MARION – The Marion Historical Commission and Sippican Historical Society will co-host “The Story of the Tremont Advent CampMeeting” on Thursday, March 21 at the Marion Music Hall. The live presentation will be at 6:30 p.m. and led by historical preservation consultant Lynn Smiledge. 

At the event, attendees will learn what the Advent Christian Campmeeting sign on Wareham Road at the corner of Hermitage Road represents, a facet of Marion history.

Established by Second Advent Christians in 1861, the Tremont Advent Campmeeting was originally located in Wareham. After being destroyed by fire in March 1905, the camp was relocated to Hammett’s Cove in Marion. The first campmeeting there was held in the summer of 1905, according to the Marion Historical Commission. 

Seasonal revival camp meetings became “a common fixture in the landscape of America” by the mid-19th century, a Marion Historical Commission press release said. They were often located on bodies of water in the countryside and included buildings for common use like dormitories, dining halls, and assembly rooms. Their popularity peaked between the Civil War and World War I, according to the Marion Historical Commission.

“These revival meetings featured charismatic speakers and were punctuated with enthusiastic hymn singing,” a press release said. “Plentiful food and a wide range of recreational activities were also mainstay aspects of camp meeting life. Camp meetings were described by Transcendentalist philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau as ‘a singular combination of a prayer-meeting and a picnic.’”

The Campmeeting in Marion has operated continuously since 1905.

“This resource is important as an intact example of the layout and built fabric of one of the camp meetings so prevalent across New England in the second half of the 19th century,”  Lynn Smiledge said in a press release.