Shown is an old engraving of the early Methodist open-air camp meeting similar to those conducted in Sprigg Township.
(By Stephen Kelley from the People’s Defender 1984)
Traveling further up Zane’s Trace, about two and a half miles north of Bradysville, we come to its intersection with the Clayton Road. On the southwest corner of this junction is a beautiful tract of rolling land with a unique history. For many years this site, known as the Brittingham Campground, was used by the Methodist Episcopal Church for annual camp meeting services.
The history of these special meetings began in 1869 when T.S. Arthur, Methodist minister in the Cincinnati Conference, and his wife organized the first of these meetings, which was held in a grove of trees just west of Bentonville on the old Wycoff farm. The following year of 1870 saw the event moved to the Clayton Road/Zane Trace site owned by Joseph Brittingham. For the following 13 years, the Methodists conducted annual camp meeting services at this location under the natural canopy of virgin trees and open sky with no benefit of manmade temples of worship.
The practice of conducting open air revival and evangelist services has long been a trait of the Methodist Church. At the Brittingham Campground, families would travel from miles around and camp in tents or other temporary structures for as long as 10 days or two weeks during the services. The actual meetings were held in the open with only the speaker afforded any protection from the elements.
The success of the Methodist camp meetings in Sprigg Township is explained in the 1900 Evans & Stivers “A History of Adams County, Ohio”. It stated that the first meeting had been long advertised, but when the time for it drew near, the weather was so dry and water so scarce that the directors thought it best to postpone or abandon the meeting. Reverend Arthur called a meeting at the old M.E. Church in Bentonville the Sunday before the opening day of the camp meeting and announced that he was going to pray for rain and while all indications were unfavorable for rain, before the people could get home, there came one of the greatest downpours seen for years. This gave Reverend Arthur and the camp meeting great popularity which a lasted for years, hundreds of people coming from a distance to see the man who was looked upon as a worker of miracles.
As stated earlier, the Brittingham Campground was owned by Joseph Brittingham, who leased the 15-acre tract to the M.E. Church. Joseph was a brother to Moses Roush “Daddy Brit” Brittingham, who operated the Hotel Brit in Manchester. Joseph had acquired the camp meeting ground acreage from his father, Purnell Brittingham in 1865, Purnell was a native of Worcester County, Maryland and had moved to Adams County as early as 1813.
Following Joseph’s death in 1875, his executor, John Taylor, sold the meeting grounds to a stock company which attempted to operate the campground on a “break-even” basis. Again, quoting from Evans & Stivers, the expenses of conducting the meetings were paid chiefly by charging an admittance fee at the gate. When Grandville Moody was in charge, he ordered the directors not to collect money at the gate on Sunday, that being the decision of the Conference. As the company had been to so much expense, they moved the treasurer’s office down the road a hundred yards from the entrance and collected there within hearing distance of Moody’s powerful voice.
Granville Moody was an indomitable speaker from the Cincinnati area. During the years he conducted the Adams County meetings, he was serving as a Presiding Elder in the Cincinnati M.E. Conference. He was a combat veteran of the Civil War, enlisting at age 50 in 1861. He was commissioned as a colonel and placed in the command of the 74th Ohio Volunteer infantry. He led his 900 plus soldiers during the bloody engagements at Murfreesboro and Stones River. During those two great battles, Moody was under the command of another Cincinnatian with Adams County ties, Major General William S. Rosecrans.
The last services held on the Brittingham Campground were conducted in 1883. Although attempts were later made to continue the meetings, they were unsuccessful. Today, only whispering shadows and forgotten memories haunt this site, once the scene of thronging crowds, fiery oratory, Holy Ghost inspired sermons and repenting sinners.
