By Kathy Arlt, Contributing Writer @Blogfinger
Want to spend your summer in an Ocean Grove tent? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but unless you spent last summer in an Ocean Grove tent, you probably won’t be in one this summer. The 114 tents that remain on the two Camp Meeting tent grounds by the Great Auditorium have long waiting lists of people hoping for the chance to become an Ocean Grove tenter.
Ah, but if only you could travel back in time to 1887, you would have had a much better chance. There were more than 400 Camp Meeting tents then—in twice as many campgrounds—not to mention several hundred tents put up by outside contractors on many Ocean Grove lots. Here are two Ocean Grove Record advertisements for commercial tent rental companies:
But you’d need more than just a tent to get through your summer. How about a bed to put inside the tent? And a chair or two, and maybe a table, and somewhere to wash up? With all the hotel dining rooms and cafeterias in town, you might not need a kitchen, but what if you wanted one of those, too?
In that case, a Camp Meeting Association tent was what you’d go for, because you could rent not just a tent, but almost every other accouterment you’d need or want. Here’s an 1878 CMA price list:
Portable kitchens were introduced in 1877, and came in two sizes: 7×8 feet at a rental price of $7.00 for the season, or 8×10 feet at a rental price of $10.00 for the season. The first season kitchens were offered demand was so great the CMA ran out of them. But the 1878 price list declared that “enough kitchens have now been provided” to make one available for every tenter that desired one.
Other factors also influenced tent prices. There was a $5.00 surcharge for tents in the front circle at the Great Auditorium, and a $3.00 surcharge for tents on Pilgrim or Lake Pathways. A series of discounts were applied if the tent was rented for longer than six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, or for the whole twelve-week season. In some years, tent rental prices during Camp Meeting Weeks were increased. In fact, during the earliest years of Ocean Grove’s history, charts listing all the surcharges and discounts that applied to tent rentals were so complicated you’d need a calculator to figure them out.
But of course the calculator hadn’t been invented yet….
Next time: Pictures—I promise—of tents on the north and south ends of town
Hobe: What prize do you want ? (OG car magnet, set of 3 signed, by me, color OG photo cards; CD “The best of Blogfinger”; or set of 3 black and white photo cards, signed,with envelopes–“Tuscan Swan.”) I also need your address in order to deliver. You name is optional, but nice. Paul
email: blogfinger@verizon.net
I enjoy these articles so much. The pictures and reprints add authenticity to the review.
Hi Nancy. Thank you for the commentary. And thank you for the book tip. I ordered a copy. Paul
Very good article. My great aunt and grandmother used to tell me stories of staying in the tents when they were children. I was pleasantly shocked and surprised, when coming to visit my sister in my middle school years, to find the tents still standing.
Indeed Paul, the Hebrew scripture, which Christians refer to as the Old Testament, had a tremendous effect on Ocean Grove. The tabernacle was understood to be the place that God met with his people so designating a worship facility as the tabernacle is appropriate. Many Ocean Grove streets are named for Old Testament locations, including Mt. Hermon where you reside. The Auditorium Pavilion was orginally built to shelter a scale model of Jerusalem – then a centerpeice of the OG experience. Beersheeba well in Auditorium Square park was the first common source of water in the Grove and is named for a well used by the Israelites in the book of Genesis.
“The Story of Ocean Grove” was written in 1919 for the 50th anniversary of OGCMA by Morris Daniels and contains wonderful first person accounts of much of OG history. Original copies are rare and expensive but reprints are available on Amazon for about $20, a small price to pay for the inquisitive Ocean Grover.
Fascinating stuff.
In researching my Passover article, I found out that the ancient Hebrews, while wandering in the desert for 40 years, slept in tents. Also, they needed a place to have prayer services, so they had a very large tent which was collapsible and they called it the “Tabernacle.”
Maybe someone from the CMA can tell us if that Exodus story influenced the use of tents and the word “Tabernacle” in OG.
But more likely, in the beginning of the town, they erected tents to be protected from the elements (but not mosquitos) rather than emulating thousands of Hebrews wandering in the Sinai and eating matzohs. After all, modern day Hebrews did not copy their own ancestors. They wandered around the sands of Coney Island looking for their blankets, slept in tenements on the lower east side of New York, and ate hot pastrami on rye (with mustard).