Most Vineyard visitors believe they have seen the Gingerbread cottages after they have walked through Trinity Park and around the Tabernacle. However, the Camp Ground consists of 315 cottages spread across 34 acres.
It was 175 years ago next month that six devout Edgartown Methodists decided to establish a summer religious community of their very own and selected the largest oak grove in New England, near Eastville, to be its site. Camp meetings that provided prayer, preaching, hymn-singing and repentance had come into vogue in America at the turn of the 19th century. In 1827, one had been established at West Chop in the community of Holmes Hole — today’s Vineyard Haven.
The Oak Bluffs historical commission on Wednesday responded to allegations that a cottage in the federally protected Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association may have been torn down and partially expanded earlier this summer, possibly in violation of a town bylaw strictly regulating the demolition of historical structures.
After speculation and rumors bubbled through the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association in Oak Bluffs all summer about renovation work on the historic cottage at 5 Pease avenue, the facts surrounding the construction project began to surface this week.
What began as minor renovations to the cottage in the Camp Ground grew this spring, and a large portion of the building was demolished while the footprint was partially expanded, possibly in violation of a town bylaw that strictly regulates demolition.
It's not exactly Bastille Day over in the Camp Ground, but make no mistake, there's a revolution brewing in this historically religious, gingerbrea
The rain will stop. The clouds will clear. And the historic circle of gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs will become a fairyland of lights.
