Dates: June 25 – 30, 1874
Location: Straight River Park (Medford City Park), Medford, Steele Co., MN
Find it today: Map
From I-35 take exit 48 and head east on Central Ave. W. (County Rd. 12) into Medford. Turn left (north) onto 2nd Street NW and go 3-4 blocks until the road ends in the park.
The baptisms: Camp meeting baptisms were conducted in the Straight River which runs through Straight River Park.
Minnesota news: The 1873-1877 devastating grasshopper plagues were ongoing at the time of this camp meeting. Read about those plagues in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “On The Banks of Plum Creek” and in this MNOPEDIA article.
Photo: Ellen G. White Estate
MINNESOTA CONFERENCE. The Minnesota Conference will hold its next annual session in connection with the camp-meeting which is to be held at Medford, June 25-30, 1874. Let all the churches and companies of brethren where S. B. is organized send their delegates to this Conference. The camp-meeting will be on the same ground where we held it last year. The Camp-meeting Committee are doing all they can for the wants of those who may attend this meeting. There will be plenty of hay, oats, and straw, on the ground. The provision stand will be well supplied, so that all can be provided for.
Photo: Stacie Truax Collection
We hope to see a large gathering at this meeting. Come, brethren and sisters, leave your farms and shops and homes, and come up to this meeting. Bring your children with you. Bring your neighbors with you. Come with a determination to act your part. Then we may expect one of the best camp-meetings we ever enjoyed.
HARRISON GRANT, CALVIN KELSEY, D. McALPINE,
Minn. Conf. Com.
Review and Herald, June 9, 1874
Photo: © 2016 Kathy Joy Parke
TO THE FRIENDS IN MINNESOTA. Dear brethren and sisters and friends of Minnesota: The time of our general Camp-meeting at Medford, Minnesota, June 25 to 30, is drawing near, and as the time draws near, the necessity of our drawing near to the Lord presses upon us. Wrongs must be made right, our hearts softened, warmed and refreshed by the grace of God, and there is certainly a blessing in store for us. The President of our Conference and the Camp-meeting Committee are doing all in their power to make the meeting a success. We have secured efficient assistance in our victualing stand, to look after the wants of those who shall come on the ground not fully provided with provisions. Oats, hay, and straw, will be furnished on the ground. Let none stay away for fear there will not be room. The large tent will be on the ground for the use of those that are not otherwise provided for. Let each church send their tents and bed ticks, and one or two men one day in advance. They can camp in the large tent which we will have erected in time for them to occupy until they get theirs up. They can fill ticks, make tables, &c., so when the families arrive they will find their tents ready to enter and occupy without any confusion.
Come, brethren, sisters, and friends, to the camp-meeting. We all need the influence of the meeting. It will be agreeable to old believers to become acquainted with those who have newly embraced the truth, and it will also be a matter of great encouragement to young believers to see and hear from older hands in the work. Association if rightly conducted tends to cement hearts and give strength in the work.
We request all to make the camp-meeting a subject of special prayer that God may guide in relation to it, and that we may all come up to it in a frame of mind to share the rich blessing of God.
I. Z. LAMB, One of the Committee. – Review and Herald, June 9, 1874, 207.
Photo: © 2016 Kathy Joy Parke
Report of the Minnesota Camp-Meeting. This meeting convened, according to appointment, Thursday morning, and was a large meeting. Forty-three tents, I think, were up, besides the large tent, and between four and five hundred on the ground in constant attendance. It was by far the largest meeting ever held in the State. The increase during the past year in the Conference has been truly gratifying.
Twelve new churches were admitted, with an aggregate membership of about two hundred and twenty, and more than one thousand dollars in S. B. have been pledged. This is exclusive of the additions to the old churches, which in some instances were considerable.
When the circumstances of the Conference are considered, this increase is nothing less than astonishing. There has been no experienced laborer in the State at all for the past year. A few licentiates have been doing what they could. The T. and M. Societies have been instrumental in much of this. And the whole thing plainly shows that God has been moving upon the hearts of the people by his Spirit. It seems like a spontaneous work almost. Many of these new members were at the camp-meeting, who had never before attended a Seventh-day Adventist meeting, and many of these put to shame the old members by their readiness to give of their means. Some of them put down their hundreds and fifties for this and that object, with the greatest apparent interest. Thus this strange work goes on. There must be a power in this truth when such results are seen. Five of these churches were Swedes, raised up by the labors of Bro. Chas. Lee. Our hearts became greatly attached to many of these. They were among the most liberal on the ground.
© 2016 Kathy Joy Parke
Nineteen hundred dollars were pledged on the Pacific printing press, and one thousand pledged for a tent fund, and three new, forty-foot tents ordered. Bro. Lee was ordained to the ministry by the laying on of hands. The weather was exceedingly warm some of the time, but otherwise very pleasant.
Bro. D. P. Curtis was with us again this year. As the readers of the REVIEW may remember, he has been a minister of the S. D. Baptists for many years. But for fifteen years, more or less, his mind has been exercised over those questions connected with the advent movement, and a growing conviction has been forcing itself upon his conscience that here was special truth for the last days. He sees the work moving on almost without laborers, and he freely expressed himself, that his mind was convinced that God is in this special movement. He has not thus far connected himself with us by uniting with our church. We have had no desire to urge him in this direction. But we understand him to say that he shall soon express himself clearly in the Recorder and Review. In sentiment he is an Adventist. We hope that God will bless this dear brother and enlarge his field of usefulness.
Photo: Steven Curtis Collection
There was not all that freedom in our spiritual meetings at first that we desired to see. But toward the close things lightened up very much. Monday was a very profitable day. Heartfelt testimonies were given, and some started out for the first time to walk in obedience to the law of God.
Eighteen were baptized. Altogether the meeting closed very encouragingly, and we call it a success. The testimony of sister White was very highly appreciated at this meeting, and much of the meeting’s success is attributable to it. God is making her attendance at the camp-meetings this season a great blessing to his cause. The brethren and sisters went away to their homes much encouraged and strengthened, and more determined than ever to labor in the vineyard of the Lord.
© 2017 Kathy Joy Parke
Thus ends the last of the five Western camp-meetings. They have been season of much wearing labor, but of special encouragement. There must be not far from one thousand new members added to the cause in these five Conferences alone during the past year, and but few old and experienced laborers in the whole five. The financial strength has increased to a corresponding extent. Is this not truly marvelous? And is not the Lord showing us by this his readiness to help? I cannot doubt this. This work moves forward as we should think God’s cause would. I can but regard these five camp-meetings as the most encouraging, on the whole, which I ever attended. Thus the Lord makes up for the weakness of human efforts.
Forty-four new churches received in five States, and ten new tents purchased and running the present season, while most of the old laborers are away in other fields! Truly God is moving upon the hearts of the people.
Geo. I. Butler – Review and Herald, July 14, 1874
Learn more about these leaders:
(external sources)
Butler, George I.
White, Ellen G.