc., etc.”

JDJ 13 July 1874 (5.165.4). “Camp Meeting. Fair Weather Again – The Usual Routine Exercises &c.”; “Camp Meeting. Attendance Increasing –Jamestown fairly Rep- resented –Rain and its Consequences, &c., &c.”

JDJ 14 July 1874 (5.166.4). “Camp Meeting. Fair Weather Again – The Usual Routine Exercises &c.”; “Doings at Camp Meeting.”

JDJ 15 July 1874 (5.167.4). “Camp Meeting. The Last Day – Homeward Bound – The Point still Inhabited – Services, Ceremonies, &c.”

JDJ 16 July 1874 (5.168.4). “A Trip over Chautauqua Lake to Fair Point.”; J. H. Vincent

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preaching in a number of area churches.

JDJ 17 July 1874 (5.169.4). “The Critic Criticised.”

JDJ 22 July 1874 (5.173.4). Extract from Titusville Herald: “Chautauqua Lake and its Well-Earned Popularity.”

JDJ 23 July 1873 (5.174.4). “In a letter published today from the Rev. J. H. Vincent, it will be seen that no one will be admitted to Fair Point on Sunday, during the Sun- day School Association. This will rather interfere with the plans of many, as they consider the seventh day their only legal holiday.”

JDJ 29 July 1874 (5.179.4). “The Chautauqua Picnic. Some Announcements – A General Invitation – Programme for the First Three Days.”

JDJ 5 Aug. 1874 (5.185.4). “The Sunday School Assembly at Fair Point. First Evening – Remarks by Distinguished Gentlemen – Music and Fire Works on the Lake.”

JDJ 6 Aug. 1874 (5.186.4). “The Sunday School Assembly. Complete Programme of the Great Gathering at Fair Point, Chautauqua Lake.”; “Fair Point. The Second Day – Crowd Increasing – Four Thousand People Present Order of Exercises – Inaugu- ral Services – To-morrow’s Programme etc., etc., etc.”

JDJ 7 Aug. 1874 (5.187.4). “The Sunday School Assembly at Fair Point. The Third Day – Stirring Temperance Speech by J. T. Willing – The Museum – Important Arri- vals – General Camp Meeting all over the United States Observed here as Else- where – Amusements, etc., etc.”

JDJ 8 Aug. 1874 (5.188.4). “Fair Point. The first Inundation – Attendance Increasing – Lectures by S. F. Townsend, D. D., John B. Gough, Esq., and C. H. Fowler, D. D. – The Regular Routine, etc., etc.”; “Off the Beach at Fair Point.”; “Those who have been bold enough to speculate in Fair Point property are reaping a rich reward.”

JDJ 10 Aug. 1874 (5.189.4). “Fair Point. Grand Assemblage of Sunday Schools from all parts of the Country – Eight Thousand People on the Grounds – Interesting Sun- day School Exercises.”

JDJ 11 Aug. 1874 (5.190.4). “Splinters.”; “Fair Point. Our First Sabbath. Exercises of the Day – Another Flood – The Museum – Fresh Arrivals – Lectures, Services, Etc., Etc.”

JDJ 12 Aug. 1874 (5.191.4). “Spray from the Beach at Fair Point.”

JDJ 13 Aug. 1874 (5.192.4). Note on ticketing system at the Assembly.

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JDJ 15 Aug. 1874 (5.194.5). “The sermons and lectures have averaged pretty well, although there has been no remarkable display of talent, and perhaps it is just as well if the talent is to be of the De Witt Talmage order, $300, and expenses and a dissatisfied audience…”; Boredom with the stereopticon views also noted.

JDJ 18 Aug. 1874 (5.196.4). “It seemed as if the whole population of Warren, Pa., had turned out with the Sunday School, for five railroad cars only sufficed to contain them….”; Rev. Matthew Simpson preached at the Sunday session.

JDJ 20 Aug. 1874 (5.198.4). Note on ticketing system at the Assembly.

JDJ 28 Aug. 1874 (5.204.4). “Chautauqua Lake.”: Extract from New York World; citation and commentary on item from New York Herald in re: College regatta on Chautauqua Lake.

JDJ 3 Sept. 1874 (5.209.4). “Chautauqua Lake Navy.”: listing of the many significant craft on Chautauqua Lake, and their owners. Petrolia is well-represented; “The Erie Conference.”

JDJ 4 Sept. 1874 (5.210.4). “Other Localities.”; Extract from Wellsville Reporter.

JDJ 5 June 1875 (6.130.1+). “Fair Point.” Observations on the changes wrought Assem- bly money; the term “City in the Woods,” borrowed from Wesleyan Grove, makes an appearance. Some of the cottages “would be counted fair places of residences in Buffalo. Still, the rude primitive structures are in the ascendant….” Ex- tract of Buffalo Express.

JDJ 16 June 1875 (6.139.1). “Camp Meeting! Affairs of Life at Fair Point – A very small attendance of Worshippers – A Thousand and One Improvements.”

