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Joe Wamer, chairman of the trustees at Indian Field Methodist Campground, leads his family in prayer before eating dinner during the 2019 camp meeting.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Simple wood-frame shelters referred to as “tents” surround the open-air tabernacle at Indian Field Methodist Campground near St. George. The campground has 12 sides that form a circle to represent the 12 tribes of Israel.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Family tents have as much tradition as they do rustic character. The Hutto family keeps alive a tradition of playing songs and having children sing along while staying at the Indian Field Campground.
Photo by Mic Smith
At first, St. George police officer Trey Wade did not know what to make of the scores of vacant weatherworn wooden shacks that encircled an open-air pavilion in the middle of a pine-studded field a few miles east of town.
He had never seen anything like it, and his lawman’s cautious nature, for a moment, flirted with dark suspicion. It disappeared shortly thereafter when the East Texas native—he had only recently moved to the small town of less than 2,000 people—accepted an invitation from his boss, Police Chief Sammie Smith, to return to the site and attend what the older peace officer called “cammeetin.”
“Well, of course, he was saying ‘camp meeting,’” says Wade, recalling that first visit and early encounter with the singular Dorchester County pronunciation two decades ago. “So, I got the chance to come out for the camp meeting and see what was going on here, and I thought, ‘Man, what an amazing place this is.’”
What the young officer quickly learned was that Indian Field Methodist Campground is home to an annual gathering of hundreds—sometimes thousands—of Methodists carrying on a tradition that began more than two centuries ago.
Culminating on the first Sunday in October, the week-long meetings are an opportunity for families to spend time together, eat more food than is probably good for them and listen to ministers who, with Bible in hand, preach the Word three times a day in a big open-air pavilion called the tabernacle.
According to historians, Methodist camp meetings like this began in America in the 1800s, flourished for four decades, then quickly faded. But outside of St. George, the tradition continues.
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“This was the best place, and it still is,” says Emily Dunn (center), who has been coming to camp meetings at Indian Field since she was 8 years old. “One of my friends says that you are closer to heaven here than you ever will be anywhere. This is holy land.”
Photo by Mic Smith
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Mev Shieder-Groer, left, and Barbara Ford, both members of Edisto Electric Cooperative, sing hymns inside the Indian Field Methodist Campground tabernacle during a recent camp meeting.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Delicious home-cooked food—and lots of it—is another time-honored tradition at Indian Field camp meetings.
Photo by Mic Smith
It is late Friday afternoon, the fifth day of the 2019 camp meeting. The weather has been positively brutal all week, with this day clocking in at 95 degrees for the second day in a row.
Joe Wamer sits at the head of a large wooden dining table and, as members of his family and invited guests bow their heads, recites the blessing before they begin to eat. The table is filled with sturdy platters of fried chicken, baked ham and cornbread alongside bowls of, creamed corn, rice and gravy, slaw, and black-eyed peas.
“This campground sits on about 10 acres of land and consists of 100 tents,” says Wamer, employing the term used for the two-story cabins like the one in which he and the others are having dinner. “One is the preacher’s tent, and the other 99 are owned by families. Here in my tent, we feed about 23 people at every meal. There are some tents that feed as many as 50 or 60 at every meal.”
The tents are arranged in a circular, 12-sided—or dodecagon—configuration, and rules set forth long ago by the trustees dictate that the structures maintain their rustic, frontier appearance.
Most are made of pine, with sleeping quarters on the second story. Coastal Bermuda hay covers the dirt floors, and its fresh, sweet smell permeates everything. Just outside the back of the tent, cooks—most hired for the entire week—prepare meals over large flat-topped stoves fueled by oak wood fires.
“Now the reason the tents are arranged in this 12-sided shape is that it represents the 12 tribes of Israel from the Bible,” says Wamer, chair of the campground’s board of trustees. “Our forefathers planned all that.”
Although electricity and running water are made available for the week of camp meeting, none of the tents have indoor plumbing and so each has its own outhouse behind the tent across a perimeter road that encircles the area.
Emily Street Dunn, 78, says she remembers her late aunt describing what it was like at camp in earlier times.
“She told me she would sit upstairs and look out the little window and watch a convoy of wagons coming into camp meeting,” Dunn says. “They would bring their feather beds and the crates of live chickens in the back of the wagons. And they brought enough clothes and groceries to last the entire week. She said there were ropes holding everything in place on the back of the wagon.”
Dunn, who grew up in the area, says she first attended camp meeting when she was about 8 years old. In those days, school buses would take her and the other children from the tents in the morning and bring them back after school. Her afternoons were spent jumping rope, playing games and enjoying the company of her family and friends.
“This was the best place, and it still is,” Dunn says. “One of my friends says that you are closer to heaven here than you ever will be anywhere. This is holy land.”
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Cody Hart-Smith blows the horn announcing the start of a morning worship service at the Indian Field camp meeting.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Pete Weathers, a retired school principal, is the unofficial historian of the Indian Field camp meetings.
Photo by Mic Smith
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All are welcome at the Sunday morning service that is the highlight of each camp meeting. Churches in the St. George area often cancel services, and their parishioners drive to Indian Field to join their neighbors for worship.
Photo by Mic Smith
Indeed, camp meeting remains a religious revival, and worship services are held three times each day—one in the morning, another at midday and a final session in the evening after supper.
Before each service, 14-year-old Caden Weeks places paperback hymnals on the cypress pews in the tabernacle. Allen Mayes—or a stand-in if he is not available—announces each pending service by blowing a long, 200-year-old horn from each corner of the tabernacle. Then there is music from pianist Jesse Cockcroft and song leader Lance Hatchell before the preacher takes the stage.
Sermons are broadcast through loudspeakers attached to the outside of the tabernacle, and while some worshipers sit in the wooden pews, most prefer to relax in chairs in front of their tents or somewhere out in the field and listen from there.
Between services, children and families engage in games and activities with deep roots in tradition, says Pete Weathers, a retired school principal and the unofficial historian of the Indian Field camp meeting. He remembers that at one time, it was popular for boys to carve unique patterns on the pliable bark of chinaberry tree branches. They made, recalls Weathers, first-rate walking sticks.
“They would carve various designs with a knife and then peel out the little sections of bark,” Weathers says. “Almost every kid would carve a stick to show off their skills or sometimes give it to their girlfriend.”
Another tradition is the promenade, fondly remembered by many of the older parishioners. As a teenager, it was important to walk around the campground with a special person of the opposite sex. Couples wore their finest clothes, made sure they were on their best behavior and walked slowly around the inside perimeter of the campground, socializing with other couples as they went.
“What people need to understand is that the countryside was so sparsely populated in those days,” says Wamer. “And so camp meeting was a great way, or maybe the only way, for couples to meet each other, court and eventually marry.”
On Sunday morning, churches in the St. George area cancel services, and their parishioners drive to Indian Field to join their neighbors for worship at the tabernacle. Families fill the pews and sit in portable chairs fixed in neat rows around the inside of the campground. There is singing and prayer and a spirited sermon and more singing and then it is over. Within hours, the campground is mostly deserted and will remain so for another year.
It will not be too long, however, before camp fathers start planning the next camp meeting at Indian Field.
“It is extremely important that the older generations pass on what it means to be here,” says Wade, the now-retired police officer. “It is a time to come together in fellowship and worship God for an entire week. And that really gets down to the core values of what this nation was built upon. This place has been here for more than 200 years and so it is important that we pass along that tradition.”