Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net
During recent tax law hearings, the history of Ocean Grove was reviewed. This is what the CMA was about in 1869:
The CMA’s purpose was that of providing and maintaining for the members and friends of the Methodist Episcopal Church a proper, convenient and desirable permanent camp meeting ground and Christian seaside resort.”
The historic quotes refer to the project as establishing a “camp meeting ground;” “a Christian seaside resort,” “the Grounds,” and a land management company —-they acquired 260 acres of ocean front land.
The modern day Ocean Grove is referred to as “God’s Square Mile” by the Camp Meeting Association.
But the word which they did not use early on was “town.” Yet that is what occurred when the CMA established a court, a police department, a post office, and other entities that made it look like a town.
Early on they only allowed white Methodists to live here and they established strict rules for living based on religious doctrine, something which you couldn’t find elsewhere in America at that time. They were eventually governed over-all by Neptune Township, but they did their best to remain isolated from everyone based on their Christian doctrine.
Overtime they evolved into what you see now, but the CMA never has gotten over the fact that this place is now where the populace (Grovers) live with their freedoms and life styles, no longer following the strict guidelines of the religious CMA.
But although the CMA refers to Ocean Grove as a “Christian resort,” the Neptune Township web site (neptunetownship.org) manages to discuss OG without using the word “Christian.”
And thus there have been clashes throughout the history of this place—I hesitate to call it a town because Neptune is a town. People usually refer to it merely as “Ocean Grove” with little interest in what it actually is.
And the CMA continues to roar ahead with its religious life as if it still were the owner here. Yes they own the land, but they get paid for that, and that does not entitle them to act like a theocracy within a democracy. Theocracies went out in the Middle Ages.
So, the mistake made by the Founders was to actually found a town; they should have taken their 260 acres and created a theme park or a gated community.
Now the Supreme Court should figure out how this “town” is supposed to work; no one else dares to do so.
BARBARA COOK From her album Close As Pages in a Book-–the songs of Dorothy Fields. From the Broadway musical Seesaw.
"It's not where you start, it's where you finish. It's not how you go, it's how you land."
Where did the Camp Meeting go wrong? They went wrong when they thought they could trust the Neptune Township Committee.
The idea that the CMA erred in founding and governing a religious based town (ie a theocracy) is based on retrospective analysis, because the Founders could not have known that over 100 years later, the idea would be ruled to be unconstitutional.
Nor could they have envisioned that their desired religiously pure demographic would disappear to become a diverse community in which many if not most of the residents would be secular and/or of other faiths and that they would have to depend on co-religionists from outside (ie tourists) in order to fuel their programs which today have become very extensive and which might clash with the current population of the Grove.
I am happy and feel blessed to live in a community nick-named God’s Square Mile.
I never encountered any mention of an ice cream prohibition at Ocean Grove, though one definitely existed at the Pitman Grove camp meeting. The earliest mention of Day’s in the 1876 paper has them serving only ice cream and carbonated beverages. Meals were apparently not served until 1938 when the enclosed “tea room” was constructed on Olin St.
A second establishment (1878) was the Morrow, Day & Co. garden at 50-54 Main Ave. that operated in conjunction with a hotel whose building still stands at 56.
David – I appreciate your anti-establishment attitude. It reminds me of Kevin Bacon’s character in the movie Footloose, a kid with an edge, likes to turn the town upside down, a real rebel, a guy with cool hair and cool clothes. Keep up the fight!
We need to be allowed to dance, eat ice-cream when we want and get on the beach whenever without a badge with a cross!
The early Methodist church had very strict rules for members. These were codified in 1872 and included bans on “amusements”: dancing, attending theatrical performances, the circus, and eventually movies, playing cards, and billiards, and reading works of fiction. OG prohibited the sale of novels in town in 1888 and that of chewing gum in 1907, then a female “vice,” as it too much resembled the chewing of tobacco.
In 1924, the church rules were changed and one finds a movie theater and a skating rink organized by the OGCMA. Of course, the prohibition of alcohol sales still remains.
Not for….You accurately describe a sort of free-for-all here in this “Christian Seaside Resort,” and it is the residents who get the shaft.
Your “anything goes” view reveals a giving up attitude which may be all we can expect in the Grove given the self-interested elements which you list.
The idea of a community of residents in this “historic district” seems unlikely without a newly-found commitment by the taxpayers here, which I don’t see on the horizon.
So, as Complainer-In-Chief at Blogfinger I will continue offering my opinions, hoping to stimulate some interest, but currently without high hopes for success.
The New York Times wrote a feature (in the mid-1980s I think) about Ocean Grove, calling it an “urban village by the sea”. Property was cheap in the 1980s, with grand Victorians selling for a fishcake and the town full of SRO domiciliary facilities.
It was the Camp Meeting that defined Ocean Grove then, and it still does today, even if a bit less so. Most of today’s residents have no idea what a severe Methodist theocracy governed Ocean Grove at its religious peak. For example, you could not eat an ice cream or have a soda in the middle of the day because it was an indulgence, available only with a meal for dessert. People know about cars on Sunday, but that is only a small part of the total control over behavior.
I like to think of our “Village” as a collection of competing or sometimes cooperating constituencies, including the CMA, the Township, Chamber of Commerce, OG Homeowners Association, Historic Preservation Commission, and Ocean Grove United.
The CMA is the most visible, and they seem to be able to do whatever they want (you might argue that all of these groups do whatever they please except the least important, the homeowners).
Overdevelop the North End? Be my guest. Bring reactionary fundamentalists to speak on Sunday and deny progressive theology? The more the better. Occupy the center of town on Saturday night with overflowing Evangelicals? We’re just getting started.
Like I say, it’s not for everybody.