Dates: June 10 – 26, 1877
Location: South Park, Hutchinson, McLeod Co., MN
Find it today: Map
The camp: In 1877, South Park actually covered the present South Park along with the adjacent area where Park School is located today. The park is 2 blocks west of Main Street S, between Glen Street SW and Grove Street SW.
The baptisms: Based on the camp meeting reports, the camp meeting baptisms were held at the river (Hassan River at that time, now called the South Fork Crow River) directly behind the camp (to the north).
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.
CAMP-MEETINGS FOR 1877. MINNESOTA, Hutchinson, June 20-26.
Minnesota Camp-Meeting. The Minnesota State Camp-meeting will be held at Hutchinson, McLeod Co., Minn., June 20-26. Let there be an earnest effort to attend this annual gathering of the Seventh-day Adventists of Minnesota. H. Grant, W. H. Hall, Calvin Kelsey, Minn. Conf. Com.
Minnesota Conference. The sixteenth annual meeting of the Minnesota State Conference will be held on the Hutchinson Camp-ground, June 20-26. Each church in this Conference should see that its delegates are elected, and provided with credentials, and prepared with reports of the standing and condition of their respective churches. Conference Committee.
Minnesota T. & M. Society. The annual meeting of the Minn. T. and M. Society will be held at the Camp-meeting at Hutchinson, June 20-26. Directors will hold district meetings two weeks previously, and be prepared to report at this meeting. Committee.
Review and Herald, May 31, 1877
MINNESOTA CAMP-MEETING. – All who wish conveyance from the cars to our camp-ground at Hutchinson must notify J. L. House, and teams will be ready at the depots at Glencoe and Dassell. Direct your letters to J. L. House, Hutchinson, Minn. We have made application for reduced fare, but the railroad companies refuse to grant it this year. Those coming from the eastern part of the State will come on the St. Paul and La Crosse R. R. to Hastings, and then take the Hastings and Glencoe R. R. to Glencoe. Those coming on the St. Paul and Milwaukee R. R. will stop at Farmington over night, and take the morning train for Glencoe.
Minn. Conf. Com. – Review and Herald, June 14, 1877
MINNESOTA CAMP-MEETING. Again we are made very happy by the report of the camp-meeting at Hutchinson, Minn. The report of the Wisconsin meeting last week was a great relief as well as joy to us. Neither Wisconsin nor Minnesota had ministerial help from the General Conference, and both these meetings were triumphant. We have felt for some time that our people must be weaned from the idea that Mrs. White and the writer should attend all the camp-meetings, and resolved that we would not visit them this year.
But when appeals come in from the old, dear friends to meet with them in camp, and help them in their meetings, we find it very hard to wean ourselves from the pleasurable part of such gatherings. For a time we wavered, and decided to go to the Wisconsin and Minnesota meetings; but cares at head-quarters pressed, and we soon returned to our first determination. And then when the news came in that the precious Saviour had presided at these meetings by his Spirit, and greatly blessed his people, we were made very happy. Besides the report from Eld. Curtis, we have a private letter from J. Olive from which we quote the following:
“We have just returned from our good camp-meeting. The place near Hutchinson was lovely. It seemed to be a place where the poor had the gospel preached unto them. At first we missed the close, searching testimonies of Sister White, and we greatly missed your review of the situation, the wants and progress of the cause, so much more impressive from the lips of the living teacher, than when read from the printed page. But the meeting progressed in interest from the beginning, and I think the Lord heard the earnest prayers of his servants for help, and his Spirit was with his people to aid and bless. The disappointment resulted well in causing us all to cast our care upon the Lord. There were some very powerful sermons by Elders Curtis, Ells, Dimmick, Batin, and Hill. I do not believe they could have preached half so well if you or Eld. Butler had been there to listen. I wish you knew how well they can preach when they have no abler speakers from abroad to listen to them.
