1835 – 1835

Methodist Campground Founded on the Island

Beginning in 1835, hundreds of Methodists traveled to Edgartown each summer to repent at “campground meetings;” living originally in nine improvised tents around a speaker’s platform, that was made of driftwood, the Methodists found the island’s surroundings to be uplifting. Held each year, the meetings rapidly gained popularity. The island’s first true tourists, many of the Methodists at first rented houses before becoming property owners. This contingency would go on to build 318 gingerbread house type homes in Oak Bluffs that together were called, “Cottage City.” To support these homes, many of which still exist to this day, shops and restaurants were built and slowly the Oak Bluffs of today was born.

Oak Bluffs, MA

Norton, Henry Franklin, Martha’s Vineyard (Henry Franklin Norton and Rover Emmett Pyne, 1923.

Cory Sachs