A century and more ago, Carey’s Camp, located about 5 miles west of Millsboro, was one of the hotspots of fundamental Methodism in Sussex County, Delaware. Meeting for a week or more, the services drew huge crowds. Carey’s and the camp near Laurel were perhaps the largest of several such meetings in the county. They were the places to go in late summer. Since the mid-1800s, the annual camp meetings, which were almost all Methodist, had become a magnet for the overwhelmingly protestant population. In the absence of cell phones, televisions, and popular beaches, camp meetings were one of the biggest events in the county. Many looked forward to experiencing the religious fervor. Others found that meeting friends and relatives was a treasured opportunity that did not occur often since travel was difficult.

 

The number of worshipers at many such meetings was incredibly large. The camp meeting near Laurel claimed to have 5,000 worshipers on weekends. Some even traveled there by rail with the train making a special stop. Their numbers should have been accurate since they charged a nickel for admission. My father related a memory from his childhood which occurred around 1910. At the camp at Carey’s while the service was in progress, Dad looked from the upstairs window of his parents’ cottage, which was customarily referred to as a tent. He said that it appeared that he could have walked across the campground on the heads of the worshipers as they crowded around the tabernacle. The entire campground and tabernacle were filled, barely leaving standing room. Unlike most of the original camp meetings, Carey’s remains quite active. However, times have changed dramatically. The huge crowds can no longer be found. Ample seating is now available almost any night.

 

The thoughts that filled the heads of the young men at camp were sometimes far removed from the spiritual realm. There was little to occupy their brains until the testimony meeting which followed the nightly preaching service had finished, sometimes after midnight. Just as today, a group of teenage boys with nothing to do was a problem just needing a bit of time before finding a solution. 

 

The word, “mischief,” seems an appropriate way to describe the activities that sometimes grew from the seeds of boredom. Those were the times when most individuals drove their buggies to the religious services that were the central focus of the camp. After the service and the testimony meeting that followed, the worshipers arrived at their buggies, anxious to begin the ride home. They sometimes found that the wheels of their vehicles had been reversed. The front wheels had been exchanged with those on the back axle. The task for the teenage boys to lift a buggy, one side at a time, remove the wheels, and place them on the opposite axle was not difficult.  Buggies were constructed with a small wheel in front and a low axle. The axle in the back was higher with a much larger wheel.  When someone with a devious mind switched the front and back wheels, the large wheels in the front raised the front end of the vehicle. The passengers then would ride leaning back at a steep angle. Since changing the wheels to the normal position was not a one-person job, the options for the owners were few. They usually rode home with the riders in a reclined position. Perhaps on a starry night, a couple could get a view of the heaven about which they had been hearing several minutes earlier.

 

In a quest for creativity, some unknown young man designed perhaps a more ingenious bit of mischief. One night after a very late service, an unsuspecting couple arrived to hitch up their horse to the buggy. The owner soon realized that a group of idle teenage boys with time on their hands had reversed the harness on the horse. The end of the harness that was normally attached to the front of the carriage had been attached to the front of the horse. Of course, it was impossible for the horse to pull the buggy with the harness attached in reverse. Again, late at night, the worshiper had an opportunity to practice the religion that he had just been professing. He had no choice but to reverse the attachment of the harness on the horse before heading home. 

 

In the early part of the past century, cars began to appear in the county and at camp meetings. They were much lighter than today. That made them easy prey for those mischievous teenage boys. They were always looking for opportunities to play pranks on the unsuspecting worshipers. Soon after the arrival of the horseless carriages, the young men realized that a group of them could easily lift the back wheels of the cars. One evening, a very clever but devious young man arrived with a watermelon and a knife. After the watermelon was split in half, a group of his peers lifted the rear wheels of one of the cars and placed half of the cut melon under each wheel with the cut side facing up. When the manual transmission of the vehicle was placed in gear by the unsuspecting owner, the friction needed to make the car move forward was nearly zero. The back wheels spun furiously as the accelerator was depressed, but the car did not move. Another frustrated worshiper had a chance to practice his religion as he realized that the young men had won another round. If no benevolent group of adults offered assistance, the car could not move until the tire had worn its way through the melon and gripped the ground to find traction. That process could have taken considerable time.

 

Today at Carey’s, that type of prank has long passed. The attendance of a century ago has been severely diminished; nevertheless, the camp remains vibrant. With the popularity of beaches, sports, and cars, the number of teenagers as well as adults at camp meetings throughout the county is much smaller than a century ago. Today, the pranks at Carey’s are usually limited to the youth tossing water at each other on the last night of camp.

 

Each year on the last Wednesday of July and lasting for 12 days, Carey’s Camp is still attended by many of the same families who worshiped there a century ago. For those who may want to put one foot into the past while keeping the other in the present, camp meeting offers the perfect opportunity. Everyone is invited to come and experience firsthand a bit of history. This year, the camp will begin on Wednesday evening, July 31. This historic venue is located about 5 miles west of Millsboro at 22053 Carey’s Camp Road.