We went nearly one hundred miles, six of us in an open wagon, with a heavy load. We were away from home twelve days; but the Lord preserved us. We had neither rain, mud, dust, nor heat, enough to trouble us, and we greatly enjoyed the meeting, and trust it may be a lasting benefit to us. The cause never seemed so promising in Minnesota, and the calls for labor are many and earnest. At first there was some disappointment, but when they found no help was to be had from abroad, they all seemed to realize that it meant work, and to work they went. We all tried to consecrate ourselves to God, and I think the Minnesota people never came nearer forgetting you than they did the last few days of the meeting. Many prayers were offered for you even then. We all love you and esteem you highly in love for your work’s sake.”
We are very glad to be remembered by our brethren in prayer. Our day for perpetual, earnest labor and care is past. And as we are compelled to lay off camp-meeting armor, we are extremely happy to know that the Lord is harnessing a hundred young men for such work. In this fact we see another clear evidence that the hand of the Lord is in this cause.
J. W. (James White) – Review and Herald, July 5, 1877
(Note: Some of the margins of the scan of the following excerpt were missing – words have been supplied to the extent that it seemed plausible. – Website Editor)
MINNESOTA CAMP-MEETING
This meeting convened at the time appointed at Hutchinson, McLeod Co. The grounds convenient and pleasant. The brethren began to come in early. Some arrived from the west corner of the State, on Monday. That night several tents were on the ground pitched. Wednesday, they came in from all quarters of the Conference. An anxiety was felt in regard to help from all. Many had anxiously looked for Bro. and Sr. White, and had confidently expected to see Canright. The outside interest to see and hear Bro. Canright was great.
But the time for the opening of the meeting came, and no help was on the ground, except our own ministers. These felt a burden resting upon them which seemed almost insupportable. Bro. Pierce opened the meeting with discourse from Prov. 23:23: “Buy the truth, and sell it not.” He exhorted the congregation to “look beyond the watchman.” This motto was taken up by the brethren, and faithfully acted upon throughout the entire meeting. The sisters had it placed over the stand, in sight of all the congregation.
The social meetings commenced with something of a feeling of depression, on account of the disappointment; but this soon passed off as the brethren drew near to the Lord in earnest, pleading for the divine interposition in behalf of the cause and for the success of the meeting. As day after day passed, and the brethren who went to the cars, returned each time without any help, the importunities for help from the Lord became more earnest, and all seemed to settle down to the determination to work with the Lord, to make the meeting such a one as he could bless.
In answer to the earnest pleadings, and in harmony with the desires of the brethren, the Lord’s Spirit rested down upon the encampment, and it became a place where the lovers of God delighted to be. Freedom was given to the brethren in preaching the word, and the Lord sealed it to the good of those who listened. At the 9 o’clock meeting on Sabbath morning, 162 testimonies were given. In the afternoon, a call was made for those who desired a greater degree of consecration, and those who wished to give themselves to the Lord for the first time, to come forward. About 125 came forward, a large proportion of whom came for the first time. Many of them spoke, expressing a desire and determination to devote their future life to the service of the Lord.
The number of those encamped in tents and wagons on the ground, on Friday, was 506, while several lodged in a barn adjoining the camp-ground, and a number of families of the Hutchinson church and society lived at home, but attended the meetings regularly. The regular attendance was not less that 550 to 600. The number of tents and wagons used as homes on the ground, including the different compartments of the forty-foot tent, was about 75. The outside attendance, as we expected would be the case, was not so large as on many previous years.
On Sunday, there were probably 1000 to 1200 on the ground. On Monday, Bro. W. B. Hill preached upon the subject of baptism, after which we repaired to the Crow River, about half a mile from the camp, and Brn. Grant and Ells buried sixty-one willing candidates in the likeness of Christ’s death, nearly one-half of whom took their first step at this meeting. One licensed preacher from the Methodist Episcopal Church, who commenced to keep the Sabbath one week before the meeting, took his stand with us, and was baptized; and one leading man of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, whose wife and daughters had begun to keep the Sabbath some little time before, came with his daughter 125 miles or more, to reconnoiter, was constrained to surrender unconditionally, and take his stand with the people of God. Other interesting cases might also be mentioned, showing the power of God’s truth in the hands of his feeble servants, to bring conviction and a change of life and purpose.
