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| The First Avenue Gateway into Pitman Grove Camp Meeting Grounds, ca. 1910. (HABS, 1963) |
The cable guy introduced me to Pitman Grove. OK, that's not as weird as it sounds. This was no ordinary technician. This man is a former systems engineer who, with his wife, is raising 11 children, all of whom are into mathematics and the sciences, including one aeronautical engineer and one bound for veterinary school. Oh, and he also built his own six-bedroom house.
After he finished up installing my modem, he seemed interested in the house, an 1885 camp meeting cottage, so I gave him a tour. As soon as I mentioned “camp meeting,” his ears picked up.
“Have you ever been to Pitman Grove?” he asked. “That place was a camp meeting, too, with tiny little houses just like this one. Really neat. You can’t believe it …. They are like doll houses!”
Not to sell scientists short, but you don't often find one so enthusiastic and unabashedly enamored of historic architecture. Clearly this place had made a lasting impression on him. It was definitely worth a field trip.
The town of Pitman was familiar only because an acquaintance lived there. I had heard the name, but had never actually seen it. That it was a camp meeting came as a surprise. New Jersey has some prominent ones – Mount Tabor, Ocean Grove, South Seaville -- but Pitman Grove is not among them. And yet, it proved to be one of the most unique.
The GPS gets you to South Broadway, the center of the Pitman business district. It is not hard to find the Grove – it is at First Avenue, just one block west of the commercial strip. Even if you know nothing about the area, the map will draw you to the spot where a radial system of pedestrian streets encircles the Auditorium, the Grove’s centerpiece. No non-resident vehicles are permitted inside the grounds, so you must park your car and walk in.
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| Plan of Pitman Grove Camp Meeting Grounds (HABS, 1963). |
The early parcel map reproduced in the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) data shows twelve radial streets -- for the twelve apostles, they say - that terminate at “Circle Avenue,” which circumscribes the open lawn around the Auditorium.
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| Termination of Tenth Avenue at Circle Avenue, looking NW, to Auditorium. |
When it was established in 1871 by several ministers from the New Jersey Conference of the Methodist Church, the land belonged to the Pitman Grove camp meeting association. Parcels were leased out for the season for tenting, and later for the summer cottages that now line the walkways. As late as 1963, the New Jersey Conference Camp Meeting Association still rented out 70 of the 160 houses within the meeting grounds. The rest were privately owned by individuals who paid rent to the organization. In 1971 - the 100th year anniversary of its founding - the Borough of Pitman acquired title to all the lands formerly owned by the Association. Now, most houses have been winterized and are lived in year-round.
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| Tenth Avenue, looking SE. |
The Grove’s Beaux Arts radial plan may have had some design guidance from a prominent Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan, a writer and editor of the Architectural Review. This has not been confirmed, however. The National Register nomination notes that if the design were, in fact, Sloan’s, the execution was “inept,” as the arrangement of the pathways was somewhat irregular and the Auditorium was not at the exact center of the plan.
It is possible that the design is not Sloan's at all, but rather modeled on a camp meeting ground in nearby Barnsboro, which was organized in 1866 - the year of celebrations marking the “Centenary of Methodism in America.” Barnsboro’s grounds were also circular in plan, with tents lining pathways radiating from the central assembly point. It was wildly successful -- by 1869, it drew thousands of visitors -- but suffered from lack of space to expand because of adjacent marlpits.
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| Birdseye view of Pitman Grove Camp Meeting grounds. Courtesy of Microsoft, Bing, and Pictometry International Corp. |
In June 1871, a group that included officials of the centenary camp, organized the New Jersey Conference Camp Meeting Association, sold shares, and purchased some 70 acres in Pitman near the railroad line, which offered convenient rail transportation from nearby Philadelphia and Camden, as well as room to expand beyond the boundaries of lands owned by the Association. The railroad station was just a block away from the entrance to the grounds on First Avenue – one of the radial spokes – where a portal mounted with a name plaque “Pitman Grove” provided arrivals with a highly visible entry to the center of the action.