JDJ 21 June 1875 (6.143.5). “Camp Meeting at Fair Point.—“ “Comparatively small attendance of about 1500 people, most of whom ignored the religious services and watched the steamers….” The “rural districts” had the “fullest representation.”

JDJ 24 June 1875 (6.146.5). “French Sunday.” Article critical of camp meetings.

CAH 28 June 1876 (1.3.1). Of the Scientific Course, just ending: “It reminds one of the groves of Greece, in which Socrates, Zeno, Plato, and Aristotle taught their disciples…

CAH 31 June 1876 (1.5.2). First appearance of an advertisement by the Erie Railroad; a wordy article extolling the virtues of its New York City to Buffalo branch (which did not directly serve Chautauqua.) The Erie (after its merger with the A&GW) would most vigorously cultivate the Chautauqua trade, though the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern (later New York Central) would also feature Chautauqua in its promotions.

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CAH 5 Aug. 1876 (1.10.1). “The Morale of Fair Point”; unflattering portrait of local perceptions of Chautauqua Lake contrasted to the Assembly’s vision.

CAH 7 Aug. 1876 (1.11.1). “Fair point is regarded as a new thing in the world…”

CAH 8 Aug. 1876. (1.12.1). “The Sabbath.” Explanation of the closed-gate Sundays policy; specific paragraph on camp meeting rowdies. The region’s “external immorality” mentioned in the next paragraph in what becomes an ongoing discourse.

JDJ 29 Dec. 1876 (7.310.4). “Dedication of the New M. E. Church at Worksburg.” Rev. Theodore Flood, then pastor of the Jamestown M. E. Church, performed the actual dedication.

JDJ 29 June 1877 (8.153.1). Announcement of coming Assembly season. Of interest: Anthony Comstock of the “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice” to appear. Comstock would become a regular at the Assembly.

JDJ 3 July 1877 (8.156.2). A historical and biographical sketch of Ellery describes the camp meeting established “about 1814” in “Louck’s Hollow” (Griffith’s Creek).

JDJ 7 Aug. 1877 (8.184.1, 2). “At Fair Point.”: “… each [pilgrim] grasping a lean and hungry grip-sack, and all anxious to set their feet on the soil of this modern ‘promised land…’” A case of contraband whiskey is ceremonially smashed in front of the congregation. Extract from CAH: “Health at Chautauqua” on the virtues of Chautauqua’s air.

CAH July 1879 (4.2.1). “Climate.”

CAH Aug 1879 (4.3.1). “The Baptist Meetings.”

JDJ 8 Aug. 1877 (8.185.1). Transcript of remarks by Vincent at Chautauqua, which he calls a “sacred grove.”

CAH June 1878 (3.2.1). “Magic: Its Tricks Exposed, and Modern Spiritualism Unveiled: Professor Covell, of New York City, who has been drawing immense congregations to hear his lectures and performances in Magic, will be in Chautauqua in August next, and give four entertainments as follows:…”

CAH June 1879 (4.1.1). “Fair Point” is officially renamed “Chautauqua,” New York.

CAH 5 Aug. 1879 (4.4.5). “Chautauqua Amphitheater. Dedication Exercises in the New Pavilion, Held Saturday Afternoon, Aug. 2d, at 2 o’clock.”

JEJ 13 Apr. 1887 (18.88.1). “The Fire at Chautauqua.” A spectacular fire wiped out 55 cottages, most dating from the camp meeting era. H. H. Moore was among the

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many burned out. Coverage continues for some weeks; lawsuits and efforts by the Assembly to recall the leases go on for years.

JEJ 18 May 1887 (18.118.3). “The Assembly authorities are experiencing considerable trouble in securing all the lots bordering on the auditorium that they desire, as some of the cottage holders will not sell their property at the figure the Assembly desires, so the proposed auditorium park may not be realized this season…

CAH 5 Aug. 1887 (12.6.1). “The Chautauqua Water Supply.”

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Les Buhite’s lifelong interest has been the interpenetration of religion and theater; most of his scholarly and creative works explore those concerns. He was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and raised in nearby Albion. He attended Northwestern High School, and was active in the music and theatre programs. Buhite matriculated to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and acquired a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, majoring in Communication Arts/Theater (1979). He continued at the University of Akron, earning a Master of Arts in Theatre (1984) with an emphasis in playwriting. Buhite was Director of Theatre, Designer and Technical Director at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York (1986-1995). His ongoing professional association with Chautauqua Institution began in that era, as well as a good deal of freelance work or efforts in conjunction with Artemis Productions. This latter was founded with Michelle Buhite to present issue-oriented dramas benefiting non-profit organizations. In 1998 Buhite entered the Ph.D. program at Florida State University. Upon completion of his residency he returned to western New York, and taught for several years in the Warren Area School District before accepting the position at the Bromeley Family Theater of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. Buhite owns many musical instruments, several of which he can sort of play, and has most recently entered the dark underbelly of the basement band scene in Erie. He resides in Jamestown with cats too numerous to mention by name and the twin beacons of his existence: spouse Michelle and daughter Ashera.