Credentials were renewed to eleven ordained ministers, and licences given to sixteen brethren, to go out and preach the message as the Lord may open the way. Bro. John I. Collins was set apart to the work of the ministry by ordination, at the closing meeting. When the question of sending out the tents was raised, and it was found that there was no money in the treasury to defray expenses, the sum of $74 was raised by voluntary contribution, in a very few minutes; and on the last morning, when the President stated that the Conference was owing about $100, for the care of an aged and infirm sister, notwithstanding the contribution for starting the tents, and another one of about $50, previously raised, to assist one of our ministers in regaining his health, and notwithstanding the fact that the crops of many of the brethren were harvested by the grasshoppers before they left home, upwards of $67 were paid into the hands of the chairman, faster than the clerk could write the names of the contributors. On the whole, we believe we can say, “to the praise of the glory of His grace,” that, all things considered, the Minnesota Camp-meeting of 1877 was one of the best meetings, if not the best, that has ever been held in the State.
Elds. Ells and Curtis will go with one of the tents to Dodge Centre, Dodge Co., and be ready to begin work, the Lord willing, on the first Sabbath in July; Eld. W. B. Hill and Bro. S. Fulton go with one tent to Pierce Co., Wis.; and Eld. G. M. Dimmick and Bro. J. W. Moore, with the third one, go to Rock Co. On Sunday evening, at a meeting for the purpose of hearing applications for labor, appeals for help were urged from no less then twenty-six different localities within the bounds of the Conference, many of them new fields where no labor save that of tract distribution has ever been expended.
The business meetings were well attended, and perfect harmony prevailed in them, while the disappointment experienced at the commencement of the meeting, instead of producing a feeling of discontent and murmuring, resulted in the opposite course of action; it drew the brethren nearer together, and nearer to the Lord, and begot a sympathy between the people and the preachers, such as only those whose hearts are attuned to the harmonies of divine truth are wont to feel and manifest, and proved the truthfulness of Bro. White’s remarks in the REVIEW of June 21, that “it takes the Lord to make a good camp-meeting.” It is believed that the effect of the meeting upon the outside attendance and upon the community in and around Hutchinson, has been good, and that a favorable impression has been made.
D. P. Curtis. Hutchinson, June 27, 1877.
Review and Herald, July 5, 1877
TO THE BRETHREN IN MINNESOTA, I left our good camp-meeting, at Hutchinson, and hurried home, as my wife’s health was poor, and to all appearance she was nearing the grave. We soon decided that she should go to Battle Creek for treatment at the Health Institute. My wife and youngest daughter have now been at the Institute nine weeks, and during the last few weeks their health has improved so that we begin to hope. We thank God for the Institute, and the good and kind treatment they have received from the physicians and helpers there. They are treated with the utmost care and kindness by all.
I left home July 21, and have been laboring the most of the time with the newly organized churches in the Conference. July 22, we organized a church of eighteen members at Faribault. Aug. 22, baptized eight and organized a church of nine members, at Milford, Iowa. I left a company there that love the truth, and have a desire to walk in the light. Held a meeting a Tenhassen, Aug. 26. Three were baptized.
As I passed through Hutchinson I was surprised to learn that over forty had been added to that church since our last camp-meeting, a part of them as the result of that good meeting. I think that nearly one hundred in our Conference have decided to keep all the commandments since our camp-meeting.
For the last few weeks I have been laboring on the frontier, in Douglass and Otter Tail counties, where the grasshoppers have nearly destroyed all the small grain. The churches in these counties have all been raised up within the past year. I find them growing in the knowledge of the truth, and of better courage than I expected.
I wish to say to the brethren, and especially to the S. B. treasurers of our Conference, that our Conference treasury is empty, and we are in want of means to carry forward the work. Another quarter’s pledges are now due. Please do the best you can at this time.
Harrison Grant. – Review and Herald, October 11, 1877