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| View of the main entrance to the Auditorium from First Avenue, ca. 1910. Courtesy of WestJerseyHistory.org |
The small cottages that line the walkways were built by the Association in the late 19th C. as temporary quarters for those who attended the summer camp meetings. Unlike the more typical camp meeting cottages elsewhere that are fronted by 2-story porch, many of the Pitman Grove cottages have an enclosed story over the front porch; some have only the porch at the first floor, with no enclosure above. (It is possible, of course, that the room over the porch in the 2-1/2 story version was a later alteration and that the smaller 2-story cottage was infill of a later period. However, there is little evidence in Pitman Grove of the 2-story porch version that is the dominant form of camp meeting cottage. More research would be needed to clarify this variance from the norm.)
The width of these small houses is typically 12’ – a dimension that is very consistent with the design of cottages in other camp meeting communities. Houses are tightly packed into some areas of the grounds; in others they are interspersed with breathing spaces. Although the Association is no longer officially the owner of the land, a robust schedule of camp meeting events still take place in the Auditorium.
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| Two typical cottage designs (National Register nomination, 1977) |
The Auditorium was originally an open structure having wood benches laid out in in a basilica plan with open wood framing. The clerestory windows are typical of the Queen Anne style, with colored glass panes around the perimeter of the sash. The meeting space was covered by a roof with cupola at the western end.
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| Interior of Auditorium, looking W. |
The Auditorium has gone through transformations over the years, although the basic structure is still visible. The 1977 National Register nomination includes a grim photo of the structure then, which shows much of it covered with stucco and the apse openings infilled with 1960s-era decorative concrete lattice blocks. The front entrance was infilled with concrete block and garage doors had been installed in the side bays.
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| The Auditorium in 1977 (National Register Nomination) |
It 1995, the Auditorium was rehabilitated by the Borough of Pitman. Its current appearance is more in keeping with the historic structure than the previous modernizing effort, even though not a pristine "restoration."
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| The main entrance to the Auditorium (2013). |
Now wood lattice fills in the bays, include the front entrance bay. Vinyl siding in a vertical bead board pattern has been installed on the exterior, save for the small course of original siding exposed under the wide eaves and rafter ends that still show off their original ornamental profile.
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| Original diagonal wood siding still visible under eaves (2013). |
Historic Pitman Grove remains remarkably intact today. Its most wide-spread alteration is the ubiquitous vinyl siding. But the original scale and architectural details of many of the cottages are still evident. Its unique radial camp meeting plan is rare in New Jersey and, although all was quiet on the September day of my visit, it is possible to imagine the languorous bustle of a resort town. Another interesting corner of New Jersey to put on your "must see" list.
Resources
“2013 Pitman Camp Meeting Schedule.” South Jersey Christian Events. Blog.URL accessed 30 September 2013.
Batten, Michael D., Ralph J. Richards. Pitman [N.J.]. Images of America Series. Arcadia Publishing. 2002.
“Highlights of Early Pitman Grove.” Supplement to The Pitman Grove Review. July 1961.
“The History of the South Seaville Camp Meeting.” South Seaville Camp Meeting. Official Website. URL accessed 30 September 2013.
Milner, John D. Pitman Grove Camp Meeting. Historic American Building Survey. HABS No. NJ-730. Library of Congress, American Memory collections. URL accessed 30 September 2013. HABS Report (1963).
Mollenhauer, Lorraine, Preparer. Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Submitted 28 August 1975. URL: https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/0c96277e-bdd2-4b6b-8fdf-7782657bde89 Listed on the National Register 19 August 1977. URL accessed 29 September 2013.
Pitman HPC Design Guidelines. March 2008; Revised June 2015. Ed. Borough of Pitman, NJ.
Postcards of Pitman, NJ. West Jersey History Project. Website. URL accessed 29 September 2013.
Wilson, Harold F. A History of Pitman, New Jersey. Pitman NJ: Borough of Pitman, 1955.
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